**Brother And Friend**
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Obviously.
A/N: I just had so many Sammy feels after last night's episode, I couldn't help but tag it. Don't forget to leave a review if you feel so inclined!
Special thanks to Nova42, CornishGirl, and cfccfc, who are like my own little SPN sub-family; crying and screeching and having heart attacks together.
Lebanon
40 miles
The old truck rumbled under Sam's feet as he sped toward home, but he barely noticed the feeling. He barely noticed anything at all, really, his thoughts racing. The Mark, the Stynes, Dean, Cas, Charlie's death, Dean, Charlie's body burning, the cold, dead, dull green of Dean's eyes, the Mark, Dean—
Dean.
Dean.
Sam nearly choked on the hard lump in his throat, the way his chest wrenched tight. They were so close now, so unbearably close; but his brother was nearly gone. He'd seen it happening since Dean found out about the Book—it wasn't that Dean had stopped fighting, not yet. But the sense of betrayal and anger he'd felt at Sam for lying to him, combined with Charlie's brutal murder, had given the Mark enough ammo that Dean was finally crumbling beneath the onslaught.
He knew that was his fault.
He still couldn't find it in himself to be sorry. He was up to his neck in a lesser of two evils situation here, and he was doing his best. It wasn't good enough—not ever good enough—but it was all he could do.
Sam blinked back the sting of tears. He would save Dean, or he would die trying. He almost didn't care which anymore.
Memories assaulted him even now—heavily featuring Dean, and him, and all those moments they had lied to or betrayed one another—but one came to the fore and stuck there, because he finally understood it. Really understood it.
He'd gotten the flu last year, not long after he'd told Dean they could be hunting partners but not brothers—a speech he still regretted with every excruciating breath—and Dean, so soon after the Trial Sickness and Gadreel's expulsion from Sam's not-quite-healed body, had gone full mother-hen on him in spite of himself. Sam had been lying in bed, half-delirious and half-asleep, when Dean had started talking, probably assuming he was unconscious, or at least unconscious enough.
It was a thing Dean did, and Sam had learned early on to pay attention when his older brother went all vulnerable if he thought Sam wouldn't remember it later.
"I wish you'd let me tell you, Sammy," Dean had said, choking on his own voice. "I wish you'd let me tell you how sorry—and yet not sorry at all—I am. But you'd never listen long enough for me to get it out."
Sam hadn't moved, tuning into the tone of Dean's voice, all pain and regret and self-recrimination. He'd been perversely pleased to hear it at the time, Dean deserved it.
"You were dying, Sam—dying. I had to make a choice in a split second, there wasn't time—"
"Sam, burn it now!"
A split second, no time, have to make a choice.
Switch the books, toss one into the fire.
"You silly boy…"
"So I had to save you. Or I had to try. Sammy, I had to try." Dean had paused, and Sam, still angry and bitter, hadn't responded, lain quietly and almost wished he was asleep. "So I let him in. I tricked you, I lied to you, and I let him possess you so you could heal."
"You did the right thing, Sammy, the book needed to be destroyed."
Guilt, mistaken for grief.
"We'll find another way."
"And the worst part?" There had been tears in Dean's voice then, and Sam, knowing what had been coming, had shifted as if in sleep, tilting his face away from his brother, simmering rage making him quietly cruel. Dean had gasped out a stifled sob. "I would do it again, Sammy, I really would. I'm sorry I lied, I'm sorry I tricked you, I'm sorry it was such a violation, but…I can't imagine what else I could've done. I'd do it again."
"You know what happens if we don't cure him. You know where that road ends."
"Black eyes and blood."
"Go. Find him, Cas. Keep him safe."
It had been mere weeks after that incident that Dean had been taken from him, and if those months alone had taught Sam anything, it was that his self-righteous rage toward Dean had been completely and entirely hypocritical.
He was no different.
In fact, he was probably worse. Dean, at least, had not destroyed innocent lives in his mission to save Sam.
"So let me ask you. Which of us is really the monster?"
Sam knew the answer. Knew that in spite of Dean's constant assertions that Sam was his conscience, that Sam kept him human, that Sam was the morally superior of them…really, the opposite was true.
Without Dean, Sam ceased to exist, replaced instead by an obsessed bastard that made John Winchester look like a freakin' saint.
"There ain't no me if there ain't no you!"
Sam pulled the truck into the garage carelessly, noting Baby's absence with a sigh of relief.
He'd beaten Dean here. Good. Maybe when his brother arrived he could talk him down.
If Cas had arrived by then, all the bett—
Which was as far as he got before he noticed the front door wasn't just hanging open—which would've been worrying enough—but was gone entirely. Sam felt gooseflesh erupt on his neck and arms that had nothing whatsoever to do with the cool air. His feet carried him to the door at a run, without conscious command from his brain. When he reached it, he stopped cold, the tightness in his chest increasing to the point of pain.
Trashed.
Books scattered everywhere, furniture overturned, random flotsam strewn across the floor.
Home.
Oh god, their home. It had been turned into a warzone. Had Dean done this? Who else—?
He saw the corpse, silver knife sticking out of its back…an unfamiliar corpse…
He raced down the stairs, to the entrance of the library. A pile of books and clothes, tables overturned, and…and…
Two more bodies, unfamiliar. Well, one unfamiliar. The other?
Eldon Styne.
The Stynes had been in their home.
A small sound from his right caught his attention, and he turned toward it, gun at the ready. When had he even pulled that out?
A tan trench coat, drenched liberally in red.
"Cas!"
The angel didn't seem to hear him, forehead resting on the floor as he crouched on his knees and palms. His back was heaving, and Sam could tell even from here he was severely injured; probably very recently, if he wasn't healed up yet.
He lurched toward Cas, intent on finding out what had happened. Pieces of this were falling into place, and he didn't like what he was coming up with. Cas didn't use bullets—he hadn't killed the Stynes. What had the Stynes even been doing here? They hadn't been the ones to beat Cas, he was almost sure: even juiced-up humans were no match for—
Sam stopped short two feet away from his friend. Cas' angel blade was stabbed viciously into a book right beside his head, and he was making the most horrible sounds. Sam realized with not a little shock:
The angel was weeping.
Sam's heart pounded frantically against his ribs even as his stomach rebelled for the second time in as many days. This time he didn't succeed at holding it back. He turned away, and was quietly but thoroughly sick in the brass trash bin nearby.
Dean.
Oh my god, Dean.
Spitting the taste of bile from his mouth, Sam let his shaking legs take him to the ground as he shuffled toward Cas. The angel didn't seem to register his presence until Sam laid a tentative hand on his shoulder, and he didn't attempt to hide his tears when he met Sam's eyes. His wounds were healing fast, but his eyes…his eyes were dead and haunted.
"I am so sorry," he croaked. "Your brother is….Dean is gone, Sam."
Sam didn't respond—couldn't—except to pull Cas close, as he would have Dean, once upon a time. Cas seemed uncertain, but even an Angel of the Lord couldn't resist the need to grieve with someone who felt the pain just as keenly. He pressed his forehead into the flannel and shook with suppressed sobs. Sam simply breathed, numb. The pain danced at the edges of his consciousness, and he knew when it hit, he was going to crash and crash hard.
But just then, they sat there in an uncomfortable tangle, Brother and Friend; and mourned the loss of the One for whom they had each, in their own way and time, sacrificed everything.