The air smelled like burnt rubber and creosote when Sam stepped out of the air-conditioned convenience mart and into the sweltering Arizona heat. Summer was encroaching and Sam would've given his right arm for a wisp of wind; as it was, the still arid atmosphere made him feel like he was trapped in the world's biggest oven.
Still, he wasn't complaining; after everything they'd been through, having the chance at a few days off was welcome. Even if it meant tucking up in the back corner of Arizona, so close to the border you could throw a rock into Mexico. They'd just taken on a fresh-faced, terrifying monster two days before, something Purgatory had spat up when Castiel had let the souls out. It had been a close call with the creature managing to get Dean by the back of the neck and give him a few good shakes before Sam had killed it with a cocktail Bobby had thrown together based on a lot of guess-work. Sam had bandaged Dean up and they'd gotten back on the road, but when they'd woken up that morning Dean had complained about his neck killing him and sent Sam on a supplies run.
Sitting in the front seat of the Impala with the cold air cranked on full blast, Sam did one last check of the list Dean had shoved into his hand on Sam's way out: aspirin, chicken soup, cold-cut sandwiches and Sprite. It wasn't a promising sign: Dean was a burger-eater and a beer drinker and if he was asking for chicken soup, much less Sprite and aspirin, that had to mean he was feeling sick. And the last thing they needed, on the run for a creature with God-like powers, was for one of them to be off his game and holed up with a stomach flu.
But even if Dean was sick, Sam wouldn't complain about that, either. Dean had spent weeks nursing him through the chaos of his memories from Hell. He owed his brother more than he could repay in one lifetime; this was a good place to start.
The motel was like most they had stayed in, quiet, undisturbed and cheap, off the beaten path. Sam pulled up and got out, the bag slung in the crook of his elbow, and let himself in.
The motel room was dark and cool, the humming of the air-conditioning unit the only sound breaking up the silence. Sam could see Dean in the gloom of the drawn blinds, a dark figure hunched over on the bed. It looked like he had his head in his hands.
Sam set the bag on the table in the corner and Dean's head whipped up, elbows falling to rest on his knees.
"Sammy?"
That one, soft word quickened Sam's pulse; Dean said it with so much fear and uncertainty, like he wasn't sure if he was talking to a tangible person or to a ghost.
"Yeah, Dean, it's me." Sam said carefully.
"Thank God." Shakily, Dean lowered his head again.
Sam crossed the room in two strides and knelt, one hand on Dean's knee. "Dean. What is it? What's wrong?"
Dean's eyes moved to Sam's face, but wouldn't hold his gaze. They moved aimlessly from side to side, and then closed.
"Sammy." Dean choked. "I can't see."
"What?" Sam said sharply, and Dean flinched. "Sorry, sorry." Sam slid up onto the bed beside Dean, sitting with his knee bumping Dean's. "What happened?"
"I dunno, man. You left, I felt like crap so I went back to sleep. When I woke up, it was lights out."
"Here, let me see something." Sam put a hand on Dean's back, felt his brother tremor subtly at the unexpected contact. Sam hesitated for a few seconds, then moved his hand up to the bandage on the back of Dean's neck and started tugging down the layers of stripped cloth, revealing the full-circle bite mark on the back of Dean's neck.
The puncture holes, oozing a thick, tar-like substance.
"Ugh. Okay, that's nasty." Sam muttered.
"What? You wanna share with the class?" Dean snapped.
"I think that monster poisoned you, Dean." Sam said, wiping away as much of the sticky discharge as he could. "That must be why you lost your sight."
"Oh, great. That's awesome. How long's that gonna last."
"I don't know." Sam said, troubled. "Let me wash this out and get you some food. We'll just take it one step at a time." He stood up, and waited, but Dean didn't move.
Instead, Dean turned his head away from Sam. "Little help here?"
Trying to hide the shakiness of his hands, Sam pulled Dean to his feet and guided him to the bathroom, sitting him on the toilet and rinsing out the infected, poisoned wound. Dean sat in silence and didn't move even when Sam swabbed the angry, puckered flesh around the bite with antiseptic.
Sam had seen awful things in his life, bloody, terrifying things that would've sent most people running in the opposite direction.
But the most horrible thing Sam thought he had ever seen was Dean, helpless, staring without seeing at the far wall while Sam cleaned out his wound. His usually expressive green eyes blank, empty.
And flinching at every touch he could no longer anticipate.
[Two Days Later]
"How long is this gonna last?"
Dean was sitting on the bed that had become a semi-permanent station, a cold sandwich and a box of crackers on his knees. Sam, sitting at the table, was scouring all the books they had and all the websites he knew for anything about a monster with the ability to steal someone's sight. But no new information had cropped up since they'd first started the hunt; not even Bobby had been able to give them any leads.
"I'm sorry, Dean, I just don't know." Sam said honestly but bluntly. "It could be a few days—could be forever."
"Oh, that's great. I love being freakin' Stevie Wonder."
Sam scoffed. "Yah, right. You can't sing, Dean."
"Bite me."
Smiling slightly, Sam went back to the research, rubbing a hand across his tired eyes and squinting against the bright glare off the screen. The next thing he knew he was being bolted awake by the sound of something crashing at the far end of the room.
Sam shoved his chair back and got to his feet. "Dean?"
His brother was picking himself up off the floor with a colorful stream of swearwords, but he didn't get any farther then sitting back on his haunches before he went still, his sightless gaze transfixed on the floor.
Sam stopped beside him. "Dean?"
"Yeah, I know." Dean reached blindly for the doorpost to his right, missing it completely. And staring down at Dean, the strongest, most independent person he had ever known, reduced to a huddled hunch on the floor, unable to stand without some sort of help—it broke something in the middle of Sam's chest, something that clattered hollowly and splashed in his insides.
The thing rising to take its place: compassion. Dean needed him. For the first time in almost a year, Sam wasn't helpless. If he couldn't do everything, he would do anything, anything Dean would let him do to make this easier on both of them.
So Sam sat on the edge of the bed behind Dean and kicked his brother's shoe. "Hey, jerk. Over here."
Dean visibly relaxed, the tightness falling away from his shoulders, turning toward the sound of Sam's voice. "Bitch."
Sam smiled a smile Dean couldn't see and would've mocked him for if he could, keeping his leg stretched out so Dean could subtly brush against it as he got to his feet and tumbled against the bed, sitting beside Sam.
Dean rubbed his hands down his face, then dropped them, and kept his head down. "Can't do this, Sammy."
"Yes, you can." Sam said. The same thing Dean had told him when Sam had been in the panic room, struggling against his memories. "Yes you can, Dean. I'm right here with you. All the way."
Dean nodded.
And that was a start.
[One Week Later]
The pattern that developed after that day wasn't easy for Sam and must've been even more difficult for Dean. But neither of them complained, not once. Not when Sam had to all but lead Dean to the bathroom to answer nature's call, or when Dean would be stuck in the bed as the poison continued to work its way through his system, leaving him sick and sweating. After one of those nights when Dean didn't sleep and Sam just pretended to, Dean rolled over to face the opposite bed right before dawn.
He'd been doing that a lot, Sam had noticed. Orienting himself to wherever Sam was in a room, almost like there was an invisible string binding them together, pulling Dean's errant focus in his direction all the time. It reminded Sam, with some exasperation and affection, of the way they'd bonded after Sam had dropped out of Stanford. So close that sometimes it felt like they were on the same wavelength in the same brain.
"We've been here a month, Sam." Dean said quietly. "Cass is gonna find us if we don't start moving."
Sam, slumped against the pillows with his arms crossed, sat up, suddenly alert. "Dean, we can't. You're not ready, it could make this worse—whatever this is."
"We don't know that." Dean said calmly. "But what we do know is that Cass is out there and he's looking for us. He's got a bone to pick and we can't take him on, not right now. We gotta move."
"Dean. No. You're just getting back on your feet."
"Sometimes you gotta run before ya walk, right?" Dean sat up and oriented his feet to the floor beneath him like he wasn't sure he trusted it to hold him steady. "Look, Sam, I know you're worried about me. I get it, I do. But if you're gonna be my eyes, I'm gonna be your brain. So we're leaving. Now."
He slouched to the foot of the bed, grabbed his duffle from the place where he'd tripped over it yesterday, and started sorting through it by touch, making sure his gun was still there, and all his clothes—salt, holy water.
Sam just sat, dumbfounded, watching him.
That was it. He was Dean's eyes and Dean was his common sense. And that was how they were going to balance each other now. For everything that had broken down between them while Sam was soulless, and even after, when he'd felt like Dean was still on tenterhooks around him—now Dean was trusting him implicitly. Leaning on him when nothing else seemed stable.
And more than that, it was less a choice and more of a habit. Falling back into whatever pattern fit while everything was changing again.
"Dean?" Sam said, standing up. "Keys?"
Dean turned a goofy smile on him. "What, you don't want me to drive?" Sam shot him a bitchfaced look that he thought maybe Dean could sense if he couldn't see, because his brother jerked his head toward the kitchen. "Yeah, I left them in my jacket."
That day was the first day he didn't have to help Dean walk; Dean followed close beside him, their shoulders almost brushing, slid into the shotgun seat and ran his hand over the dash, then leaned his head back against the seat.
"Oh, baby, I missed you."
Shoving the key into the ignition, Sam wondered what it would be like if Dean could never see the sunlight glint off the Impala again, never make eyes at a pretty girl, never sight down the barrel of a gun, never hunt again—the one subject they'd been avoiding.
"Where to?" Sam asked, backing smoothly onto the blacktop.
"I dunno. Just wake me up when we get there."
Sam rocked his head to one side and punched the gas, content to be Dean's eyes for a little while longer.