Left to Our Own Devices
When he wakes, the hallway smells like a dive bar, like cigarettes and whiskey and bad decisions, and that's how he knows Dean is back.
He comes across his brother hunched over the sink in his room, cleaning blood from split knuckles. A fist-sized maroon splotch colors Dean's jaw beneath too many days' worth of stubble, and there are crimson drops on his shirtfront.
And still, Sam is unsure which of them is handling this worse.
He leans in the doorway, aiming for casual but knowing it's more like desperate. "You go out for a drink and find a fight, or was it the other way around?"
Dean shuts off the tap, shakes water from his bruised hands. "Does it matter?" His voice is tight with more than one kind of pain, and Sam doesn't know what to do about any of it.
Not about any of it.
"Not really," he answers honestly, and fully enters the room, considering the door left open an invitation. Sam sits on his brother's bed and drops his hands between his knees. "Does it help?"
Dean takes his time in looking up but he does, bloodshot eyes meeting Sam's in the mirror. "Not really."
