A/N - This was written as a prompt fill for the OhSam Comment Fic Meme by ladybastet92 on Live Journal (See the prompt below)

Original Prompt:

After Dean and Sam separate season 5, Sam stops talking. Even if he wants to, he has somehow lost the ability to talk. Maybe he's subconsciously become too afraid that he'll say yes, he's cannot even trust himself to speak. Maybe it's his mind's way of punishing himself. Whatever the reason, Sam adjusts during those months apart - well, as best he can as he becomes more and more consumed with guilt and self-hatred. He ignores all calls - none of them are from Dean, anyway - and detaches himself as best he can from those around him.

When Dean meets up with him again, he's of course shocked at this new development. Whether Sam starts talking again eventually is up to you, but I'd love to see Dean coax him out of his mental shell in little, big-brotherly ways.

Dean

Dean stands outside the service station talking to Bobby on his cellphone "So you haven't heard from him either?" he asks, adding in a "Damn it!" as he punches the door he's standing beside. Dean has been trying to find Sam for about a month now, every call he's made to Sams phone hasn't been answered, he knows the phone must be getting charged regularly as he never once meets an instant voicemail greeting.

"I don't know what to tell ya kid, when your brother wants to stay hidden... he damn well stays hidden. I've tried everything I know, hell I've tried every contact I have. No-one has seen or heard from your brother."

"So what do I do then? Just accept that he doesn't wanna hear from me and move on?" Dean isn't willing to believe that this is how the Winchester story ends, not like this, it was never meant to end like this.

"I don't know Dean... I'm sorry. I'll keep trying, but that's all I can offer son" Dean hears Bobby sigh into the phone.

"Alright thanks Bobby" he offers. He doesn't know what he would have done without Bobby these past few months.

"No problem. Keep in touch kid. Bye" Bobby hangs up on his side and Dean flips is his phone closed.

It's been three months since Dean last saw his brother, since Sam walked away from him. It's been one month since Bobby called him telling him about the run in that Sam had with Tim and Reggie. Dean has tried calling Sam at least once a day since that call from Bobby, and he always reaches voicemail. He's received all of two texts from Sam. The first one came after the first week of Deans relentless calls to Sam. It said 'Got your message, I'm okay, just working through some stuff'. The second one came about a week ago and read 'I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me. I know where to get you if I need help.' Deans worry has been steadily increasing ever since.

He sighs while thinking 'the hell with this' as he flips the phone open again and sends another text Sam. It reads 'Look Sam. We need to meet up and talk about this. I don't care how fine you are, I'm worried about you and I need to see you.' He thinks about adding a 'Bitch' at the end of text but thinks the better of it and hits the send button.

About a minute later Dean is still staring at the phone willing it to ring when a text comes through. He doesn't let it get his hopes up until he opens the phone and sees that the text is from Sam. Sams reply reads 'Okay, I'll meet you. When and where?'. It's short and it's straight to the point, but Dean will take this reply over none at all.

Sam

After Lucifers message, Sam wakes up right away, he's sitting bolt upright in bed and hyperventilating. He grabs his cellphone from the beside table & scrolled down to Deans number. Once his brothers name is highlighted he stares at the phone as his thumb hovers over the dial button. He throws the phone away angrily, where it hits the opposite wall and falls to the floor, he couldn't call Dean with this. He can't bring himself to burden his brother with this new revelation. He's tried calling Dean a few times, but the calls are never returned. He sits on the bed shaking his head saying "no" for a while, he can't believe that this is happening. After being responsible for releasing Lucifer, he now finds out that he is the devils vessel. He falls asleep as the sun is coming, the exhaustion taking him under.

Sam wakes up with a start, and after he gets himself packed up and straightened out, he goes to pay his bill. As he's paying up, the hotel clerk notices a girl crossing the road outside, he comments "Oh Jesus, she needs to be careful that is one busy road out there." to Sam, before muttering to himself as he collects Sams receipt "Why don't they ever use the damned crossing?"

Sam laughs with him as a car narrowly misses her and says "She'd better watch she doesn't get knocked down" as cars continue to whizz past her. Almost immediately after Sam is finished speaking, he hears a truck horn blasting & it slams into the girl. Sam grabs the receipt from the guy & runs. 'I caused this'

He's on the verge of a panic attack as he pulls out of the motel parking lot, it doesn't pass as he drives out of town. It gets so bad that he pulls into the first rest stop he sees and he breaks down thinking 'ohgodohgodohgod it's starting'. When Sam has managed to calm down enough, he goes into the service station bathroom and he freshens himself up a little. After he's done, he goes into the shop to buy himself a bottle of water. The woman behind the till asks him "Can I get you anything else with that Sir?"

He opens his mouth to respond, but he thinks the better of it, not trusting himself to speak right now. He politely shakes his head while pointing to his throat, the universal symbol for 'i cant speak'. A look of sympathy crosses her face, but she quickly gets rid of it and bids Sam an "Okay, you have a lovely day then Sir" and she moves onto the next customer. After the service station, it just becomes easier to lie to people... easier to not use his voice. A point to something on a menu and shake of the head as he points to something else translates as 'I'll have that, but I don't want that included'.

One month later, he sits in another nondescript motel room thinking about how he got to this moment, how did he sink so low? He didn't trust himself after the demon blood, he thought he was doing the right thing there and look how that turned out... he ended up releasing Lucifer... This time he won't be anyones puppet, he won't let himself be tricked again. It all comes down to the simple conclusion that if he doesn't use his voice, then he can't say yes... He looks at the pill bottle, filled with sleeping pills, sitting on the beside table and he contemplates taking the lot, but it never worked the last few times he's tried it, and he guesses this wouldn't be any different. Lucifer is staying true to his promise of 'And I'll just bring you back' anyway.

A few weeks later, Sam picks up his phone as it rings again Dean. Sam wonders why his brother keeps calling. He'd tried calling Dean a few times, but he never picked up, and never returned the call. Any calls he'd received in the last few months had never been Dean, nor had they brought him any news about his brother. Even when Bobby called, he'd never raised Deans name. Ten minuted after Deans last call, he gets a text from his brother that reads 'Look Sam. We need to meet up and talk about this. I don't care how fine you are, I'm worried about you and I need to see you.'

Sam sighs as he reads the text, tears welling in his eyes. He's thinking 'I can't avoid him forever. Somehow he'll find me. I guess it's better that he hears from me than from someone else'. Before he knows it he's texting Dean back 'Okay, I'll meet you. When and where?'. He laughs sadly as he rereads the text he just sent, as he thinks 'Even my texts are getting shorter'.

Together

They arranged in the end up meet at the side of a lake, it reminds them both of so many times in their lives when they've sat in a similar place and discussed in depth things and said things that needed to be said.

As Dean sees Sam pull up in his car he notices that his brothers hair is a little longer, and as Sam exits the car he sees that he has some stubble that he wouldn't have been seen dead with a few months ago, and also that he's lost some weight. "Hey Sam" he says as he starts walking towards his brother.

Sam holds his hand out as he thinks 'Shit.' No matter how much he'd prepared for this on the drive over, it's a thousand times harder now that he's here. A look of concern crosses Deans face and Sam shakes his head and points to his throat, it's been so easy in the to brush people off with this gesture, but with Dean it feels like he's tearing his gut out.

"Sammy?" Dean asks, while thinking 'What the hell is going on here?'

Sam grabs his phone from his pocket and types in 'I can't speak, my voice doesn't work', and thrusts the phone to Dean. Dean looks shocked and looks from the phone to Sam and back again twice. Sam nods and Dean screws up his face and looks again at the phone.

Dean nods and says "Okay, lets get ourselves a motel and then we can sort this out". Sam nods and automatically they both go to the Impala. The car has a feeling of 'Home' for Sam that he hasn't felt since he left Dean three months ago.

Once they get back to the motel, Sam automatically goes to the farthest bed from the door. Dean looks pleased and moves to the bed closest to the door. Once he's put his bag down he fixes Sam with a glare and asks "Okay, whats going on?"

Sam shrugs his shoulders which translates as 'How am I supposed to tell you if I can't speak?'

"They have pens and paper Sam. You sit at the table while I find it." Dean answers determinedly.

Sam moves to the table and briefly wonders if it's worth his while trying to lie to Dean, or whether he should just tell his brother the truth and get it over with. Dean has always been good at reading him, and he's always been able to tell when he's lying. 'Maybe it was something to do with my voice?' he wonders. He's dreading telling Dean about what Lucifer said, but he knows he needs to. He can't carry this burden anymore, and if Dean knows, then they can tell Castiel, and maybe he can come up with a way to protect them.

Sam is shaken out of this thoughts when Dean plops down in the seat beside him. He slides a pen and paper pad over to Sam and says "Okay, spill".

Once Sam has written everything down, he hands the pad over to Dean and watches as his brother reads. Deans eyes go wide at parts, and at other parts his face takes on a murderous shade of red. He looks up to Sam and suddenly he's full of questions. "He posed as Jess?"

Sam nods in reply and looks down, burying the hurt that the memory brings to the surface.

"And Tim and Reggie...?" Dean trails off, but Sam catches the 'are they still alive?'.

He again nods in response and grabs the paper back, quickly writing 'I only fought back, they ran away after that'.

Dean nods as he grabs the paper back, looking through it for the next thing that he wanted to ask his brother about. "So Lucifer visited you in your dream? He didn't find you?"

A nod for the first question and a shake of the head for the second question.

"So you've figured that it's best not to speak? At all?" Dean asks, as though he doesn't really understand his brothers logic on this one.

Sam grabs the pen and paper back off his brother and taps the pen next to where he's written 'if I don't speak then I can't say yes'. He quickly writes beside it 'I won't mess up again Dean. I can't mess up again.' as he looks up to his brother through tear filled eyes.

Dean wont let the subject drop over the next few days, he's constantly on Sams back about speaking, "Why don't you just speak to me?" "Why won't you just speak to give a damn order" "Hey why don't you go into the cafe and order this time". His attempts all fail, and are all met with a shake of the head from Sam.

A few weeks later

Dean has been trying to get Sam to talk over the last few weeks since they got back together again, but every time he tried, Sam refuses and shuts down the one sided conversation before it can even begin.

One night when they are sitting in their motel room, He decided that he's had enough. He's not letting Sam go down this road. He tries a slight change of tactic this time, and he asks "Hey Sam, do you trust me?"

Sam nods and a look of 'of course I do jackass' crosses his face - who says you need words to communicate? Or maybe it's just that Dean has been reading Sam his whole life and knows every intricate expression his brother pulls and the meaning behind it.

"I mean, I know you don't trust you self right now, but what I wanted to know was, do you trust me to reign you in if things get rough?" Dean narrows his eyes as he asks the question.

Sam nods again and look of 'where are you going with this' crosses his face this time.

Dean takes a breath and licks his lips before asking "Well... why don't you trust me to stop you saying yes?"

Sam shakes his head, he's all too aware where Dean is going with this now, and he't not doing this. He can't do this, he won't say yes.

"Please Sammy." Dean pleads as he moves to crouch in front of his brother who is sitting on the edge of his bed. "You can't go on like this. You're a mess, and this no talking thing... it has to stop." He knows that what he's about to say is a low blow, but he's at the end of his nerve. He needs Sam to be whole again, and Sam without a voice is just not the Sammy that he knows. "I mean, who's gonna sweet talk our victims relatives? I can try... I mean women aren't exactly immune to my charms..."

"Dean stop" Sam utters in a husky voice, as a look of abject horror replaces the slight irritation that was there. He shakes his head as he realizes what he's done and he tries to move back, to move away from Dean.

"No. Sam look, I get that what Lucifer told you... That you're his vessel. And I get that you're scared of saying yes. But you gotta trust yourself man"

Sam shakes his head as tears start forming in his eyes, he can't do this anymore, he can't keep feeling like this. It's too much.

"Please Sam. All I'm saying is that if you don't trust yourself, trust me... have I ever let you down before little brother?"

Sam shakes his head again, the tears threatening to fall as he tries to swallow the lump in his throat. Dean moves to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

"C'mon Sammy, please...?" Dean moves his hand to rest on Sams back

It's the use of the nickname combined with Deans touch that is his undoing. He says through the start of the tears "Oh God Dean... I-I can't do this anymore..." as he breaks down completely and sinks into Deans waiting arms.

Dean moves his brother so that he can pull Sam into a hug against his chest and he rubs his hand on Sams back, up and down in a slow soothing motion. "It's alright Sam, we'll get through this man. I got you. I'll never see you wrong little brother. Trust me and you'll see, it'll be fine."

For the first time in a few months Sam feels the weight that he's been carrying on his shoulders lift slightly, he feels safe and he feels loved. While he doesn't fully believe what Dean is saying, he's willing to give it a shot...

END

A/N As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts :)