This Is The End (For You, My Sam)
Title: This Is The End (For You, My Sam)
Summary: Sam has three weaknesses: left lung, right lung, Dean. Angels find them.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 5, and you'll get way more out of it if you're familiar with the verse.
Wordcount: 9,987
Author's Note: Sammyverse! So this takes us through "The End." I'm not going to be doing the season all in big swoops like I did Season 4, but I wanted to get us grounded before I go off and write ficlets in this time. So I hope you like this.
--
Somehow they kill Ruby and get out of there alive and the world is quiet.
Dean has a decent motel room, a stomachache like a bomb went off inside him, a bad case of the shakes from three days without sleep, blood to dab on Sam's lips every hour, and a feverish, miserable, half-blue kid in his arms.
The rest can wait.
For some reason, it does.
It takes two weeks for Sam to be fully weaned off, and it's two rough, horrible weeks, full of Sam seizing and vomiting and suffocating and begging Dean and blaming Dean and crying into Dean's chest, but Sam emerges at the end of it tattered and twenty pounds lighter and full of this new pain. But alive.
Lately Dean is terrified, fucking terrified, that something will happen to Sam.
“Are you worried I'm going to go out and drink some demon?” Sam says. “You know that's the last thing I want, right?”
“I'm worried you're going to fall and crack your head open or stop breathing or get abducted or shot or impaled or run over.”
Sam thinks about this for a minute. “That's really weird, Dean.”
“I know.”
But Dean is so scared, and that means Sammy.
**
The fact that Sam blames himself for this shit is one of the most fucked-up things Dean's ever encountered.
“We didn't for a second consider that killing her was the wrong choice,” Dean says. “We had no fucking clue. And you were a wreck on a goddamn cot. You couldn't have killed her if I hadn't dosed you.”
“I pushed you into killing her for weeks, and if I hadn't been drinking demon blood and fucking Ruby, we never would have known this was a possibility. She was a demon, Dean. I trusted a demon.”
“We both did.”
“I pulled the trigger.”
“Sam. We did this together. Okay? We do fucking everything together.”
“Maybe that's the problem.”
“What?”
“I don't know. I'm just talking.” He sits down on the bed and breathes like a tea pot and Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “I'm sick of waiting for something to happen. Where's Cas? Where's motherfucking Lucifer?”
“I don't know.”
“I can't wait any longer. I'm losing my goddamn mind.” He pushes his hand into his chest and flops back on the bed. “Jesus Christ, I'm sick.”
Dean can really hear it now. “Hey. You need a hospital?”
Sam shakes his head and pushes his face into his pillow.
“Yeah, 'cause that's going to make it easier to breathe...”
Sam wheezes, shoulder blades drawing in and out.
Not fair not fair not fucking fair.
“Come on. Roll over. Face me.”
Dean turns out the light as Sam turns over. Sam's still visible in the light from the parking garage. So Dean can still see him breathing.
“I think we should take some time off,” Dean says. Lie low for a while. Stay with Bobby or try to get an apartment. Get you back into shape.”
“All we've been doing lately is lying low and...” he stops to pant. “Trying to get me back into shape.”
“Yeah, well, now we've got nothing to better to do.”
“How about hunting monsters? The world is still the same fucked-up place it was before. Now just with the extra threat of the fucking devil running around.”
“Yeah, well, let someone else handle it.”
“We've done enough, huh?”
Dean breathes out. “Sam.”
“Don't sigh at me. Not now.”
“Fine. Be a dick.”
“You really want to have some bitch fight right now?”
Dean hunkers down on the bed and mumbles, “You started it.”
“I'm really dizzy.”
Dean sits up. “What?”
“It's not a big deal. I'm just really fucking dizzy.”
Dean gets up to set up the nebulizer, but by the time he turns around, Sam's asleep.
If he's asleep, he can't be dizzy.
If he's asleep, he can't argue.
If he's asleep, he can't make Dean feel like shit.
So he lets him sleep.
**
Dean's used to nightmares, as used to them as you can fucking get. Fingernails on the inside of his skull, nutcrackers on toes, shears to tear open bellybuttons.
So it's nice when he dreams about his car, a hot day, a cold beer. He sits on the hood and watches the sun come up, and when he hears a set of footsteps approaching, he scoots over to make room.
Except it's not Sam.
It's some guy in a suit.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Nice to meet you, Dean. My name is Zachariah.”
“That sounds like an angel name, so here's me telling you to fuck off.”
“I'd like it if I could come see you, Dean. Just for a little chat.”
“I'm right here.”
“In person would be better.”
“And why the fuck would I agree to that?”
“Haven't you wondered where your Castiel has been lately?”
Dean swallows, blinks. “What?”
“Why don't we bring him along?”
“Fuck. Fuck. What did you do to him?”
“He's just fine. Need a bit of cleaning up. I'm sure you and your brother could handle it.”
Dean will not be a fucking idiot.
Dean will not be a fucking idiot.
“No,” Dean says.
“Aw, come on, Dean-o. Don't you want Sam to feel better?”
“Yeah, because you guys have been so sweet to Sam.”
“Pretty bad asthma attack he's having over there, huh? Kind of like two fists are squeezing those poor lungs of his, isn't it?”
What. The. Fuck. Angels. Sam used to fucking pray.
Dean gives the address and wakes up.
He thought Zachariah would have beamed the hell over by now, but no, it's just him and Sam still. Sam, who's up and fucking pacing.
“Dean,” he says. “Dean. I had this dream-”
“Me too. Fuck .Did you see Zachariah?” Dean says.
“Zacha...what? No.”
“Shit. Well. He's coming. Who was in yours?”
Sam doesn't say anything.
“Sam.”
“Well, he's not fucking coming, I'll tell you that much. You gave someone our address?”
“He's making you sick.”
“No, Dean. He's not.”
“What do you-” Dean starts, but then there he is, the asshole himself.
“Oh, good,” he says. “I was hoping I'd left you two enough time to panic.”
“Where the fuck is Cas?” Dean says.
Zachariah snaps his fingers, and then there he is, stabilizing himself on the TV cabinet, blood dripping from his lip, a hand wrapped around his ribcage.
“Hello, Dean,” he rasps.
“Cas. You okay?”
He nods.
Dean takes a step towards him, but then Zachariah snaps his fingers again and it's like Dean hits a wall. He staggers back to Sam, and Zachariah says, “Why don't we talk for a minute or two first?”
“Fuck you.”
“Dean,” Zachariah says. “We've been telling you for a long time that we have work for you.”
“Yeah, you fucking have. And guess what?” Dean takes Sam's hand and lifts it up. “I have fucking work for me. And since he's the one who raised me out of hell, I think I'm going to be devoting my fucking time to this one instead, all right?”
Sam rubs his chest and leans into Dean's shoulder a little. “I'm work?”
“You're the family business.”
“That should probably offend me or something.”
“You're my favorite.”
“That helps.”
And then Zachariah says, “Are you two finished?” because apparently bantering a little with his kid is less important than hearing this boring fucking monologue about the apocalypse and Lucifer and Michael and what the fuck, why is Dean supposed to give a shit about any of this, and why is Sam squirming like he knows something Dean doesn't? Granted, they didn't get much time to have their little post-dream heart-to-heart, but Sam really can't keep secrets because they go straight to his goddamn lungs and lock him up, and that's really not okay with this whole fucking two giant fists thing they have going on.
Sam bends over drops his hands to his knees to suck in a breath and Cas says, “Dean. Is Sam all right?”
“I don't know.” He looks at Zachariah. “Story time over? You need to go.”
“This isn't a story, Dean. This is your life.”
“What?”
“You're the Michael sword. You're Michael's true vessel.”
Sam straightens up and groans out a wheeze, paces a few steps back.
“He's an angel,” Dean says. “I know the rules. have to say yes. I'm not going to fucking say yes. I'd kill myself before I'd be a goddamn angel condom.” He nods at Cas's beat-up body. “No offense, Jimmy, but I think you're with me on this one. Get the fuck out, Zachariah.”
Zachariah says, “If you killed yourself, we'd just bring you back. But we'd rather not cause you any harm. You're heaven's little pet, Dean. Sam, on the other hand...”
No. Sam's wrist is still fucking healing. They're not doing this shit again.
Zachariah says, “Well, damn, am I happy Sam's here.”
Dean takes a step in front of Sam, like that's going to help, because literally standing between Sam and danger got kind of pointless about four and a half inches ago, and because he's a fucking angel, and then Zachariah squeezes his hands.
Sam makes this noise Dean knows way too fucking well, a noise like he's being strangled, and he's leaning heavily on Dean's shoulder and Dean says, “Stop it, you son of a bitch, don't you dare.”
Sam's not breathing.
He's not fucking breathing.
Dean puts him on the bed and leans him forwards and says, “Let him go, let him the fuck go. Cas!”
“I can't, Dean,” Cas says, and Dean can tell by his voice that he means can't, fucking fucking can't, and Jesus Christ, what did Zachariah do to him?
Sam whispers, “Dean, it's-” with the last of his air, and Jesus fucking Christ Sam how about you use that to keep your fucking heart beating, but then he's breathing again, gasping, wheezing beyond belief, but breathing, and Dean turns to Zachariah, who has his hands open again, a smug smile on his face.
“So what do you say, Dean?”
“Fuck off.” He cups his Sam's cheek. “Hey. Buddy. Hey.”
Sam's gray and shocky, and he tips forwards to put his forehead against Dean's. He whispers, “Listen to me, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Sam flinches and the wheeze disappears, and Dean knows Zachariah's squeezing his fucking fists again. “Let them kill me,” Sam croaks. “He'll bring me back.”
“What?” Dean puts his hands on Sam's neck and turns to Zachariah. “Hold on a fucking second, what is he talking about?”
Zachariah growls out, “Damn it, Sam,” and Dean's so proud of his kid he could explode.
Sam gives him an incredibly weak smile and leans into Dean's shoulder.
“Shouldn't have told him that, Sam,” Zachariah says. “Now I won't do it quick.”
And then Dean's thrown back and slammed against the wall, his heels pinned against the molding in this fucking fucking room, and he has to fucking stay there, glued goddamn still, and watch his kid die slowly.
Zachariah clenches his fists for longer and longer each time, letting go long enough to give Sam a wet, worthless breath or two, then squeezing him again, and Sam's hunched over, shaking his head, gray and soggy like a dirty fucking paper towel. He sweats and tears up and clings to his ribcage.
And Dean is about to cave.
Because Sam is being fucking suffocated.
And Sam is looking at him with those eyes and he's sure Sam thinks he's telling Dean don't you dare, don't you dare but what Dean's seeing is I can't goddamn breathe and that is not fucking okay, and Dean almost misses Cas slowly straightening up, screwing his eyes up, forcing color back into his cheeks, but then Cas says, “Shut your eyes!” and there's a flash of light so harsh it hurts, and Zachariah's gone and Dean's on the floor.
Cas gets to Sam before Dean can and puts his hands all over his chest and Sam flinches and whimpers and Dean thinks he's going to fucking lose it, but then Sam's breathing a little better, a hand to his throat. Breathing in shitty untortured Sam way he was before, and it's such a good fucking sound, all that air, all that fucking air working its way in and out of Sam's poor fucking lungs.
Cas sinks down to the bed next to him. He's completely fucking spent.
Dean's knees shake on his way to Sam. “Fuck.” He has his hands all the fuck over Sam's face. “Fuck. Shit. You okay?”
“I suspect he could use a cup of coffee,” Cas says.
**
It's hard to say for sure who looks worse, Sam or Cas. They're both slumped over cups of coffee, dazed looks in their eyes. Cas is bleeding, but Sam's breathing in that way he always does after a bad asthma attack, that way Dean hates, like he's trying to remember how the hell to do it.
“Thank you, Cas,” Sam says, and Cas looks up at him with that confused look on his face, reminding Dean that Cas does not understand humans and their gratitude about not dying. Aw, Cas.
Except apparently Sam wouldn't have died.
So what the fuck.
Sam picks at a plate of scrambled eggs and doesn't even fucking try to get a bite to his mouth, he's so damn breathless, so Dean figures he'll start with the other guy. “Hey. Cas. Why would Zachariah bring Sam back?”
“Zachariah wouldn't,” Cas says.
Sam slumps down and rests his chin on the table.
“Then who would? Sam.” He gestures around his mouth. 'You're going to get allergens all the fuck everywhere.”
“Don't care, can't die! Upsides.”
“You can die,” Castiel says. “It just wouldn't take.”
“And why the fuck wouldn't it take?” He hits the table. “Sam.”
“Leave me alone.” Sam burrows into the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “Don't feel good.”
“What else is new? Tell me.”
Sam mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like Lucifer's vessel and yeah, that can't be right.
That cannot be fucking right.
Except Cas nods a little and puts his hand on the back of Sam's head.
“What the fuck? You're Lucifer's vessel? Shouldn't Lucifer's vessel be, you know...evil?”
“Demon blood, Dean. Demon. Blood.”
“No. That's not your fault. That was fucking fed to you as a fucking infant.”
“Except for all that shit I drank.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing.”
Castiel says, “You were chosen because of each other.”
They look at him.
Cas squirms. “Lucifer is Michael's younger, rebellious brother who went against the wishes of their father. Michael was a loyal soldier.”
“Dean's loyal to me,” Sam says.
Dean passes Sam one of his biscuits. “So Sam and I are supposed to let the angels play dress-up in us and then have some epic battle?” He raises an eyebrow at Sam. “Any of this sounding likely to you?”
Sam says, “We don't even argue over the remote control, Cas.”
“And now you're telling us we're supposed to fight and destroy the world? Yeah, okay. Sam. Try to eat, buddy.”
Sam nods and picks at his eggs.
Cas says, “Dean, you know I care for you very much,” and Sam smirks and sticks his tongue out at Dean. Fuck you, Sam.
“Uh, thanks, Cas.”
“But you and Sam...do have a precedent. For destroying the world.” Cas looks down and rips at his napkin.
Sam drops his chin into his hand.
“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “We did that together.”
Cas says, “This would also be together.”
“It's not the same. It's against each other.”
Sam doesn't look so sure.
“Hey.” Dean nudges his foot and forces a smile. “You have some underlying urge to get into some post-apocalyptic battle with me? This is probably a good time to tell me.”
Sam cuddles his coffee mug. “Angels are fucking scary.”
“I know. You okay?”
“Yeah. Just...we don't know what tricks they have.”
Dean watches Sam cough and nudges over his coffee cup. “Drink. Uh, Cas? Is Sam maybe kind of sick to be a vessel? There's guys out there with better stamina and shit. More reliable bodies. No offense, Sammy.”
“None taken.”
Cas says, “I don't think Sam's asthma was a mistake.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“No,” Sam says, pushing his palm into his chest. “Don't want to talk about it,” because sometimes when Sam's doing this bad he just can't, and usually that's fine but this is sort of the fucking apocalypse.
But it's also Sam.
Dean gives Sam his fingers so he can twist them. “I hate angels,” he says. “No offense, Cas.”
Cas frowns a little. “None taken? Is that the proper response?”
Sam taps his shoulder against Cas's.
**
They need naps and nebulizers, so they haul ass to a different fucking motel, where an angel doesn't have their damn address. When Dean wakes up around eight in the morning, Sam's gone.
And fuck, the last time he woke up and Sam was gone, he was in the bathroom doing shots of demon blood, so sue Dean if he's a little fucking nervous, okay?
But Sam's not in the bathroom. He's right outside the door to the motel, on the ramp leading to the door, gulping down air and fisting his hair.
Dean stomps and scuffles his feet on the way to him so Sam will know he's coming, so by the time he gets to him Sam's picked his head up. Dean thought was crying, but he isn't, just wheezing.
He drops down beside him. “You're feeling somewhat less shitty, right?”
Sam runs his forehead. “Than when Zachariah had his metaphorical hands around my very much not metaphorical lungs? Yeah.”
Dean breathes out and feels Sam watching it with this jealousy and amazement and fuck, Sam, just fuck.
“He's not going to let me breathe,” Sam says.
“Zachariah can't find us unless I tell him our fucking address again, and yeah, fuck that.”
“Lucifer.”
“I...”
“He wants me to say yes. And I have two major fucking weak spots, and he's figured out one of them, and how much time do you think it'll take before he starts hurting you the way Zachariah hurt me?”
“Stop, Sam.”
“If he made you not breathe...” Sam clenches his fists. “It was all leading to this, Dean.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We've been figuring out pieces and pieces of this, but this, this has to be the fucking endgame. How can it get worse than this?” He chokes out a laugh. “At first asthma was just this thing I had, no big deal. Then we find out some demon bled in my mouth and he wants me to be some super soldier, but then why would I be sick? Must have been a mistake, or a nifty self-destruct button in case I go too out of line. Oh, no, wait, it was all so I would drink demon blood and start the apocalypse. Oh, no, wait, it was so I'd start the apocalypse and then get tortured into being a fucking vessel for Lucifer.”
And Sam's upset, Dean gets it, it's fine, but then Sam ducks his head and mumbles something that sounds way too fucking much like, “You should have let me die three years ago,” and no, sorry, Sam, no.
“Look at me,” Dean says, and when Sam doesn't, he grabs his chin and yanks him towards him. “Do not make me do a fucking speech about how full of fucking shit you are, and how if I hadn't brought you back this shit wouldn't have happened, because fuck if we know where you would have ended up, and Azazel would just have had Jake fucking whoeverthefuck doing this shit and he'd probably already have said yes to Lucifer and be frying buildings with his eyes or whatever the fuck Lucifer does, all right? You had to be brought back to life because you are Sam Motherfucking Winchester and that's not open to any fucking debate as long as I'm around, asshole. Jesus Christ, Sam, you can't fucking breathe, and here you are beating yourself up about the fact that these assholes made you not breathe. Don't get mopey, get angry.”
“Get angry? You want me to get angry?” Sam jerks away and stands up. “Jesus Christ, Dean! I'm so fucking angry that I feel it coming out of my skin, it's like I'm fucking sweating it but it still won't get the fuck out of me. I'm angry all the fucking time and I can't ever figure it out, and I'm angry that my fucking girlfriend burned on the ceiling and apparently I'm never going to get over it and angry that Dad never trusted me and angry as all goddamn fuck that this all is happening to us, and I'm angry when the diner doesn't have the fucking kind of lettuce I want or the motel doesn't have hypoallergenic pillows and I'm just always fucking mad all the time. It's killing me. And I could never fucking figure it out, why I'm so fucking angry and other people are love and sunshine and rainbows and pretty tears and maybe it's because I was designed to be a fucking five-star hotel for Lucifer and you want me to get angry?”
He stands there, gasping for breath, holding himself up on the railing.
Sam doesn't talk that much anymore.
Because Sam, who used to be Dean's chatty little kid who wouldn't fucking shut up, who used to keep him up at night making jokes and giggling and telling Dean the plots of movies that Dean watched with him, Jesus Sam and describing how his lungs felt and bugging him while he loaded his gun, this fucking kid doesn't talk much anymore because he doesn't have the air for it.
It gets worse the older he gets.
It's not a coincidence.
It's just this shit that rules their lives.
“I'm pretty sure we just did speeches,” Dean says.
Sam laughs, which turns into fucking endless coughing.
Dean gets to his feet and holds Sam up, hugs him a little.
“You can't protect me this time, Dean.”
“Fuck. I know.”
“He...if he figures out how close we are, we're fucked.”
“I know. It's fine. We're going to be fine. It's going to be fine, Sammy.”
Sam pinches his nose. “If he figures out how bad the fucking asthma is...”
“Sam. Stop.”
“I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to be around to see this.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don't know,” Sam says.
But he does.
“We're supposed to destroy the world together, Dean,” Sam says, pinching the skin over his tattoo. “And I keep destroying shit no matter what I do. Maybe we can't stop that.”
“Sam. Stop.”
“So maybe we have to stop being together.”
**
Dean's okay.
He's fine.
He and Sam talk and argue and hug and throw a punch or two and now they're packing up his stuff three days later and it's fine, it's going to be fine, until he realizes it's August 11th, and seven years ago today Sam left for Stanford.
And just, fuck. God, that was a shit time. Dean had been steeling himself for it for months and he still ended up freaking the fuck out, being this unbelievable asshole to Sam, and Sam kept grabbing Dean's hand like he was going to twist it up like he fucking always does when Dean's getting upset or mushy or whateverthefuckingfeelingsy, but instead he just held it and ran his thumb over his knuckles over and over.
“I'm going to see you all the time,” Sam had said.
“No. You're not.”
“Yes,” Sam said, with exactly the same damn determination. “I am.”
And fuck, he did, because Sam is always the fuck right, and then it was October and Sam was at his door with a fever and then December and Dean was at his hospital bed in Palo Alto when hen he had fucking pneumonia and then Dean was there all the fucking time whether or not Sam was sick because he just likes Sam, okay? He just likes him.
But at Stanford Sammy had friends and an RA who knew he liked to try to drop dead and then he had Jess and an address where Dean could always find him and a hospital where people knew him and he was safe and home and now he's going away and he has none of the fucking above.
He won't take the Impala, so they hotwire something with good gas mileage and tons of airbags and Sam laughs at him a little because of all the fucking things to worry about, seriously, airbags? But Dean doesn't want to think about all the fucking things to worry about so Sam can shut the fuck up.
“Are you going to hunt?” Dean says.
Sam tosses his duffel into the car. “I don't know.”
They're just standing in front of the motel, next to this fucking station wagon. Waiting for some sign that it's okay for Sam to go. A sign that's never going to fucking come.
“Where are going?” Dean says.
“I don't know.”
“Call, okay? Just...call. So I know you're not dead.”
“I will. You want to set a day?”
Dean wanted every fucking night, like John used to do when they were separated. “Um.” And Sam of course reads his fucking mind.
“Dean, if we're in contact too much...they're going to fucking know. We have to be careful. One of us will lead them to the other and then...and we just can't let them use us like that.”
“I know. I know. Tuesday.”
“Okay. I'll call every Tuesday.”
“If you get sick, you call, you understand me?”
Sam nods a little.
Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “Nebulizer and all the stuff for it are in the backseat. I stashed all the EpiPens I had in the glove box. And there's tissues and Benadryl and stuff. And like five spare inhalers, which isn't even me being overprotective, it's me going through my stuff and wondering where the fuck all these inhalers came from and realizing they'd be better with you than with me.”
Sam smiles at him, nods a little.
“And...steroids and anti-inflammatories and the nightly allergy stuff are in your bag.”
“I know.”
“Well, I double-checked.”
“I have dental floss and needles for sutures. Some antibiotics. Ace bandages. Salt.”
“Cleaned all your guns.”
“Machete, lighter fluid, silver bullets.”
“Okay.”
“You be careful,” Sam says.” Don't do anything stupid just because I'm not around to kick your ass.”
“You. Take care of yourself. Try to stay clean?”
“I will.” He swallows. “I'm going to be fine, Dean.”
They never hug goodbye.
They hug hello and not goodbye, because hugging goodbye is bad fucking luck. John hugged them goodbye and left them with sweet words, with perfect fucking endings, and then he wouldn't come back for days and days after he was supposed to so fuck if Sam and Dean ever let themselves have anything that could be a nice last moment when they're splitting up because fuck if they're giving themselves any permission to goddamn die while they're separated.
So he starts to say something stupid and anticlimactic and then Sam wraps him in this hug, and he's so strong and big and here and fuck.
And then he's gone.
**
Five days later, Tuesday, Sam calls at ten A.M. and Dean ducks into the widow's bathroom to take it.
Sam says, “Hey shorty.”
Dean looks down and bites his lip.
“Hey,” he says.
“It's Tuesday. Checking in. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fucking Christ, you sound good. You're not...”
“No. I'm not.” He sounds a little pissed off, and Dean can't really blame him, but once an addict always an addict and Dean has to check. “I've been lying around doing fucking nothing. I'm writing papers for college kids. You won't believe what these desperate jerks will pay. It's like hustling pool but I can do it in sweatpants.”
“So lying around eating bonbons, taking care of the lungs.”
“Pretty much.”
“Awesome.”
“I'm not doing this forever. Bobby keeps sending me stuff...there's shit out there for me to do.”
“I know, but-”
“I know. I know, Dean.”
Dean nods a little and scuffs his feet on the witnesses perfect fucking tile floor.
“How's Michael?” Sam asks.
How's Michael. Michael's in his head telling him he's beautiful and perfect and fantastic and he wants him so fucking badly, and doesn't he want to say yes? Doesn't he want the good guys to win? Doesn't he want to stop this before Sammy gets hurt?
“He's peachy,” Dean says. “And Lucifer?”
“Lucifer's an asshole who likes to clamp down on my lungs when I'm asleep, so guess who's up to twelve cups of coffee a day?”
“Jesus.”
“He can't get to me unless I'm sleeping. Coffee's good for my breathing. I'm getting an hour or two here and there and I'm okay. Probably the same as you.”
Dean has an angel caressing him in his sleep.
Dean has an angel promising him it won't be that bad.
“What does he say to you?” Dean says, quietly.
“Oh, that I'm awesome made of pure raw sexual energy and he loves me more than anyone in the whole world,” Sam says, and if Dean thought that would make him feel better he was pretty fucking wrong.
“Shit, this sucks,” he says.
“Pretty much. Hey. You okay? Is Cas looking after you?”
“Don't need looking after, Sam.”
“Just shut up.”
“Yeah. He is. You?”
“No. He doesn't know where I am.”
“Yeah. About that.”
“No.”
“Just so I'm nearby if something happens.”
“I'm breathing.”
“Yeah, but it's not exactly one of your most consistent character traits. Can I just be a few states over or something? Does anyone know where you are?”
“No.”
“Damn it, Sam. Have you made any fucking friends or something?” So, yeah, he's desperate, big fucking news there.
“Dean. I'm fine. What are you up to?”
“Interviews.”
“I should let you go.”
“No.”
“Dean.”
“Fuck. It's been a fucking week. We went months at Stanford. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Sam laughs a little. “Kind of a different situation. I was, you know, warm and safe in a dorm room. And I'm not exactly stressing about British literature exams nowadays.”
“Yeah.”
“But I'm okay. And you're okay?”
“I'm okay.”
“Are you eating?”
“I'm supposed to ask you that. Of course I'm fucking eating.”
“Smoking?”
“Like a fucking chimney. Come stop me.”
“Drinking?”
“Like Dad. Come stop me.”
“Dean...”
Dean closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall.
“I want to come back so fucking bad, Dean,” Sam says. “I need you to not let me, okay? Stop making me feel like I'm...you know? I hate this too.” Sam's voice is funny. “I really fucking hate this.”
“God, are you crying? Seriously, a week. Man up.”
Another little laugh. “I'm not crying, asshole, I'm wheezing.”
“Take care of that.”
“Yeah. I will. Talk to you in a week. Um...” Sam pauses a minute, then says, “You,” softly, and then hangs up.
**
They do that for a month and a half, talking just on Tuesdays with a rare midnight call for a bad nightmare or a really bad asthma attack (really really bad, and Jesus, Dean doesn't want to think about the ones Sam isn't waking him up for).
He calls him one Sunday night so Sam can talk him through stitching up wrist. Sam wheezes the whole time.
“Fuck, I'm coming back,” Sam says. “I'm coming back.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “No. You can't. We can't, Sam.”
The nightmares are getting worse, and Sam's breathing is getting worse, so no, no, they can't fucking be together. They can't be weak.
And fuck everything.
“Don't say yes,” Sam says.
“What? I'm not going to say yes.”
“Don't say yes.”
Sam doesn't come back.
But Sam also doesn't say yes.
But Sam also doesn't really breathe.
So they keep going like that for a while.
**
It's a stupid thing to say, that Dean misses Sam like hell.
But he does.
**
And then Dean's phone beeps at 4 AM in the space between Sunday and Monday, and before Dean's even opened his eyes he's whispering, “No, no, please no.” Because he hasn't slept in three days and he hasn't heard from Sam, which is fine, okay, it's fucking fine, but 4 AM calls are not fine.
But it's not a call. It's a text.
Awake?
Yes he texts back, and ten seconds later, his phone rings.
At first he hears nothing, nothing, and then it's this sound that makes his heart beat like a fucking hummingbird, because it's this wheeze, so quiet and long and forced, and Dean can hear him pushing it out of his chest with everything in him. It stops abruptly for this choked, wet, howling noise that's got to be Sam trying to inhale. He's not coughing.
“Oh my God, how did you fucking text me?” How is he fucking conscious?
Sam just keeps breathing or whatever the fuck you would call that and fuck fuck fuck.
“Call 911, Sam. Now. You hear me? Call 911.”
The wheezing's getting lighter and lighter because Sam is getting tired and he's not moving enough air to make noise and Jesus.
Sam hasn't hung up, which means he hasn't fucking called 911, and no, shit, that is not okay.
“Sam. EpiPen. You have one near you?”
No answer, of fucking course, but they're probably in the first aid kit which is probably in the bathroom and Dean knows that Sam can't get there right now, Jesus, Jesus, this is why he doesn't get to be alone.
“Hang up.” Dean barely recognizes his own voice, partly because yeah, he's fucking crying a little, but mostly because Sam is sick and he's fucking telling him to go where Dean can't hear him. “Hang up and call 911, you understand me? Sam. I know you're dropping out on me, buddy. Hang up. Now. Call 911.”
There's another forced inhale, just a fucking stutter, not anything, and then the line goes dead.
Dean's immediately online, checking if Sam has the GPS on on his cell phone but of course he fucking doesn't, and Dean doesn't even know what direction he'd start driving in to find his Sam.
So he sits up and pulls his knees up and presses his face into them and tries not to think about his blue baby brother who Jesus fucking mother of God better be doing that wheeze at a 911 operator right now, not to think about how Sam is right, that they need to stay apart, that Lucifer is doing this to Sam tonight as a fucking test.
Tries not to think about how badly Lucifer has to torture Sam for him to say yes.
Tries not to think about saying yes.
About Michael in his dreams, promising to fix Sam.
To touch his lungs, make them beautiful and pink and new.
**
It's Monday. No word from Sam.
And then it's Tuesday.
And no word from Sam.
**
“I'm going out of my fucking mind.” Dean paces back and forth, gripping the phone so hard it hurts. “You don't have any idea?”
“No,” Bobby says. “He won't tell me, and I haven't talked to him in weeks. He's probably moved since then anyway.”
“Jesus mother of Christ Jesus fucking shit.”
“Have you talked to Cas?”
“No.” He runs his hand down his face. “He can't find him, not unless Sam tells him where he is. And if Sam's in any state to tell anyone anything he'd be on the fucking phone.”
“I'm going to make calls, see if anyone's seen him. You should have Cas do the same. Dean. Try not to panic? You know he's alive.”
“Lucifer could let him die for God knows how long just to fucking punish him. They could fucking bury him. You think he could breathe underground? I don't fucking care if he can't die, he's somewhere sick and fucking miserable and alone, and if he's in a fucking coma or knocked out on some respirator, it's all Lucifer all the time.”
“You're worried he'll say yes.”
“I'm worried about fucking everything! He could be passed out and rotting in some motel room until Lucifer decides it's time to spring him back to life. Some possessed nurse could be slipping him demon blood, or he could just be fucking scared out of his mind but all I know is he can't get in touch with me and the last time I was away from him this long I was in Hell!”
He pants and that makes him hate himself so it's about time he put his fist through a mirror, so he goes and takes care of that.
“Jesus Christ, Dean, what did you just do?”
“Call everyone. You understand me? Everyone.”
“I will. And you call Cas. Why the fuck haven't you called Cas?”
The answer is so fucking obvious that Dean can't believe he has to tell him.
Because Cas is his last hope, of course.
**
Cas bandages his hand and tells him he's sorry, but he has no idea.
“Ask around,” Dean says, head ducked. “Please.”
“Dean. I'm not going to do that.”
“Please.”
“You don't want any angel but me to find him.” He dabs Neosporin on Dean's hand. “And it's not as if I'm on good terms with most of Heaven anyway. I doubt they'd listen to me.”
“Damn it, Cas,” he says, but he's not mad, he's just so damn tired.
Cas looks up at him. “You should get some sleep.”
“Fucking Michael taunts me about him. And then Zachariah shows up. Where the fuck are you, huh?”
“You want me in your dreams?”
Dean thinks Cas is trying to smile.
He drops his forehead to Cas's shoulder. “I want Sam.”
Cas's hand goes to his back. “I know.” He gives Dean a few awkward pats. “Get some sleep, Dean. I will watch over you.”
He is so, so fucking tired. He lies down and closes his eyes and feels strange. Like he's falling.
**
Dean can always tell when he's dreaming.
Sam never believes him, but he always, always can. It doesn't always make it better, doesn't mean he can snap himself out of it, but even when he's drowning in Hell nightmares, he knows that he's not really there.
Which means he wakes up a in trashed, dusted-over motel room and knows that this isn't a dream.
“Uh. Cas?”
Nothing.
There's some sign up about Croatoan, dated 2014.
Great.
**
He's driving some hot-wired car through this post-apocalyptic whatever the fuck when Zachariah shows up.
“Looking for a hospital?” he says.
“Go the fuck away.”
Zachariah chuckles. “Sam isn't in one.”
“Fuck you.”
“First thing you do when you get here is look for your brother. And yet you won't say yes to Michael. Michael who promised to let your brother out of the hell Lucifer's putting him through.”
“Michael who's probably helping torture Sam so I'll be dying to get the band back together and go destroy the world, with him, Laverne and Shirley style? Do you think I haven't figured this shit out by now?”
“You talk a big game about not fitting into our little plan, but you're the one looking for your brother,” Zachariah says. “But you're not going to find him here any more easily than in your big bad world out there. Not unless you say yes.”
“Fuck. You.”
“You should have said yes, Dean. And here's how it's going to play out if you don't. Welcome home.”
Dean drives faster.
But he doesn't know what he's looking for.
Cas, he tells himself.
Not Sam.
Not while angels are watching him.
**
Clues (and not fucking angels) lead him and this piece of shit car to Camp Chitaqua, and if he had any question if he were in the right place, here's his baby in the world's shittiest condition, and here's fucking him, and come on, alternate universe Dean, why you got to be a dick? He sees the butt of the gun coming at him and doesn't duck in time.
**
Future Dick Dean keeps cleaning his guns like that's supposed to fucking impress him. Dean sucks on the cut on his arm from the silver knife.
“So what year, again?” Dick Dean says.
“2009. Where's Sam?”
“Jesus, was I really that obsessed with Sam? This is fucking embarrassing. You know it's creepy, right?”
“What? Fuck you.”
“People talk. Fuck, people still talk, and you haven't seen him in five years.”
Dean freezes.
“What?” he says.
Dick-that's just going to be his fucking name, because look at this asshole-shrugs, but he has the decency to look down. “Yeah. September 29th, 2009. What day did you say you were from?” He's being patronizing. He's being an asshole.
“October first,” he whispers.
“Well.” Dick says. “Isn't that a shame.”
The fucking bullshit of Dean's life means that he feels like he can't breathe.
This isn't real.
His world is real.
He can get back there and he can fix this.
Dean tugs against the restraints. “Did he die? That night in wherever the fuck motel room, when he couldn't breathe?”
“You're going to have to be more specific. You just described your entire goddamn life.”
“September 29th, you fucking asshole.”
Dick straps a holster around his thigh. “No. He hung on for a while after that.”
“And you didn't go see him? We don't find him?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because Sam doesn't want to fucking be found, apparently, I don't know. But the next time you hear any-fucking-thing about him isn't until after you've stopped searching for him and started searching for Michael to scream take me take me take me in every fucking sense of the term and getting fucking nothing and the world's gone to shit and then you get the non-fucking-surprise that Lucifer's riding Sam like a fucking stallion.”
“Charming. Did he...”
“Hurt us? No.”
“Then why the fuck did he say yes?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Dick loads his gun. “Hell of a kid you raised there. A fuck of a lot smarter than you, I can tell you that much.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He plants his hands on the table. “Lucifer is having the time of his life parading around inside Sam, and look at the goddamn world. The angels fucking bailed. So puny little fucking human us is rallying the troops to fight a war where we can't win, so you want to do me a favor? Get the fuck back to your real time, say yes to Michael, and kill Sam before he kills you.”
Dean pulls on the handcuffs. “You're my least favorite.”
“Cute.” Dean pulls his jacket on. “I'll check on you later. But if I were you, I'd beam the fuck out of here. Today's important. Don't fucking ruin it.”
**
He's looking around for something to pick the handcuffs with when the door opens and fuck, he's been grateful to see him lately.
“Cas. Jesus. Hey. C'mere.”
“Why hello, Dean from the past.” He plops down cross-legged in front of Dean. “How nice of you to grace us with your lovely presence.” He grins at him.
“Aw, fuck, you're Fake Cas.”
“That. I. Am. Fake Dean told me you were here.” He's still smiling. Cas is fucking smiling. “It's good to see you. Been a while.”
“Since I wasn't a complete tool?”
He giggles. Giggles. “Precisely.”
“Uh, are you stoned?”
“Preeeeeecisely.”
“Pot kill your angel mojo, or can you still zap me back?”
Cas fiddles with the handcuffs. “Angel mojo's long the hell gone, fuck if I know from whence it...left. Ha. I don't know. I'm just one of the boys now. Maybe I'm your new Sam.”
Dean rubs his wrists. “Sam would fucking die if he smoked pot.”
“Eh, you could do a lot worse than dying nowadays. Zachariah send you here?”
“All part of the grand plan to make me say yes. I need to get home. Sam's sick.”
Cas nods a little. “We'll figure it out. Just...hey. You.” He punches Dean's shoulder. “When you get back? Do something different.”
“Like what? Say yes to Michael? I can't do that.”
“I don't know. But don't make us do this.”
Dean breathes out. “I need to not become that asshole.”
Cas cocks his head a little and looks so much like his real fucking confused self, and then he reaches out and pulls Dean into a hug. It isn't like hugging Sam, where the kid's trying to make sure every damn muscle of his is in the hug. It's gentle, warm. Careful.
“I miss you,” Cas says.
**
Everything happens really fast, guns and Croats and idiotic plans, but somehow they lead him to this wasteland of a garden and should Dean really be surprised?
Dean isn't stupid.
He knew Zachariah's little tour of the end of the world wouldn't be complete without this last stop.
He just didn't want to make it.
So now the Dick's holding off Croats outside and he's here because Lucifer wanted to talk to him, and Dean is having a hard time giving much of a shit what happens at this point, not in this fucking world, not with these goddamn people.
What the fuck is Sam wearing?
He closes his eyes and pretends it's because he doesn't want to see that hideous fucking suit, not because he doesn't want to see those unfamiliar looks on his most familiar face (doesn't want to think about Lucifer undressing and redressing his kid, hands all over him in the shower, doesn't want to think about how much Sammy fucking hates being possessed).
“I know you're in there,” Dean says, and he will not open his eyes, will not will not will fucking not. “Sammy. Kiddo.” He swallows. “You're in there.”
“Oh, he's in there.” LuciferSam sits down on this bench.
“Sammy. Fuck. Just kill me.”
“I'm not going to kill you, Dean. I'm glad you're here. So we can talk. Can you open your eyes?”
Dean feels like a fucking child. “No.”
“It doesn't have to be this way, Dean. Sammy doesn't want it to be this way.”
Sammy. It sounds so fucking strange in Sam's voice.
“He's so sick, Dean,” Lucifer says. “I'm doing the best that I can to look after him, but he was so damn sick by the time I got to him. I'm worried about him. When it's time for me to ascend back to heaven, I'd like to leave him someday. I'd like to reward him for being so...helpful. But he's so sick.”
Dean clenches his jaw, hard, because fuck if his chin is shaking, fucking fuck it. “You made him sick.”
“It didn't have to be this way.”
“You want me to go back to real life and tell Sam he's supposed to say yes to you, because some acid trip of future is telling me that's what supposed to happen?”
“This...” He smirks. “Acid trip of a future isn't telling you anything about what's supposed to happen. It's telling you what will. Sam will say yes, Dean. It's just a matter of what you make him go through.”
“Sam wouldn't say yes.”
Lucifer sighs a little.
“Dean,” he says. “Do you know what oxygen deprivation can do to a boy?”
No.
Dean gets Sam oxygen.
Lucifer sighs. Bit and deep and clear. He doesn't care if Sam's body is sick. They never do. They never care, really.
Sam could be dead in there.
Dean can't see him at all.
“Sam had seizures,” Lucifer says. “He fell asleep for a second, and I was there. He tried spells to keep me away, so I put him in comas for weeks. I killed him and brought him back more times than you could count. He had headaches and nausea and God, the raw panic of not being able to breathe. It never left him. And you didn't come for him. And I threatened you until he cried.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut.
Sam.
“Eventually he was fainting if he tried to stand. He couldn't eat. He lost motor control. He could hardly book motel rooms, so he slept outside in the cold. He got sick. I stopped letting him die.”
“Stop.”
“By the time I was done with him, Sam couldn't have picked you out of a lineup. He didn't know his own name. But I made sure he kept one word, and that words was yes.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Lucifer spread his (Sam's) arms. Shrugs.
“It doesn't have to be like this, Dean. I never wanted to hurt Sam.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Go find him. Go be with him. And hold his little hand and tell him to say yes.”
“Go to Hell.”
Lucifer laughs. “Funny turn of phrase.” He goes to the gate and opens it, stands aside. “You can go. I'll see you soon, Dean.”
**
“Now you get it,” Dick says. They're back at the fucking campground, and Dean doesn't know where anyone else is. Dick Dean's covered in blood. Dean's afraid to ask.
Cas. Oh, God, Cas.
“I might hate you more than Lucifer,” Dean says.
Dick coughs out a laugh.
“Why the fuck did you let this happen?” Dean says.
“You tell me, Dean-o. It started with you.”
“No.”
“It's been two days since Sam called you dying in that motel room. Why the fuck aren't you with him?”
“Because...”
“Because you think it's what the angels want. Because you're a selfish fucking bastard who thinks he knows better than anyone.”
“Splitting up was Sam's idea.”
“All right. Fine. Then stop bitching.” He twirls the Colt around. “Croats are cleared out now. You were a nice diversion. Time to go kill the devil.”
“What?”
“I told you this was a big day.”
“You're not killing while he's in Sam.”
Dick lowers the gun.
“Dean,” he says. “Seriously. You've got to be fucking kidding me, here.”
“It's Sam. How could you let him go?” Dean feels his hands clenching. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You raised him for thirty fucking years, you l-loved him within an inch of your goddamn-don't you make that fucking face at me! And he loves you. He tells you all the fucking time. And you are a fucked up disgusting person and he loves you, and how the fuck did you let this happen to him? He needs you, okay, he fucking needs you, and he is the best thing that's ever been in your goddamn shithole of a life. He's the fucking sun.”
“Get out of my way, Dean.”
“You owe him for everything and you are a horrible motherfucking brother!”
In a way, he's kind of proud that that's what makes the Dick punch him.
But it's hard to concentrate on that right now.
Because he's busy beating the shit out of his future self.
He drives punch after punch into Dick Dick Dick Dean's cheekbone and into his stomach and under his ribcage because fuck. This. Guy. God, it feels good to hit something. It feels really fucking good to hit himself.
Dick is clearly so fucking confused about the whole thing. Stunned. He's on the floor, now under Dean's elbows, bleeding from the lip and struggling and he can't get free.
“I don't get it,” he rasps. He's fucking wheezing. “Why are you stronger than me?”
Dean looks right into this asshole's eyes.
“Because I have Sam, you fucking idiot.”
And then there's a hand on his shoulder, and Cas in a trenchcoat with no smile, and Jesus oh thank God and he says, “I really hate Zachariah sometimes.”
“Let's go home, Cas?”
He touches his forehead and everything goes white.
**
He's back in his motel, a hand on his chest, breathing with everything in him.
Cas scuffles his shoes. “I'm sorry about that.”
“Yeah, nice job looking after me, there.”
“Zachariah had a human informant. It took me some time to get to you. But you seem all right.”
“I'm...I'm great, actually.” He's out of bed, pulling on his jacket, slipping into his shoes.
“Where are we going?”
“I don't know yet. We'll find out.”
**
Bobby calls in favors.
Cas prays.
Dean tracks Sam's patterns and drives short stretches with his eyes closed and follows his gut.
The truth is, he knows where Sam would go if he wanted to feel safe.
He's surprised Sam here before.
**
“I loved her, you know?” he says, quietly, to Cas, when they're a few miles away.
Cas looks up at the hospital. “Where are we?”
Dean swallows. “And then she died, and...and Sam just needed me. He's still so not over it. This is...this is the thing that Sam carries.”
“You carry your mother.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, shortly, because let's not fucking go into that, okay?
(Dean carries bone and muscle between his teeth.)
“And I know that what she and Sam had...that's fucking rare. That doesn't just happen. She loved him more than...I don't know. She loved him a fuck of a lot. And when he was around her, he was just new. It wasn't even like he was lying to her. It was like he'd just started this brand new fucking life. And I'm the idiot who thought he could have it. And then she died. And Sam was fucking broken, and I held him up, and I just...loved her and never fucking dealt with that.” Fuck. Fuck all of this. “One time she told me 'welcome home.'”
“Where are we, Dean?”
“Oh. This is where Sam went to college. Um. This is our home.”
**
He leaves Cas in the car-let me do this, I have no reason to believe he's there, let me not get our hopes up, okay--and he's prepared to walk into the ICU and surprise his intubated kid like he did seven years ago.
But no. That was in December.
This is October 5th, and seven years ago today, Sam surprised him at his motel room door.
Sam surprised him, just like he does today when Dean walks in and there he is, signing paperwork at the desk, real clothes on, bandage from an IV on his hand.
Sam.
He comes up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey.”
Sam turns around and whispers “shit” and then he's hugging Dean with one arm around his shoulders and the other wrapped around his head, like Dean's the one who's been sick. Except Sam's bent around him and breathing all shitty in Dean's ear and Dean says, “Hey, hey, come here,” and pulls away enough to grab Sam by the hair behind his ears and yank him down and kiss his forehead.
Sam laughs a little.
“Shut up.”
“Fuck.” Sam tugs on the hair on the back of Dean's head and then lets him go, takes a step back, pulls Dean out of the flow of the hallway. “You found me.”
“Why the fuck didn't you call?”
“Had the tube down the throat until two hours ago, and I couldn't remember your number. Brain all scrambled from no oxygen.”
Couldn't remember his own name.
Dean swallows. “But you're okay now? You're checking out AMA, I'm guessing...two hours off the tube, you fucking idiot.”
“I needed to find you.”
He cups Sam's jaw in his hand and looks at him. Sam leans into it, lifts his chin so Dean can see his lymph nodes. Does all the fucking things, is the whole fucking world.
“Let's get out of this fucking place,” Dean says. “We've got shit to do. You want to get some sleep? Cas will watch us. We can break into your old dorm, you want that?”
“Together?”
“Together.”
“Thank fucking God. I'm sorry I left.”
“Yeah, well, I was a fucking idiot for letting you leave.”
Sam smiles. “Yeah. You were.”
“Douchebag.”
“Yeah, but...”
“Mine.”
Sam tugs on Dean's ear on the way out of the hospital. “Mine.”
“Yeah, you wish.”
Sam smiles, but he's so fucking wrong, because this is the way it goes: Sam is Dean's burden and Dean's responsibility and Dean's reason for being alive and Dean's fucking favorite, and if they're driving off the edge of a cliff, they're driving off together.
But not today. Today they're breaking into a dorm room.
“Come on,” he says. “Let's go say no to some angels.”
Summary: Sam has three weaknesses: left lung, right lung, Dean. Angels find them.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 5, and you'll get way more out of it if you're familiar with the verse.
Wordcount: 9,987
Author's Note: Sammyverse! So this takes us through "The End." I'm not going to be doing the season all in big swoops like I did Season 4, but I wanted to get us grounded before I go off and write ficlets in this time. So I hope you like this.
--
Somehow they kill Ruby and get out of there alive and the world is quiet.
Dean has a decent motel room, a stomachache like a bomb went off inside him, a bad case of the shakes from three days without sleep, blood to dab on Sam's lips every hour, and a feverish, miserable, half-blue kid in his arms.
The rest can wait.
For some reason, it does.
It takes two weeks for Sam to be fully weaned off, and it's two rough, horrible weeks, full of Sam seizing and vomiting and suffocating and begging Dean and blaming Dean and crying into Dean's chest, but Sam emerges at the end of it tattered and twenty pounds lighter and full of this new pain. But alive.
Lately Dean is terrified, fucking terrified, that something will happen to Sam.
“Are you worried I'm going to go out and drink some demon?” Sam says. “You know that's the last thing I want, right?”
“I'm worried you're going to fall and crack your head open or stop breathing or get abducted or shot or impaled or run over.”
Sam thinks about this for a minute. “That's really weird, Dean.”
“I know.”
But Dean is so scared, and that means Sammy.
**
The fact that Sam blames himself for this shit is one of the most fucked-up things Dean's ever encountered.
“We didn't for a second consider that killing her was the wrong choice,” Dean says. “We had no fucking clue. And you were a wreck on a goddamn cot. You couldn't have killed her if I hadn't dosed you.”
“I pushed you into killing her for weeks, and if I hadn't been drinking demon blood and fucking Ruby, we never would have known this was a possibility. She was a demon, Dean. I trusted a demon.”
“We both did.”
“I pulled the trigger.”
“Sam. We did this together. Okay? We do fucking everything together.”
“Maybe that's the problem.”
“What?”
“I don't know. I'm just talking.” He sits down on the bed and breathes like a tea pot and Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “I'm sick of waiting for something to happen. Where's Cas? Where's motherfucking Lucifer?”
“I don't know.”
“I can't wait any longer. I'm losing my goddamn mind.” He pushes his hand into his chest and flops back on the bed. “Jesus Christ, I'm sick.”
Dean can really hear it now. “Hey. You need a hospital?”
Sam shakes his head and pushes his face into his pillow.
“Yeah, 'cause that's going to make it easier to breathe...”
Sam wheezes, shoulder blades drawing in and out.
Not fair not fair not fucking fair.
“Come on. Roll over. Face me.”
Dean turns out the light as Sam turns over. Sam's still visible in the light from the parking garage. So Dean can still see him breathing.
“I think we should take some time off,” Dean says. Lie low for a while. Stay with Bobby or try to get an apartment. Get you back into shape.”
“All we've been doing lately is lying low and...” he stops to pant. “Trying to get me back into shape.”
“Yeah, well, now we've got nothing to better to do.”
“How about hunting monsters? The world is still the same fucked-up place it was before. Now just with the extra threat of the fucking devil running around.”
“Yeah, well, let someone else handle it.”
“We've done enough, huh?”
Dean breathes out. “Sam.”
“Don't sigh at me. Not now.”
“Fine. Be a dick.”
“You really want to have some bitch fight right now?”
Dean hunkers down on the bed and mumbles, “You started it.”
“I'm really dizzy.”
Dean sits up. “What?”
“It's not a big deal. I'm just really fucking dizzy.”
Dean gets up to set up the nebulizer, but by the time he turns around, Sam's asleep.
If he's asleep, he can't be dizzy.
If he's asleep, he can't argue.
If he's asleep, he can't make Dean feel like shit.
So he lets him sleep.
**
Dean's used to nightmares, as used to them as you can fucking get. Fingernails on the inside of his skull, nutcrackers on toes, shears to tear open bellybuttons.
So it's nice when he dreams about his car, a hot day, a cold beer. He sits on the hood and watches the sun come up, and when he hears a set of footsteps approaching, he scoots over to make room.
Except it's not Sam.
It's some guy in a suit.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Nice to meet you, Dean. My name is Zachariah.”
“That sounds like an angel name, so here's me telling you to fuck off.”
“I'd like it if I could come see you, Dean. Just for a little chat.”
“I'm right here.”
“In person would be better.”
“And why the fuck would I agree to that?”
“Haven't you wondered where your Castiel has been lately?”
Dean swallows, blinks. “What?”
“Why don't we bring him along?”
“Fuck. Fuck. What did you do to him?”
“He's just fine. Need a bit of cleaning up. I'm sure you and your brother could handle it.”
Dean will not be a fucking idiot.
Dean will not be a fucking idiot.
“No,” Dean says.
“Aw, come on, Dean-o. Don't you want Sam to feel better?”
“Yeah, because you guys have been so sweet to Sam.”
“Pretty bad asthma attack he's having over there, huh? Kind of like two fists are squeezing those poor lungs of his, isn't it?”
What. The. Fuck. Angels. Sam used to fucking pray.
Dean gives the address and wakes up.
He thought Zachariah would have beamed the hell over by now, but no, it's just him and Sam still. Sam, who's up and fucking pacing.
“Dean,” he says. “Dean. I had this dream-”
“Me too. Fuck .Did you see Zachariah?” Dean says.
“Zacha...what? No.”
“Shit. Well. He's coming. Who was in yours?”
Sam doesn't say anything.
“Sam.”
“Well, he's not fucking coming, I'll tell you that much. You gave someone our address?”
“He's making you sick.”
“No, Dean. He's not.”
“What do you-” Dean starts, but then there he is, the asshole himself.
“Oh, good,” he says. “I was hoping I'd left you two enough time to panic.”
“Where the fuck is Cas?” Dean says.
Zachariah snaps his fingers, and then there he is, stabilizing himself on the TV cabinet, blood dripping from his lip, a hand wrapped around his ribcage.
“Hello, Dean,” he rasps.
“Cas. You okay?”
He nods.
Dean takes a step towards him, but then Zachariah snaps his fingers again and it's like Dean hits a wall. He staggers back to Sam, and Zachariah says, “Why don't we talk for a minute or two first?”
“Fuck you.”
“Dean,” Zachariah says. “We've been telling you for a long time that we have work for you.”
“Yeah, you fucking have. And guess what?” Dean takes Sam's hand and lifts it up. “I have fucking work for me. And since he's the one who raised me out of hell, I think I'm going to be devoting my fucking time to this one instead, all right?”
Sam rubs his chest and leans into Dean's shoulder a little. “I'm work?”
“You're the family business.”
“That should probably offend me or something.”
“You're my favorite.”
“That helps.”
And then Zachariah says, “Are you two finished?” because apparently bantering a little with his kid is less important than hearing this boring fucking monologue about the apocalypse and Lucifer and Michael and what the fuck, why is Dean supposed to give a shit about any of this, and why is Sam squirming like he knows something Dean doesn't? Granted, they didn't get much time to have their little post-dream heart-to-heart, but Sam really can't keep secrets because they go straight to his goddamn lungs and lock him up, and that's really not okay with this whole fucking two giant fists thing they have going on.
Sam bends over drops his hands to his knees to suck in a breath and Cas says, “Dean. Is Sam all right?”
“I don't know.” He looks at Zachariah. “Story time over? You need to go.”
“This isn't a story, Dean. This is your life.”
“What?”
“You're the Michael sword. You're Michael's true vessel.”
Sam straightens up and groans out a wheeze, paces a few steps back.
“He's an angel,” Dean says. “I know the rules. have to say yes. I'm not going to fucking say yes. I'd kill myself before I'd be a goddamn angel condom.” He nods at Cas's beat-up body. “No offense, Jimmy, but I think you're with me on this one. Get the fuck out, Zachariah.”
Zachariah says, “If you killed yourself, we'd just bring you back. But we'd rather not cause you any harm. You're heaven's little pet, Dean. Sam, on the other hand...”
No. Sam's wrist is still fucking healing. They're not doing this shit again.
Zachariah says, “Well, damn, am I happy Sam's here.”
Dean takes a step in front of Sam, like that's going to help, because literally standing between Sam and danger got kind of pointless about four and a half inches ago, and because he's a fucking angel, and then Zachariah squeezes his hands.
Sam makes this noise Dean knows way too fucking well, a noise like he's being strangled, and he's leaning heavily on Dean's shoulder and Dean says, “Stop it, you son of a bitch, don't you dare.”
Sam's not breathing.
He's not fucking breathing.
Dean puts him on the bed and leans him forwards and says, “Let him go, let him the fuck go. Cas!”
“I can't, Dean,” Cas says, and Dean can tell by his voice that he means can't, fucking fucking can't, and Jesus Christ, what did Zachariah do to him?
Sam whispers, “Dean, it's-” with the last of his air, and Jesus fucking Christ Sam how about you use that to keep your fucking heart beating, but then he's breathing again, gasping, wheezing beyond belief, but breathing, and Dean turns to Zachariah, who has his hands open again, a smug smile on his face.
“So what do you say, Dean?”
“Fuck off.” He cups his Sam's cheek. “Hey. Buddy. Hey.”
Sam's gray and shocky, and he tips forwards to put his forehead against Dean's. He whispers, “Listen to me, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Sam flinches and the wheeze disappears, and Dean knows Zachariah's squeezing his fucking fists again. “Let them kill me,” Sam croaks. “He'll bring me back.”
“What?” Dean puts his hands on Sam's neck and turns to Zachariah. “Hold on a fucking second, what is he talking about?”
Zachariah growls out, “Damn it, Sam,” and Dean's so proud of his kid he could explode.
Sam gives him an incredibly weak smile and leans into Dean's shoulder.
“Shouldn't have told him that, Sam,” Zachariah says. “Now I won't do it quick.”
And then Dean's thrown back and slammed against the wall, his heels pinned against the molding in this fucking fucking room, and he has to fucking stay there, glued goddamn still, and watch his kid die slowly.
Zachariah clenches his fists for longer and longer each time, letting go long enough to give Sam a wet, worthless breath or two, then squeezing him again, and Sam's hunched over, shaking his head, gray and soggy like a dirty fucking paper towel. He sweats and tears up and clings to his ribcage.
And Dean is about to cave.
Because Sam is being fucking suffocated.
And Sam is looking at him with those eyes and he's sure Sam thinks he's telling Dean don't you dare, don't you dare but what Dean's seeing is I can't goddamn breathe and that is not fucking okay, and Dean almost misses Cas slowly straightening up, screwing his eyes up, forcing color back into his cheeks, but then Cas says, “Shut your eyes!” and there's a flash of light so harsh it hurts, and Zachariah's gone and Dean's on the floor.
Cas gets to Sam before Dean can and puts his hands all over his chest and Sam flinches and whimpers and Dean thinks he's going to fucking lose it, but then Sam's breathing a little better, a hand to his throat. Breathing in shitty untortured Sam way he was before, and it's such a good fucking sound, all that air, all that fucking air working its way in and out of Sam's poor fucking lungs.
Cas sinks down to the bed next to him. He's completely fucking spent.
Dean's knees shake on his way to Sam. “Fuck.” He has his hands all the fuck over Sam's face. “Fuck. Shit. You okay?”
“I suspect he could use a cup of coffee,” Cas says.
**
It's hard to say for sure who looks worse, Sam or Cas. They're both slumped over cups of coffee, dazed looks in their eyes. Cas is bleeding, but Sam's breathing in that way he always does after a bad asthma attack, that way Dean hates, like he's trying to remember how the hell to do it.
“Thank you, Cas,” Sam says, and Cas looks up at him with that confused look on his face, reminding Dean that Cas does not understand humans and their gratitude about not dying. Aw, Cas.
Except apparently Sam wouldn't have died.
So what the fuck.
Sam picks at a plate of scrambled eggs and doesn't even fucking try to get a bite to his mouth, he's so damn breathless, so Dean figures he'll start with the other guy. “Hey. Cas. Why would Zachariah bring Sam back?”
“Zachariah wouldn't,” Cas says.
Sam slumps down and rests his chin on the table.
“Then who would? Sam.” He gestures around his mouth. 'You're going to get allergens all the fuck everywhere.”
“Don't care, can't die! Upsides.”
“You can die,” Castiel says. “It just wouldn't take.”
“And why the fuck wouldn't it take?” He hits the table. “Sam.”
“Leave me alone.” Sam burrows into the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “Don't feel good.”
“What else is new? Tell me.”
Sam mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like Lucifer's vessel and yeah, that can't be right.
That cannot be fucking right.
Except Cas nods a little and puts his hand on the back of Sam's head.
“What the fuck? You're Lucifer's vessel? Shouldn't Lucifer's vessel be, you know...evil?”
“Demon blood, Dean. Demon. Blood.”
“No. That's not your fault. That was fucking fed to you as a fucking infant.”
“Except for all that shit I drank.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing.”
Castiel says, “You were chosen because of each other.”
They look at him.
Cas squirms. “Lucifer is Michael's younger, rebellious brother who went against the wishes of their father. Michael was a loyal soldier.”
“Dean's loyal to me,” Sam says.
Dean passes Sam one of his biscuits. “So Sam and I are supposed to let the angels play dress-up in us and then have some epic battle?” He raises an eyebrow at Sam. “Any of this sounding likely to you?”
Sam says, “We don't even argue over the remote control, Cas.”
“And now you're telling us we're supposed to fight and destroy the world? Yeah, okay. Sam. Try to eat, buddy.”
Sam nods and picks at his eggs.
Cas says, “Dean, you know I care for you very much,” and Sam smirks and sticks his tongue out at Dean. Fuck you, Sam.
“Uh, thanks, Cas.”
“But you and Sam...do have a precedent. For destroying the world.” Cas looks down and rips at his napkin.
Sam drops his chin into his hand.
“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “We did that together.”
Cas says, “This would also be together.”
“It's not the same. It's against each other.”
Sam doesn't look so sure.
“Hey.” Dean nudges his foot and forces a smile. “You have some underlying urge to get into some post-apocalyptic battle with me? This is probably a good time to tell me.”
Sam cuddles his coffee mug. “Angels are fucking scary.”
“I know. You okay?”
“Yeah. Just...we don't know what tricks they have.”
Dean watches Sam cough and nudges over his coffee cup. “Drink. Uh, Cas? Is Sam maybe kind of sick to be a vessel? There's guys out there with better stamina and shit. More reliable bodies. No offense, Sammy.”
“None taken.”
Cas says, “I don't think Sam's asthma was a mistake.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“No,” Sam says, pushing his palm into his chest. “Don't want to talk about it,” because sometimes when Sam's doing this bad he just can't, and usually that's fine but this is sort of the fucking apocalypse.
But it's also Sam.
Dean gives Sam his fingers so he can twist them. “I hate angels,” he says. “No offense, Cas.”
Cas frowns a little. “None taken? Is that the proper response?”
Sam taps his shoulder against Cas's.
**
They need naps and nebulizers, so they haul ass to a different fucking motel, where an angel doesn't have their damn address. When Dean wakes up around eight in the morning, Sam's gone.
And fuck, the last time he woke up and Sam was gone, he was in the bathroom doing shots of demon blood, so sue Dean if he's a little fucking nervous, okay?
But Sam's not in the bathroom. He's right outside the door to the motel, on the ramp leading to the door, gulping down air and fisting his hair.
Dean stomps and scuffles his feet on the way to him so Sam will know he's coming, so by the time he gets to him Sam's picked his head up. Dean thought was crying, but he isn't, just wheezing.
He drops down beside him. “You're feeling somewhat less shitty, right?”
Sam runs his forehead. “Than when Zachariah had his metaphorical hands around my very much not metaphorical lungs? Yeah.”
Dean breathes out and feels Sam watching it with this jealousy and amazement and fuck, Sam, just fuck.
“He's not going to let me breathe,” Sam says.
“Zachariah can't find us unless I tell him our fucking address again, and yeah, fuck that.”
“Lucifer.”
“I...”
“He wants me to say yes. And I have two major fucking weak spots, and he's figured out one of them, and how much time do you think it'll take before he starts hurting you the way Zachariah hurt me?”
“Stop, Sam.”
“If he made you not breathe...” Sam clenches his fists. “It was all leading to this, Dean.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We've been figuring out pieces and pieces of this, but this, this has to be the fucking endgame. How can it get worse than this?” He chokes out a laugh. “At first asthma was just this thing I had, no big deal. Then we find out some demon bled in my mouth and he wants me to be some super soldier, but then why would I be sick? Must have been a mistake, or a nifty self-destruct button in case I go too out of line. Oh, no, wait, it was all so I would drink demon blood and start the apocalypse. Oh, no, wait, it was so I'd start the apocalypse and then get tortured into being a fucking vessel for Lucifer.”
And Sam's upset, Dean gets it, it's fine, but then Sam ducks his head and mumbles something that sounds way too fucking much like, “You should have let me die three years ago,” and no, sorry, Sam, no.
“Look at me,” Dean says, and when Sam doesn't, he grabs his chin and yanks him towards him. “Do not make me do a fucking speech about how full of fucking shit you are, and how if I hadn't brought you back this shit wouldn't have happened, because fuck if we know where you would have ended up, and Azazel would just have had Jake fucking whoeverthefuck doing this shit and he'd probably already have said yes to Lucifer and be frying buildings with his eyes or whatever the fuck Lucifer does, all right? You had to be brought back to life because you are Sam Motherfucking Winchester and that's not open to any fucking debate as long as I'm around, asshole. Jesus Christ, Sam, you can't fucking breathe, and here you are beating yourself up about the fact that these assholes made you not breathe. Don't get mopey, get angry.”
“Get angry? You want me to get angry?” Sam jerks away and stands up. “Jesus Christ, Dean! I'm so fucking angry that I feel it coming out of my skin, it's like I'm fucking sweating it but it still won't get the fuck out of me. I'm angry all the fucking time and I can't ever figure it out, and I'm angry that my fucking girlfriend burned on the ceiling and apparently I'm never going to get over it and angry that Dad never trusted me and angry as all goddamn fuck that this all is happening to us, and I'm angry when the diner doesn't have the fucking kind of lettuce I want or the motel doesn't have hypoallergenic pillows and I'm just always fucking mad all the time. It's killing me. And I could never fucking figure it out, why I'm so fucking angry and other people are love and sunshine and rainbows and pretty tears and maybe it's because I was designed to be a fucking five-star hotel for Lucifer and you want me to get angry?”
He stands there, gasping for breath, holding himself up on the railing.
Sam doesn't talk that much anymore.
Because Sam, who used to be Dean's chatty little kid who wouldn't fucking shut up, who used to keep him up at night making jokes and giggling and telling Dean the plots of movies that Dean watched with him, Jesus Sam and describing how his lungs felt and bugging him while he loaded his gun, this fucking kid doesn't talk much anymore because he doesn't have the air for it.
It gets worse the older he gets.
It's not a coincidence.
It's just this shit that rules their lives.
“I'm pretty sure we just did speeches,” Dean says.
Sam laughs, which turns into fucking endless coughing.
Dean gets to his feet and holds Sam up, hugs him a little.
“You can't protect me this time, Dean.”
“Fuck. I know.”
“He...if he figures out how close we are, we're fucked.”
“I know. It's fine. We're going to be fine. It's going to be fine, Sammy.”
Sam pinches his nose. “If he figures out how bad the fucking asthma is...”
“Sam. Stop.”
“I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to be around to see this.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don't know,” Sam says.
But he does.
“We're supposed to destroy the world together, Dean,” Sam says, pinching the skin over his tattoo. “And I keep destroying shit no matter what I do. Maybe we can't stop that.”
“Sam. Stop.”
“So maybe we have to stop being together.”
**
Dean's okay.
He's fine.
He and Sam talk and argue and hug and throw a punch or two and now they're packing up his stuff three days later and it's fine, it's going to be fine, until he realizes it's August 11th, and seven years ago today Sam left for Stanford.
And just, fuck. God, that was a shit time. Dean had been steeling himself for it for months and he still ended up freaking the fuck out, being this unbelievable asshole to Sam, and Sam kept grabbing Dean's hand like he was going to twist it up like he fucking always does when Dean's getting upset or mushy or whateverthefuckingfeelingsy, but instead he just held it and ran his thumb over his knuckles over and over.
“I'm going to see you all the time,” Sam had said.
“No. You're not.”
“Yes,” Sam said, with exactly the same damn determination. “I am.”
And fuck, he did, because Sam is always the fuck right, and then it was October and Sam was at his door with a fever and then December and Dean was at his hospital bed in Palo Alto when hen he had fucking pneumonia and then Dean was there all the fucking time whether or not Sam was sick because he just likes Sam, okay? He just likes him.
But at Stanford Sammy had friends and an RA who knew he liked to try to drop dead and then he had Jess and an address where Dean could always find him and a hospital where people knew him and he was safe and home and now he's going away and he has none of the fucking above.
He won't take the Impala, so they hotwire something with good gas mileage and tons of airbags and Sam laughs at him a little because of all the fucking things to worry about, seriously, airbags? But Dean doesn't want to think about all the fucking things to worry about so Sam can shut the fuck up.
“Are you going to hunt?” Dean says.
Sam tosses his duffel into the car. “I don't know.”
They're just standing in front of the motel, next to this fucking station wagon. Waiting for some sign that it's okay for Sam to go. A sign that's never going to fucking come.
“Where are going?” Dean says.
“I don't know.”
“Call, okay? Just...call. So I know you're not dead.”
“I will. You want to set a day?”
Dean wanted every fucking night, like John used to do when they were separated. “Um.” And Sam of course reads his fucking mind.
“Dean, if we're in contact too much...they're going to fucking know. We have to be careful. One of us will lead them to the other and then...and we just can't let them use us like that.”
“I know. I know. Tuesday.”
“Okay. I'll call every Tuesday.”
“If you get sick, you call, you understand me?”
Sam nods a little.
Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “Nebulizer and all the stuff for it are in the backseat. I stashed all the EpiPens I had in the glove box. And there's tissues and Benadryl and stuff. And like five spare inhalers, which isn't even me being overprotective, it's me going through my stuff and wondering where the fuck all these inhalers came from and realizing they'd be better with you than with me.”
Sam smiles at him, nods a little.
“And...steroids and anti-inflammatories and the nightly allergy stuff are in your bag.”
“I know.”
“Well, I double-checked.”
“I have dental floss and needles for sutures. Some antibiotics. Ace bandages. Salt.”
“Cleaned all your guns.”
“Machete, lighter fluid, silver bullets.”
“Okay.”
“You be careful,” Sam says.” Don't do anything stupid just because I'm not around to kick your ass.”
“You. Take care of yourself. Try to stay clean?”
“I will.” He swallows. “I'm going to be fine, Dean.”
They never hug goodbye.
They hug hello and not goodbye, because hugging goodbye is bad fucking luck. John hugged them goodbye and left them with sweet words, with perfect fucking endings, and then he wouldn't come back for days and days after he was supposed to so fuck if Sam and Dean ever let themselves have anything that could be a nice last moment when they're splitting up because fuck if they're giving themselves any permission to goddamn die while they're separated.
So he starts to say something stupid and anticlimactic and then Sam wraps him in this hug, and he's so strong and big and here and fuck.
And then he's gone.
**
Five days later, Tuesday, Sam calls at ten A.M. and Dean ducks into the widow's bathroom to take it.
Sam says, “Hey shorty.”
Dean looks down and bites his lip.
“Hey,” he says.
“It's Tuesday. Checking in. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fucking Christ, you sound good. You're not...”
“No. I'm not.” He sounds a little pissed off, and Dean can't really blame him, but once an addict always an addict and Dean has to check. “I've been lying around doing fucking nothing. I'm writing papers for college kids. You won't believe what these desperate jerks will pay. It's like hustling pool but I can do it in sweatpants.”
“So lying around eating bonbons, taking care of the lungs.”
“Pretty much.”
“Awesome.”
“I'm not doing this forever. Bobby keeps sending me stuff...there's shit out there for me to do.”
“I know, but-”
“I know. I know, Dean.”
Dean nods a little and scuffs his feet on the witnesses perfect fucking tile floor.
“How's Michael?” Sam asks.
How's Michael. Michael's in his head telling him he's beautiful and perfect and fantastic and he wants him so fucking badly, and doesn't he want to say yes? Doesn't he want the good guys to win? Doesn't he want to stop this before Sammy gets hurt?
“He's peachy,” Dean says. “And Lucifer?”
“Lucifer's an asshole who likes to clamp down on my lungs when I'm asleep, so guess who's up to twelve cups of coffee a day?”
“Jesus.”
“He can't get to me unless I'm sleeping. Coffee's good for my breathing. I'm getting an hour or two here and there and I'm okay. Probably the same as you.”
Dean has an angel caressing him in his sleep.
Dean has an angel promising him it won't be that bad.
“What does he say to you?” Dean says, quietly.
“Oh, that I'm awesome made of pure raw sexual energy and he loves me more than anyone in the whole world,” Sam says, and if Dean thought that would make him feel better he was pretty fucking wrong.
“Shit, this sucks,” he says.
“Pretty much. Hey. You okay? Is Cas looking after you?”
“Don't need looking after, Sam.”
“Just shut up.”
“Yeah. He is. You?”
“No. He doesn't know where I am.”
“Yeah. About that.”
“No.”
“Just so I'm nearby if something happens.”
“I'm breathing.”
“Yeah, but it's not exactly one of your most consistent character traits. Can I just be a few states over or something? Does anyone know where you are?”
“No.”
“Damn it, Sam. Have you made any fucking friends or something?” So, yeah, he's desperate, big fucking news there.
“Dean. I'm fine. What are you up to?”
“Interviews.”
“I should let you go.”
“No.”
“Dean.”
“Fuck. It's been a fucking week. We went months at Stanford. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Sam laughs a little. “Kind of a different situation. I was, you know, warm and safe in a dorm room. And I'm not exactly stressing about British literature exams nowadays.”
“Yeah.”
“But I'm okay. And you're okay?”
“I'm okay.”
“Are you eating?”
“I'm supposed to ask you that. Of course I'm fucking eating.”
“Smoking?”
“Like a fucking chimney. Come stop me.”
“Drinking?”
“Like Dad. Come stop me.”
“Dean...”
Dean closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall.
“I want to come back so fucking bad, Dean,” Sam says. “I need you to not let me, okay? Stop making me feel like I'm...you know? I hate this too.” Sam's voice is funny. “I really fucking hate this.”
“God, are you crying? Seriously, a week. Man up.”
Another little laugh. “I'm not crying, asshole, I'm wheezing.”
“Take care of that.”
“Yeah. I will. Talk to you in a week. Um...” Sam pauses a minute, then says, “You,” softly, and then hangs up.
**
They do that for a month and a half, talking just on Tuesdays with a rare midnight call for a bad nightmare or a really bad asthma attack (really really bad, and Jesus, Dean doesn't want to think about the ones Sam isn't waking him up for).
He calls him one Sunday night so Sam can talk him through stitching up wrist. Sam wheezes the whole time.
“Fuck, I'm coming back,” Sam says. “I'm coming back.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “No. You can't. We can't, Sam.”
The nightmares are getting worse, and Sam's breathing is getting worse, so no, no, they can't fucking be together. They can't be weak.
And fuck everything.
“Don't say yes,” Sam says.
“What? I'm not going to say yes.”
“Don't say yes.”
Sam doesn't come back.
But Sam also doesn't say yes.
But Sam also doesn't really breathe.
So they keep going like that for a while.
**
It's a stupid thing to say, that Dean misses Sam like hell.
But he does.
**
And then Dean's phone beeps at 4 AM in the space between Sunday and Monday, and before Dean's even opened his eyes he's whispering, “No, no, please no.” Because he hasn't slept in three days and he hasn't heard from Sam, which is fine, okay, it's fucking fine, but 4 AM calls are not fine.
But it's not a call. It's a text.
Awake?
Yes he texts back, and ten seconds later, his phone rings.
At first he hears nothing, nothing, and then it's this sound that makes his heart beat like a fucking hummingbird, because it's this wheeze, so quiet and long and forced, and Dean can hear him pushing it out of his chest with everything in him. It stops abruptly for this choked, wet, howling noise that's got to be Sam trying to inhale. He's not coughing.
“Oh my God, how did you fucking text me?” How is he fucking conscious?
Sam just keeps breathing or whatever the fuck you would call that and fuck fuck fuck.
“Call 911, Sam. Now. You hear me? Call 911.”
The wheezing's getting lighter and lighter because Sam is getting tired and he's not moving enough air to make noise and Jesus.
Sam hasn't hung up, which means he hasn't fucking called 911, and no, shit, that is not okay.
“Sam. EpiPen. You have one near you?”
No answer, of fucking course, but they're probably in the first aid kit which is probably in the bathroom and Dean knows that Sam can't get there right now, Jesus, Jesus, this is why he doesn't get to be alone.
“Hang up.” Dean barely recognizes his own voice, partly because yeah, he's fucking crying a little, but mostly because Sam is sick and he's fucking telling him to go where Dean can't hear him. “Hang up and call 911, you understand me? Sam. I know you're dropping out on me, buddy. Hang up. Now. Call 911.”
There's another forced inhale, just a fucking stutter, not anything, and then the line goes dead.
Dean's immediately online, checking if Sam has the GPS on on his cell phone but of course he fucking doesn't, and Dean doesn't even know what direction he'd start driving in to find his Sam.
So he sits up and pulls his knees up and presses his face into them and tries not to think about his blue baby brother who Jesus fucking mother of God better be doing that wheeze at a 911 operator right now, not to think about how Sam is right, that they need to stay apart, that Lucifer is doing this to Sam tonight as a fucking test.
Tries not to think about how badly Lucifer has to torture Sam for him to say yes.
Tries not to think about saying yes.
About Michael in his dreams, promising to fix Sam.
To touch his lungs, make them beautiful and pink and new.
**
It's Monday. No word from Sam.
And then it's Tuesday.
And no word from Sam.
**
“I'm going out of my fucking mind.” Dean paces back and forth, gripping the phone so hard it hurts. “You don't have any idea?”
“No,” Bobby says. “He won't tell me, and I haven't talked to him in weeks. He's probably moved since then anyway.”
“Jesus mother of Christ Jesus fucking shit.”
“Have you talked to Cas?”
“No.” He runs his hand down his face. “He can't find him, not unless Sam tells him where he is. And if Sam's in any state to tell anyone anything he'd be on the fucking phone.”
“I'm going to make calls, see if anyone's seen him. You should have Cas do the same. Dean. Try not to panic? You know he's alive.”
“Lucifer could let him die for God knows how long just to fucking punish him. They could fucking bury him. You think he could breathe underground? I don't fucking care if he can't die, he's somewhere sick and fucking miserable and alone, and if he's in a fucking coma or knocked out on some respirator, it's all Lucifer all the time.”
“You're worried he'll say yes.”
“I'm worried about fucking everything! He could be passed out and rotting in some motel room until Lucifer decides it's time to spring him back to life. Some possessed nurse could be slipping him demon blood, or he could just be fucking scared out of his mind but all I know is he can't get in touch with me and the last time I was away from him this long I was in Hell!”
He pants and that makes him hate himself so it's about time he put his fist through a mirror, so he goes and takes care of that.
“Jesus Christ, Dean, what did you just do?”
“Call everyone. You understand me? Everyone.”
“I will. And you call Cas. Why the fuck haven't you called Cas?”
The answer is so fucking obvious that Dean can't believe he has to tell him.
Because Cas is his last hope, of course.
**
Cas bandages his hand and tells him he's sorry, but he has no idea.
“Ask around,” Dean says, head ducked. “Please.”
“Dean. I'm not going to do that.”
“Please.”
“You don't want any angel but me to find him.” He dabs Neosporin on Dean's hand. “And it's not as if I'm on good terms with most of Heaven anyway. I doubt they'd listen to me.”
“Damn it, Cas,” he says, but he's not mad, he's just so damn tired.
Cas looks up at him. “You should get some sleep.”
“Fucking Michael taunts me about him. And then Zachariah shows up. Where the fuck are you, huh?”
“You want me in your dreams?”
Dean thinks Cas is trying to smile.
He drops his forehead to Cas's shoulder. “I want Sam.”
Cas's hand goes to his back. “I know.” He gives Dean a few awkward pats. “Get some sleep, Dean. I will watch over you.”
He is so, so fucking tired. He lies down and closes his eyes and feels strange. Like he's falling.
**
Dean can always tell when he's dreaming.
Sam never believes him, but he always, always can. It doesn't always make it better, doesn't mean he can snap himself out of it, but even when he's drowning in Hell nightmares, he knows that he's not really there.
Which means he wakes up a in trashed, dusted-over motel room and knows that this isn't a dream.
“Uh. Cas?”
Nothing.
There's some sign up about Croatoan, dated 2014.
Great.
**
He's driving some hot-wired car through this post-apocalyptic whatever the fuck when Zachariah shows up.
“Looking for a hospital?” he says.
“Go the fuck away.”
Zachariah chuckles. “Sam isn't in one.”
“Fuck you.”
“First thing you do when you get here is look for your brother. And yet you won't say yes to Michael. Michael who promised to let your brother out of the hell Lucifer's putting him through.”
“Michael who's probably helping torture Sam so I'll be dying to get the band back together and go destroy the world, with him, Laverne and Shirley style? Do you think I haven't figured this shit out by now?”
“You talk a big game about not fitting into our little plan, but you're the one looking for your brother,” Zachariah says. “But you're not going to find him here any more easily than in your big bad world out there. Not unless you say yes.”
“Fuck. You.”
“You should have said yes, Dean. And here's how it's going to play out if you don't. Welcome home.”
Dean drives faster.
But he doesn't know what he's looking for.
Cas, he tells himself.
Not Sam.
Not while angels are watching him.
**
Clues (and not fucking angels) lead him and this piece of shit car to Camp Chitaqua, and if he had any question if he were in the right place, here's his baby in the world's shittiest condition, and here's fucking him, and come on, alternate universe Dean, why you got to be a dick? He sees the butt of the gun coming at him and doesn't duck in time.
**
Future Dick Dean keeps cleaning his guns like that's supposed to fucking impress him. Dean sucks on the cut on his arm from the silver knife.
“So what year, again?” Dick Dean says.
“2009. Where's Sam?”
“Jesus, was I really that obsessed with Sam? This is fucking embarrassing. You know it's creepy, right?”
“What? Fuck you.”
“People talk. Fuck, people still talk, and you haven't seen him in five years.”
Dean freezes.
“What?” he says.
Dick-that's just going to be his fucking name, because look at this asshole-shrugs, but he has the decency to look down. “Yeah. September 29th, 2009. What day did you say you were from?” He's being patronizing. He's being an asshole.
“October first,” he whispers.
“Well.” Dick says. “Isn't that a shame.”
The fucking bullshit of Dean's life means that he feels like he can't breathe.
This isn't real.
His world is real.
He can get back there and he can fix this.
Dean tugs against the restraints. “Did he die? That night in wherever the fuck motel room, when he couldn't breathe?”
“You're going to have to be more specific. You just described your entire goddamn life.”
“September 29th, you fucking asshole.”
Dick straps a holster around his thigh. “No. He hung on for a while after that.”
“And you didn't go see him? We don't find him?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because Sam doesn't want to fucking be found, apparently, I don't know. But the next time you hear any-fucking-thing about him isn't until after you've stopped searching for him and started searching for Michael to scream take me take me take me in every fucking sense of the term and getting fucking nothing and the world's gone to shit and then you get the non-fucking-surprise that Lucifer's riding Sam like a fucking stallion.”
“Charming. Did he...”
“Hurt us? No.”
“Then why the fuck did he say yes?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Dick loads his gun. “Hell of a kid you raised there. A fuck of a lot smarter than you, I can tell you that much.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He plants his hands on the table. “Lucifer is having the time of his life parading around inside Sam, and look at the goddamn world. The angels fucking bailed. So puny little fucking human us is rallying the troops to fight a war where we can't win, so you want to do me a favor? Get the fuck back to your real time, say yes to Michael, and kill Sam before he kills you.”
Dean pulls on the handcuffs. “You're my least favorite.”
“Cute.” Dean pulls his jacket on. “I'll check on you later. But if I were you, I'd beam the fuck out of here. Today's important. Don't fucking ruin it.”
**
He's looking around for something to pick the handcuffs with when the door opens and fuck, he's been grateful to see him lately.
“Cas. Jesus. Hey. C'mere.”
“Why hello, Dean from the past.” He plops down cross-legged in front of Dean. “How nice of you to grace us with your lovely presence.” He grins at him.
“Aw, fuck, you're Fake Cas.”
“That. I. Am. Fake Dean told me you were here.” He's still smiling. Cas is fucking smiling. “It's good to see you. Been a while.”
“Since I wasn't a complete tool?”
He giggles. Giggles. “Precisely.”
“Uh, are you stoned?”
“Preeeeeecisely.”
“Pot kill your angel mojo, or can you still zap me back?”
Cas fiddles with the handcuffs. “Angel mojo's long the hell gone, fuck if I know from whence it...left. Ha. I don't know. I'm just one of the boys now. Maybe I'm your new Sam.”
Dean rubs his wrists. “Sam would fucking die if he smoked pot.”
“Eh, you could do a lot worse than dying nowadays. Zachariah send you here?”
“All part of the grand plan to make me say yes. I need to get home. Sam's sick.”
Cas nods a little. “We'll figure it out. Just...hey. You.” He punches Dean's shoulder. “When you get back? Do something different.”
“Like what? Say yes to Michael? I can't do that.”
“I don't know. But don't make us do this.”
Dean breathes out. “I need to not become that asshole.”
Cas cocks his head a little and looks so much like his real fucking confused self, and then he reaches out and pulls Dean into a hug. It isn't like hugging Sam, where the kid's trying to make sure every damn muscle of his is in the hug. It's gentle, warm. Careful.
“I miss you,” Cas says.
**
Everything happens really fast, guns and Croats and idiotic plans, but somehow they lead him to this wasteland of a garden and should Dean really be surprised?
Dean isn't stupid.
He knew Zachariah's little tour of the end of the world wouldn't be complete without this last stop.
He just didn't want to make it.
So now the Dick's holding off Croats outside and he's here because Lucifer wanted to talk to him, and Dean is having a hard time giving much of a shit what happens at this point, not in this fucking world, not with these goddamn people.
What the fuck is Sam wearing?
He closes his eyes and pretends it's because he doesn't want to see that hideous fucking suit, not because he doesn't want to see those unfamiliar looks on his most familiar face (doesn't want to think about Lucifer undressing and redressing his kid, hands all over him in the shower, doesn't want to think about how much Sammy fucking hates being possessed).
“I know you're in there,” Dean says, and he will not open his eyes, will not will not will fucking not. “Sammy. Kiddo.” He swallows. “You're in there.”
“Oh, he's in there.” LuciferSam sits down on this bench.
“Sammy. Fuck. Just kill me.”
“I'm not going to kill you, Dean. I'm glad you're here. So we can talk. Can you open your eyes?”
Dean feels like a fucking child. “No.”
“It doesn't have to be this way, Dean. Sammy doesn't want it to be this way.”
Sammy. It sounds so fucking strange in Sam's voice.
“He's so sick, Dean,” Lucifer says. “I'm doing the best that I can to look after him, but he was so damn sick by the time I got to him. I'm worried about him. When it's time for me to ascend back to heaven, I'd like to leave him someday. I'd like to reward him for being so...helpful. But he's so sick.”
Dean clenches his jaw, hard, because fuck if his chin is shaking, fucking fuck it. “You made him sick.”
“It didn't have to be this way.”
“You want me to go back to real life and tell Sam he's supposed to say yes to you, because some acid trip of future is telling me that's what supposed to happen?”
“This...” He smirks. “Acid trip of a future isn't telling you anything about what's supposed to happen. It's telling you what will. Sam will say yes, Dean. It's just a matter of what you make him go through.”
“Sam wouldn't say yes.”
Lucifer sighs a little.
“Dean,” he says. “Do you know what oxygen deprivation can do to a boy?”
No.
Dean gets Sam oxygen.
Lucifer sighs. Bit and deep and clear. He doesn't care if Sam's body is sick. They never do. They never care, really.
Sam could be dead in there.
Dean can't see him at all.
“Sam had seizures,” Lucifer says. “He fell asleep for a second, and I was there. He tried spells to keep me away, so I put him in comas for weeks. I killed him and brought him back more times than you could count. He had headaches and nausea and God, the raw panic of not being able to breathe. It never left him. And you didn't come for him. And I threatened you until he cried.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut.
Sam.
“Eventually he was fainting if he tried to stand. He couldn't eat. He lost motor control. He could hardly book motel rooms, so he slept outside in the cold. He got sick. I stopped letting him die.”
“Stop.”
“By the time I was done with him, Sam couldn't have picked you out of a lineup. He didn't know his own name. But I made sure he kept one word, and that words was yes.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Lucifer spread his (Sam's) arms. Shrugs.
“It doesn't have to be like this, Dean. I never wanted to hurt Sam.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Go find him. Go be with him. And hold his little hand and tell him to say yes.”
“Go to Hell.”
Lucifer laughs. “Funny turn of phrase.” He goes to the gate and opens it, stands aside. “You can go. I'll see you soon, Dean.”
**
“Now you get it,” Dick says. They're back at the fucking campground, and Dean doesn't know where anyone else is. Dick Dean's covered in blood. Dean's afraid to ask.
Cas. Oh, God, Cas.
“I might hate you more than Lucifer,” Dean says.
Dick coughs out a laugh.
“Why the fuck did you let this happen?” Dean says.
“You tell me, Dean-o. It started with you.”
“No.”
“It's been two days since Sam called you dying in that motel room. Why the fuck aren't you with him?”
“Because...”
“Because you think it's what the angels want. Because you're a selfish fucking bastard who thinks he knows better than anyone.”
“Splitting up was Sam's idea.”
“All right. Fine. Then stop bitching.” He twirls the Colt around. “Croats are cleared out now. You were a nice diversion. Time to go kill the devil.”
“What?”
“I told you this was a big day.”
“You're not killing while he's in Sam.”
Dick lowers the gun.
“Dean,” he says. “Seriously. You've got to be fucking kidding me, here.”
“It's Sam. How could you let him go?” Dean feels his hands clenching. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You raised him for thirty fucking years, you l-loved him within an inch of your goddamn-don't you make that fucking face at me! And he loves you. He tells you all the fucking time. And you are a fucked up disgusting person and he loves you, and how the fuck did you let this happen to him? He needs you, okay, he fucking needs you, and he is the best thing that's ever been in your goddamn shithole of a life. He's the fucking sun.”
“Get out of my way, Dean.”
“You owe him for everything and you are a horrible motherfucking brother!”
In a way, he's kind of proud that that's what makes the Dick punch him.
But it's hard to concentrate on that right now.
Because he's busy beating the shit out of his future self.
He drives punch after punch into Dick Dick Dick Dean's cheekbone and into his stomach and under his ribcage because fuck. This. Guy. God, it feels good to hit something. It feels really fucking good to hit himself.
Dick is clearly so fucking confused about the whole thing. Stunned. He's on the floor, now under Dean's elbows, bleeding from the lip and struggling and he can't get free.
“I don't get it,” he rasps. He's fucking wheezing. “Why are you stronger than me?”
Dean looks right into this asshole's eyes.
“Because I have Sam, you fucking idiot.”
And then there's a hand on his shoulder, and Cas in a trenchcoat with no smile, and Jesus oh thank God and he says, “I really hate Zachariah sometimes.”
“Let's go home, Cas?”
He touches his forehead and everything goes white.
**
He's back in his motel, a hand on his chest, breathing with everything in him.
Cas scuffles his shoes. “I'm sorry about that.”
“Yeah, nice job looking after me, there.”
“Zachariah had a human informant. It took me some time to get to you. But you seem all right.”
“I'm...I'm great, actually.” He's out of bed, pulling on his jacket, slipping into his shoes.
“Where are we going?”
“I don't know yet. We'll find out.”
**
Bobby calls in favors.
Cas prays.
Dean tracks Sam's patterns and drives short stretches with his eyes closed and follows his gut.
The truth is, he knows where Sam would go if he wanted to feel safe.
He's surprised Sam here before.
**
“I loved her, you know?” he says, quietly, to Cas, when they're a few miles away.
Cas looks up at the hospital. “Where are we?”
Dean swallows. “And then she died, and...and Sam just needed me. He's still so not over it. This is...this is the thing that Sam carries.”
“You carry your mother.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, shortly, because let's not fucking go into that, okay?
(Dean carries bone and muscle between his teeth.)
“And I know that what she and Sam had...that's fucking rare. That doesn't just happen. She loved him more than...I don't know. She loved him a fuck of a lot. And when he was around her, he was just new. It wasn't even like he was lying to her. It was like he'd just started this brand new fucking life. And I'm the idiot who thought he could have it. And then she died. And Sam was fucking broken, and I held him up, and I just...loved her and never fucking dealt with that.” Fuck. Fuck all of this. “One time she told me 'welcome home.'”
“Where are we, Dean?”
“Oh. This is where Sam went to college. Um. This is our home.”
**
He leaves Cas in the car-let me do this, I have no reason to believe he's there, let me not get our hopes up, okay--and he's prepared to walk into the ICU and surprise his intubated kid like he did seven years ago.
But no. That was in December.
This is October 5th, and seven years ago today, Sam surprised him at his motel room door.
Sam surprised him, just like he does today when Dean walks in and there he is, signing paperwork at the desk, real clothes on, bandage from an IV on his hand.
Sam.
He comes up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey.”
Sam turns around and whispers “shit” and then he's hugging Dean with one arm around his shoulders and the other wrapped around his head, like Dean's the one who's been sick. Except Sam's bent around him and breathing all shitty in Dean's ear and Dean says, “Hey, hey, come here,” and pulls away enough to grab Sam by the hair behind his ears and yank him down and kiss his forehead.
Sam laughs a little.
“Shut up.”
“Fuck.” Sam tugs on the hair on the back of Dean's head and then lets him go, takes a step back, pulls Dean out of the flow of the hallway. “You found me.”
“Why the fuck didn't you call?”
“Had the tube down the throat until two hours ago, and I couldn't remember your number. Brain all scrambled from no oxygen.”
Couldn't remember his own name.
Dean swallows. “But you're okay now? You're checking out AMA, I'm guessing...two hours off the tube, you fucking idiot.”
“I needed to find you.”
He cups Sam's jaw in his hand and looks at him. Sam leans into it, lifts his chin so Dean can see his lymph nodes. Does all the fucking things, is the whole fucking world.
“Let's get out of this fucking place,” Dean says. “We've got shit to do. You want to get some sleep? Cas will watch us. We can break into your old dorm, you want that?”
“Together?”
“Together.”
“Thank fucking God. I'm sorry I left.”
“Yeah, well, I was a fucking idiot for letting you leave.”
Sam smiles. “Yeah. You were.”
“Douchebag.”
“Yeah, but...”
“Mine.”
Sam tugs on Dean's ear on the way out of the hospital. “Mine.”
“Yeah, you wish.”
Sam smiles, but he's so fucking wrong, because this is the way it goes: Sam is Dean's burden and Dean's responsibility and Dean's reason for being alive and Dean's fucking favorite, and if they're driving off the edge of a cliff, they're driving off together.
But not today. Today they're breaking into a dorm room.
“Come on,” he says. “Let's go say no to some angels.”