A/N: This idea has been brewing for the past few months or so ever since I more or less rewatched the entire series, but nothing ever came of until last night. At like 3 in the morning, so that was fun.
[cross-posted on a03, lj, and tumblr. feel free to ask for those links, if you want?]
Anyway, brotherly schmoop-y who-knows-what tag/deleted scene thing from In My Time of Dying that takes place right after Sam asks Dean to keep fighting and right before Dean wakes up. Or something like that.
Dean, are you here? I couldn't find anything in the book. I don't know how to help you. But I'll keep trying, all right? As long as you keep fighting. I mean, come on you can't, you can't leave me here alone with Dad. We'll kill each other, you know that. Dean, you gotta hold on. You can't go, man, not now. We were just starting to be brothers again. Can you hear me?
—Sam Winchester, 2.01 In My Time of Dying
eyes wide open shut close
Sam stands there, all but looming over his brother's body and doing absolutely nothing. Nothing useful, at least—just standing there like a too-tall moron in this too-small room that's too cluttered with machinery that has him twitching away and then scurrying back as he bobs between the bed and doorway like a deformed game of Pong.
Anyone in passing could think he's come to say goodbye before one of the doctors, nurses, anyone else pulls the plug and calls it, signs the body over to the Winchester family and lets them commemorate a former life however they will.
Dean's quiet, way too quiet, just a steady thrum of beeps and pings that are supposed to serve as signals that he's still somewhere among the living.
Sam refuses to acknowledge that the tube there—that one lodged down his throat, the one that'll have him hacking and hoarse if when he wakes up, bitching about a sore throat and ice chips—is currently the only thing keeping his brother breathing.
His big, strong, indestructible brother has been reduced to this, this limp form strewn across a hospital bed, drugged to the gills with a medical cocktail of IVs and machinery that's meant to keep him alive and stabilize his condition rather than improve it, let alone cure it.
It's the aftermath of the Rawhead all over again, and in his concussion-induced daze, Sam half-expects Dean to crack open an eye and make some quip about leaving him the Impala and how he'd better look after her, least big brother haunt his ass. And then Sam will give that forced huff of a laugh, shake his head, and say no. And then he'll find another faith healer, maybe, somewhere, somehow. And then Dean'll give a brief speech about how someone else should be alive instead of him, and Sam'll feel guilty for a bit, but more concerned with how his brother's not dead or a smoldering pile of ash buried six-feet under.
They're finally brothers again, he repeats to himself, and their celebration is one lying comatose and the other refusing to mourn because how dare they, Dean's not going to die. Dean's never going to die; it's not in his DNA.
The legs of the hospital-issued bedside chair scrape against the floor in such an obnoxious manner that, in the back of his mind, Sam's surprised none of the staff constantly bustling about has popped in to reprimand him. Even if one of them had, he wouldn't've even noticed, too caught up in staring at his too still brother and trying to think of something.
He thinks of what Dean would do, bites back any would-be uplifting speeches that taste like bile and slumps forward in the chair, hands clasped together tightly and fingers twisting the skin of his knuckles sharp enough to cause pain he doesn't feel.
The machine that's supposed to be monitoring the unnatural, steady beating of Dean's heart is stuck in an unwavering rhythm and Sam tries and fails to amuse the both of them by attempting to find the beat of any familiar song in them, but he can't find Smoke on the Water and it's a far cry from Ramble On, so he sighs and stares down at his useless hands. He should be doing something, anything, and instead of helping his brother, he's sitting next to him and moping because he can't.
Dean's heartbeat is dull and monotonous, everything Dean isn't.
Sam's own is stuck in staccato, pulse thrumming in his ears and temples bordering on the edge of starting to hurt and pounding as he reaches for his big brother.
Dean's hand isn't exactly cold, isn't exactly warm as Sam wraps both of his around it. For a moment, his mouth quirks into an almost smile at the notion that any other time he'd get bitched at with no chick flick moments, but this isn't any other time and he'll be damned if he's not going to seek out some sort of comfort from his big brother, even though it should be the other way around.
The Ouija board may have been something, sure, but it was a fleeting moment in a big glass jar of moments. The glass is cracked, and all of those fleeting moments are spilling out of it, slip-sliding onto the floor and pooling around his feet until he can't tell the difference between them and he wants Dean calling him names, calling him "Sammy," calling him "bitch," not a block of wood with a hole in it telling him "YES" his brother was there when Dean himself verbally couldn't.
Dean's face is pale, too pale, chest moving in that forced upward-downward movement that is less sleep and even breathing and more a reminder that Sam's failing and Dad's all but ditched them again.
Part of Sam wants to get angry with their father, he really does, but he's too drained in every sense of the term and his head is throbbing again and his body aches all over and Sammy, the twelve-year-old clawing his way out of that place twenty-three-year-old Sam buried him in years ago and crying for his big brother, Dean.
The cut on his lip has opened up again and he suddenly he can taste blood, everywhere, anywhere—on his teeth, the back of his tongue, sliding down his throat and gathering in his empty stomach. He gnaws at the break in skin, gouging the wound open further before he stops and pressing his forehead to the block of padding that supposed to serve as Dean's mattress right next to his hip.
A choked sound bubbles up past his lips, spilling out across their hands, one too still and the other too unsteady.
Sam attempts Dean's name only once before gasping in air and dragging his bloodied lip between his teeth in an attempt to stifle himself.
He turns Dean's hand, palm turned upward and open, calluses across the pads of his fingers and Sam stares at it for a moment before his breath hitches something that could be a sob and presses his cheek against it. A certain part of him, the one that turned thirteen and didn't want to be called Sammy anymore, the one that at nineteen was told if he walked out that door not to come back, wants to rip himself away, sit tall and proud because that's the Winchester way and quit crying into Dean's hand and bemoaning his potential loss because neither one is helping matters any.
He's not sure how long they remain like that, Dean lying prone and unnervingly still like death with Sam slumped against him, not sure how many monotonous beeps it's been since he became a sobbing lump of dejection and self-pity.
Eventually, four beeps after the undisclosed number of beeps is Sam finally able to sit up again, the muscles in his back and aching in protest and lets out something like a wet sigh. He scrubs at his face with his hands, wiping away the small smear of blood on his chin and rubbing fingertips against his forehead before dropping his hands to his lap.
It'll be fine, really, maybe, hopefully.
Dean won't die because Dean fuckin' Winchester doesn't know how to die, doesn't know the meaning of the word unless it's the monster of the week bathed in salt and kerosene.
Sam tells himself to breathe, and a few beeps later he's somehow managed to wedge his way onto the end of the bed, body curled around Dean's legs and his own haphazardly dangling off the edge of it. Mindful of the wires and IV and the amount of poking and prodding some woman with a PhD had been doing, Sam remains there, keeping watch over the brother who used to pride himself over mother-henning his younger sibling, who used to pick on but not pick on him for being shorter, for wedging the just of his chin into his collarbone and being a general nuisance because that's what younger brothers are supposed to do.
So he sits, and stares, and watches, and waits, and decides that somehow, someway, neither of them will ever be here again.
Dean will never again see a hospital bed, will never so much as have to perch on the edge of one to interview a witness, will never have to inhale the scent of sterilization and death and the hustle and bustle of those only prolonging the inevitable.
Sam opens his mouth one last time, not to say goodbye, not to utter redundant words of encouragement, but to utter something that gets lodges up in his throat and won't come out.
The beeps keep time with the stuttered movements of his silent mouth, and he ducks his head before he considers trying again.
Dean beats him to it, wide-eyed and choking and gasping and awake.
For the first time in an hour, Sam is about to speak articulately again, though it's hoarse and the sound of his own voice is leaving him floundering, just not so much as is the sight of Dean gagging on that damn tube and alive. "Dean?"
And for a brief instant Dean manages to focus his attention on something that isn't discomfort and his gag reflex, manages to look at his brother, manages to convey the message loud and clear. Dean is awake, is alive, and lying right there in front of Sam and is about to kick his ass.
Sam calls for help, and Dean says but doesn't say that it's okay.
Sam stands there, all but looming in the doorway, twitching with the need to go throttle his brother because god dammit, Dean, you're a jerk, but doesn't.
Sam wants to sob, wants to take the nurse rushing through the door by the shoulders, run down the hall and drag his father back in and scream and shout and laugh and point and Dean because I told you, I fucking told you.
Dean chokes, sputters, gasps, and wheezes, and it's okay. It's okay, because it means he's alive, mean he can roll his eyes and cuff his baby brother upside the head in reparation for initiating chick flicks moments, can drive with the dial cranked up, crooning words and lyrics and being a general nuisance.
Dean chokes, sputters, gasps, and wheezes, and the beeps are less dull and monotonous, and more lively and rushed and live.
He's pale, cold, and shivering, and his brother's staring like a dumbass, trying to offer a smile, but the smirk tugs at the gash in his lip again. Dean fights, stares and thrashes, and Sam has to plaster himself against the wall to keep from elbowing his way through the medical team surrounding his brother and can only watch instead.
One of them takes a breath, and it sounds more like a sob. The other wonders where their father is.
Dean says but doesn't say that it's okay, even though somehow it's actually not.