Here lies injured and insistent Sam, angry and angst-y Dean, and the baring of souls (or lack thereof).

*Set within but not in continuity of early season six*.

Word count: 4088

Instincts

Sam made a little broken noise, barely perceptible and terribly blurred, and Dean was about to completely lose the freaking plot because that was so much damn blood for such a short amount of time and Dean's hands were slippery and red on the steering wheel and his vision was washed white and scared and Sam was fucking going to be okay. He had to.

The highway whipped black and insignificant and cowering beneath the wheels of the Impala as Dean mashed the accelerator down, speed inching past one-fifty, one-eighty, two-hundred. His teeth clacked together, tight and violent, as he shot infuriated, terrified looks at Sam whimpering in the passenger seat.

"Hurts, Dean," Sam mumbled distantly, apparently unaware of the massive fucking scale his wounds were on and Dean just nodded aggressively, reached over and pressed his over-shirt even tighter to the jagged gashes in Sam's chest, spat bile out the window when he thought of the creature that had gotten its claws into Sam. Their faithful vehicle rumbled thunderously and snarled sped headlong the dark highway.

"I know, Sammy, I know, jus', just hold still, we're nearly there." Dean glanced over to Sam again, old habits dying hard; hell, habits so old they were instincts ingrained underneath his skin defiantly refusing to die, as long as both the Winchester's were breathing. He nearly jerked the wheel left and sent them straight into a dusty hillside in his involuntary lurch to grab at his brother when he saw Sam's eyes slipping shut. "Hey! Hey, hey robo-cop, you hear me? Stay awake, goddamn it, Sammy!"

One of Sam's huge hands pawed weakly at Dean's and Dean shook it off as best he could without jostling Sam's injuries. His heart careered wildly with adrenaline and crazy-stupid-my-one-freaking-job-is-to-look-after-my-brother-why-can't-I-do-that fear, and Sam's head rolled lazily on his neck, swinging to look at Dean. There was even an eye roll and a compressed line of a mouth thrown in, because Sam was a belligerent ass like that. "Can't sleep, Dean, remember? I already told you that," Sam slurred and Dean bit into his tongue sharply.

"Doesn't mean you can't pass out from blood loss, genius, now hold still."

The Impala snarled dependably beneath Dean and Sam, gunning forth like a glistening black bullet from the pistol that was Dean's panic. Air whistled past the somewhat unwound window thinly as a result of their violent velocity, and the brothers were pressed back against the leather upholstery.

They had been in some tiny town chasing up some tiny rumours about some teeny tiny missing persons cases, and they had been checking out the disappearance site of the most recent woman (the woods, of all places, as though people just went wandering out there for ease of monster abductions these days), and they had heard a weird crackling noise and thus pulled out their guns, a thick gleaming knife cool against the small of Dean's back just in case, and they had separated from each other a few feet and they had scoped out the surrounding trees and Dean had taken his eyes off Sam for one freaking second.

And then Sam had screamed.

Dean had whirled around so fast his head spun, encountering some utterly unprecedented nightmare of towering height and ghoulish features; clicking beetle mouth and dripping white eyes surrounded by endless black, and claws as long as the day itself, as sharp as Dean's tongue – claws that were buried, rib-deep as Nurse Dean later found out, in Sam's chest with terrifying intent. His little brother flailed like a rag-doll toy on the ends of those beastly skewers and Dean's mind hazed over entirely and solely to Sammy Sammy gotta save Sammy last thing this fucking monster ever does Sammy Sammy.

Dean had yelled and hollered and gallivanted about in utterly panicked wrath, shot the damn creature eighteen new holes with everything he knew to (rock-salt, silver, iron, average bullets, the works), threw several canisters of holy water into its gaping jaws, even swiped at it a few times with his silver blade until its freaking knife-fingers of Hell had finally, finally, released Sam. Dean had grabbed at his little brother's body, slick with pulsing hot blood and bright, horrifying red, and had completely and totally bailed. He didn't even care to deny it, not with Sam bleeding to death right in front of him.

"Dean, Dean," Sam mumbled again and Dean was instantly hauling Sam closer across the acres of front seat they had, without a second thought, pressing his soaked shirt firmer to Sam's front even as his hand slid hopelessly off and into the thick, muddy puddle surrounding Sam. Sam pitched sideways gently – almost elegantly, the asshole, all bloodied and broken and gangly and he was still graceful – and ended up half on Dean's shoulder, half on his lap. "Hurts, Dean," he repeated dumbly and Dean's heart stuttered in his chest, something hot curled lowly in his stomach.

Dean was going to lose his mind if he didn't see the motel turn-off sign in the next thirty seconds, because all he needed to do was stop the freaking bleeding and stitch Sammy up and fix him a nice fresh white bandage but they were too fucking far away and Dean wasn't going to make it and Sam was going to die because the fucking woods just had to be across town.

"At least… tell me… you got the, the thing," Sam said, drunk on pain, "Can die… knowing the fucker's… dead."

And this time Dean actually did jerk the wheel, and as he cursed and swerved back into place and tried in vain to calm his galloping heart, he also lifted his hand from Sam's wounded abdomen and struck him straight in the back of the head with as much force as he could muster, given their current positioning. Sam gasped and groaned, floundering a bit before settling back down against Dean with laboured breaths.

"The… hell?" he questioned, voice as cataclysmically weak and wavering as a naked flame in a hurricane, and Dean's lip curled, teeth gnashed, hand tightening and knuckles growing white on the wheel. He pressed his foot down further still on the accelerator.

"You shut the hell up with that talk," Dean snarled, gluing his hand back to Sam's chest, jamming his own shoulder and knee up into awkward stations around his brother to try and stem the blood flow. "I don't give a damn if you don't care because you don't have a soul or whatever, okay, Sammy, because I care and you are not going to die on me. And you are certainly not going out with all this macho bullshit of killing the thing that got you."

"It… comes with the… job, Dean," Sam breathed slowly and Dean clenched his teeth, revved the car a little higher than she should go.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Sam, or I'll gag you- oh, thank God."

A guttering neon sign displaying their current home's name manifested on the dark highway and Dean urged his baby haphazardly faster, left the stinking smell of burnt rubber on asphalt as he pulled a sharp turn and fish-tailed his way into the parking lot. The Impala screamed to a halt – Dean making a mental note to wax her up nice and shiny and maybe get new tyres once he'd gotten Sam out of this stupid mess – and Dean ripped the keys out of the ignition.

Not bothering to glance around for fear of normal people, not even caring if anyone saw him dragging a half-conscious, limp, blood-covered body into his room going on dusk, Dean shoved his car door open and dragged Sam onto his lap. Sam made a low whimpering noise, precious and barely stolen between his pained pants and Dean's throat tightened, anger reared. A harsh stream of curses that would make a sailor blush vaulted involuntarily from Dean's mouth, strained and awful and chick-flicky in their desperateness, what the fuck ever. He curled the sodden, red material of what used to be his shirt around Sam's torso a little tighter before shooting upward and determinedly heaving Sam over his shoulder, kicking shut the car door. Taking a few running leaps and mentally apologising, verbally saying, "Suck it up," every time Sam moaned, Dean finally reached their room and burst in.

"What are you… doing?" Sam uttered without a voice as Dean threw him unceremoniously down onto the nearest bed, so pissed off at letting his brother get hurt that he was forgetting a little bit to assist in not hurting him himself.

Dean ignored his brother and stormed back and forth from the bathroom cabinet to their rucksacks, teeming mass of hyper-infuriation and distressed hands running through short hair, muttering a list of things a whole lot worse than death threats under his breath as he assembled the first aid kit. Sam watched him almost petulantly, little gasps thieved between his teeth and neck tight with pain, braced on his elbows, until Dean slammed down a seat next to the bed and mashed a few pills and chugs of water down Sam's throat.

"How are you… feeling?" Sam gasped once he'd spluttered a little and swallowed and Dean harrumphed, bared his teeth and shoved Sam back down against a few pillows. Streaks of grime and shocking red were everywhere and Dean knew they were going to have to burn these sheets, let the manager think they were just hooligans who stole them.

"Just fuckin' peachy," Dean growled, wrestling with Sam's t-shirt buttons for approximately three seconds before giving up and ripping it down the middle, immediately drenching Sam's marginally clotting wounds with alcohol. Sam hissed and jerked and Dean flattened a palm over his nearest shoulder, held him down forcefully. He spent a minute that brimmed with tension cleaning Sam's injuries, snapping, "Don't be a baby," and "Hold still," every few seconds as Sam twisted underneath his hands, sniffling. Dean tried (and failed spectacularly) to ignore the way Sam's little unable-to-be-supressed whimpers of pain wrenched on something in his chest and stomach at the same time, making him feel like passing out and vomiting and destroying an entire city (himself included) all at once. Dean cleaned Sam's wounds with a battered firmness, careful delicacy quivering through his hands when he busted out the dental floss and needle and set to work at keeping Sam's insides just that; inside. Sam gasped, "Hurts," (as if Dean didn't know and wouldn't trade places in a heartbeat) and, "Dean," every other moment and Dean nodded, tried not to make too many sissy girl-empathy noises that Sam would definitely give him shit for later. Especially considering the asshole didn't even have a moral compass, currently.

Finally that was done and Dean's hands were sticky and wet and there was bile in his throat. Sam was panting heavily, his eyes closed but Dean knew he was fully awake.

"What was… all that about?" Sam mumbled, face subconsciously crumpling with every breath and if that damn expression of pain running rampant on his brother's features didn't justify everything Dean did, then Dean imagined nothing would. "The panic, the swearing? How do… you feel?"

His eyelids fluttered open and his gaze rested on Dean, head cocked to the side a little and Jesus, Dean rocked so violently from protective to enraged that his vision blurred. Dean could punch Sam in the face right now because he was lying there, the bleeding barely stopped and anguish still etched into the grime creased lines on his face, and he had the fucking audacity to turn his near death experience into a goddamn lesson.

"Are you studying what it's like to have a soul, right now?" Dean snarled and Sam blinked and pursed his lips a little in consideration – whereas the old Sam, who had a soul, would have flinched and apologised but continued pushing anyway. It appeared the latter of these things was the only quality the two Sam's shared (typical).

"What were you so worried about? I'm fine." Sam looked down at his caramel chest, wrapped securely in towels and "clean enough" rags until the bleeding slowed enough for bandages. "And if I'd died, well, it would have been on the job. It would have made you kill the thing. Probably a good tactical move, actually."

And Dean was done, so he did punch Sam in the face instead of repressing himself.

"Dean! What the- will you stop hitting me? What the hell was that for?"

"What don't you get about shut the hell up or I will gag you?" Dean growled, and he shoved up from his seat and retrieved a hot towel from the bathroom before sitting back down at Sam's side. The tender touches with which he tended to Sam's minor cuts and bruises contradicted his words entirely. "You're so fucking stupid. I get it, I get it; no soul, right? Figuring out how souls work, with this prime specimen conveniently by your side day and night? It's a fucking tactical learning move, right? God."

"I…" Sam looked a little lost, his eyes watching Dean's hand as it pressed the towel over his collarbones. "So you're all worked up about my soul? Or, lack of?"

Dean breathed out sharply. "Of course I am, Sammy! I'm worked up because you don't have a soul, and because you nearly died, and because you think your death would have been a good tactical move, and because you don't care about any of it! What do you think happens to me if you die- but, god, it's not like you care. You can't care."

Dean clenched his teeth and continued with his cleaning silently, ignoring Sam's questioning gaze on his face, ignoring the left over clawing hole he felt in his gut from the scare a blood-covered and apathetic Sam had given him.

"You… you're scared," Sam said slowly and Dean was about to tell Sam he could just go ahead and shove this conversation where the sun doesn't shine, but Sam made a soft small noise, realisation manifested, and his fingers curled lightly around Dean's wrist. The movement was clumsy and awkward as soulless Sam didn't understand the desired effect but shit, said effect still hit Dean like a brick wall and so he stayed silent as Sam mused aloud. "Scared… for me, not for yourself. Scared that I could have died. Scared… simply because you want me around, because you… care about me… right?"

Dean met Sam's eyes with startling swiftness and Dean sucked in his bottom lip, blinking forcefully. Sam stared back unknowingly – soullessly – and Dean felt another piece of something important shatter in his chest, as he did every time he was forced to acknowledge that his brother may as well have busted out a notepad and pen right now and started taking notes, he understood human relationships so little.

"Yeah, something like that Sammy."

(break)

"So… what does terror feel like?"

Dean sighed. It was currently two A.M and he was still awake, on account of the soulless (and, by default, inconsiderate) brother of his whom did not sleep and also incidentally had a fatal chest wound, and there was no way Dean was going to be able to catch some shut eye with Sam like that, or with Sam thinking an injury like that was 'no big deal' ("A stubbed toe is no big deal," Dean had snapped irritably at midnight out of nowhere, hours after Sam had made the nonchalant comment, "A shallow cut is no big deal, hell, a bat to the head is no big deal, but this? Just- shut up.")

In his detachment, the incapacitated dumbass would probably be out trying to score a chick, with aforementioned wound more likely than not being the pickup line (it's what Dean would do) should Dean have left him alone for longer than ten minutes, let alone sleep. Thus he was baby-sitting the graveyard hour and onward, fetching food and water and painkillers for Sam because no way in hell was Dean letting Sam move around, and that was just that. In order to appease his own undercurrent of distress and the continuity that was the ache of Sam's new and cold-heartedly-improved being, Dean had steadily been consuming the nearest alcohol he could find in attempts to occupy his mind, to get the image of Sam bloodied and limp in his arms out of his head.

In short, Dean was not in the mood for Sam's shit.

"Sam, I swear to God-"

"No martyr stuff, I swear," Sam interrupted, looking disconcertingly sincere in a soul-Sammy sort of way from the bed he was propped up in, and Dean sighed again. He stood and made his way over to Sam, folding down in the chair he'd left by the bed's side. The lamp's glow was soft and undisturbed, rolling over everything within its reach and lending a golden and blurry hue, whether it be the bandaged regions of Sam's torso, the bloodied make-shift instruments of treatment set aside or the weary gait of Dean's walk.

Dean took a contemplative breath as Sam waited, looking almost like his old self and making Dean's heart clench as though a fist was wrapped tight around it.

"Terror is like…" Dean glanced up at Sam again, took a swig of his beer and held their gaze. "Terror feels like… being eight years old all over again and walking down a staircase in the dark, and thinking there's one more step. Your foot falls soundlessly and where something solid should be, there's nothing instead, and something in your stomach just… drops entirely." Dean blinked slowly. "No, more than drops – it just disappears; gone. You can't see anything, can't feel anything but this falling sensation, this feeling that the world has been taken out from directly underneath you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it." Dean swallowed another mouthful of beer, shrugged and looked at the floor. "That's terror."

"And you felt that when I was hurt?"

Dean's eyes were pulled cuttingly to Sam's. "Yeah, and then some."

"But what about the anger?" Sam prodded and Dean's teeth clenched, not really in the mood to have his every action put on the line of inspection. If Sam could just see his own face when he was in pain, hear those little gasps that had the power to end the world, should they cease… Jesus. Dean didn't want this on his mind.

"The anger is a panic response," Dean snapped, and then he flinched even though Sam hadn't cared about his tone, probably hadn't even noticed and definitely wasn't hurt by it. Dean involuntarily softened his voice when he continued anyway. "I see you injured and I go into a sort of… frenzied auto-pilot. I just- you have memories from before, man, you know what I do."

Dean was back to eyeing the floor and was rendered speechless by the times he had seen Sammy die, by the thought that Sam now didn't care if he died, or if Dean died; would just acknowledge it and move on. The sensation was similar to what Dean imagined injecting a flaming Molotov cocktail into his veins would be, shattered glass and all.

"I don't feel much for you, really," Sam said suddenly, as though reading Dean's mind and Dean recoiled violently from such a sentence being delivered from his brother's mouth, balked at the burning whiplash it rained upon his chest. "But," Sam continued and he sounded hesitant and confused, "This body… Sam's body, the instincts of Sam when he- I had a soul… I, I like being near you." A quick glance at Dean's face and Dean was shell-shocked all to hell and back, eyes bloodshot. "There's aspects and instincts and habits that I do, and I don't know why I do them but they're all for you, to make sure I stay with you and around you. This body wants to be near you. I feel… I feel physically on edge when you're out of sight and I don't understand why. I have no reason to. But this body knows you. It, it wants to be with you, and it makes me want that, somewhat."

Sam shrugged, as though he hadn't just delivered the mother of all bomb-shells on Dean's heart, and glanced up at Dean. "Is that… is that caring about someone?"

"What do you feel right now, Sammy?" Dean asked roughly in response, his breath short and stolen, as though this conversation with his brother was a precious secret that must be kept safe at all costs, hidden from each and every prying eye.

Sam tilted his head slightly, perplexed. "I hurt."

Dean stifled the instinct the wince, buried it with his blood boiling hot because this meant so much more from a soulless brother, this fulfilled every stupid chick-flick moment Dean had so adamantly denied but so readily adorned, and Jesus he loved Sam, needed him so much, had ever since the kid had turned twelve and started inherently rebelling against everyone and thing, loved him and hated him so much his pulse throbbed with it.

"That's a physical sensation; 's not what I meant," Dean clarified, voice horribly ruined and desperate and Sam was giving him an odd look, his 'I don't understand, why're you acting that way?' look with heart-shattering naivety. Dean lurched forward to the edge of his seat, craned toward Sam. "What do you feel?"

And the most miraculous thing happened. Sam, with all of his lack of moral compass and cold blood, his non-existent conscience and calculative mind, took a deep breath and allowed his face to totally collapse in on itself. His eyebrows furrowed and drew together, creases appearing on his smooth forehead and crinkling around his nose and mouth, eyes blinking owlishly, his breathing just this side of concerning-deep and Dean touched a palm to his brother's shoulder and apparently that was it, because Sam gasped.

"Safe." Sam looked incredulous, eyes scoping Dean's. "I feel so freaking safe with you Dean, how it that even possible? I don't have a soul-" but Dean was cutting Sam off because he had hauled Sam forward into a vice-tight grip and was hugging him so hard his arms ached, was biting into his tongue until he tasted blood just to be sure that he wasn't going to cry. Sam was unaccustomed to such an embrace, but there was only a brief moment of hesitance before Dean felt thick arms on his back, Sam's ruffled and blood-stained hair on his cheek and neck and Dean muffled a sob, shook his head and held Sam firmly to his chest.

"It's, uh, it's okay Dean," Sam murmured after a moment, his voice a little too loud and the wrong pitch to be comforting but he was trying to be comforting, without a freaking soul or a clue about what caring for someone felt like, and Dean's chest unleashed a god-awful noise entirely without permission. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm, uh, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah, I'm here, Dean, I'm here and I'm so safe and I'm with you."

"Goddamn it, Sammy," Dean grated out with a voice like serrated knives and Sam made more noises, mumbled more inconsequential crap that imploded in Dean's heart like landmines, and soulless Sam, in all of his many splendored heartlessness, would never understand what his words did to Dean; Dean, whom had been losing and shattering and crushing up little pieces of himself each and every time he noticed a piece of his little brother that was gone, but for now, right now, with Sam's arms tight around his middle and Sam's burning, desperately healing chest pressed to his own and Sam's uncertain, sincere voice thrumming low and consistent in his ear, and knowing, even in quite possibly the shittiest situation that had been thrown at them yet, that Dean was still the most important thing to Sam in the world…

That might just be enough for Dean.

(break)

The next morning, Dean woke up to find himself wrapped around and draped wholly upon his younger brother, whom was wide awake and fairly amused with the whole situation, an abundance of clingy oriented jokes packed in his arsenal. They stoically shoved off each other and failed distinctly to bring the previous night up in any manner, which Dean imagined Sam was fine with. Dean stole Sam's spoon during breakfast and ate half of his little brother's meal amidst rolled eyes and sniped retorts, and Sam sighed and laughed and called him a jerk and Dean smirked in response, and Dean almost convinced himself that everything was okay.

Almost.