Your Brother, or, Stronger Together than Apart
K Hanna Korossy
"I just wanted to say that Cas told me what you're doing for Dean. And I'm not asking you to stop, but maybe going behind his back ain't the best idea. Your brother, he can be stubborn. But I think he'd understand. And I know it's the life…doing a little bad so you can do a lot of good. But sometimes the bad's real bad, and the good…it can come at one hell of a price. I ain't there on the ground, and whatever you do, I know you'll make the right choice. You're a good man, Sam Winchester, one of the best. And I'm damn proud of you, son. I was content up here. But getting the call from you, it's the happiest I've been in forever, no matter what it costs. So stay safe, keep fighting, and kick it in the ass." - Bobby's letter to Sam in Inside Man
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"Step up. That's right. Left turn—dude, your other left! Okay, hang on. Got the door. Three steps down, easy."
Sam probably should've told his brother it wasn't necessary, that he wasn't so woozy that he needed literal step-by-step instructions on how to leave the house. Dean's arm around him was already doing the necessary steering. But considering the horizon kept tilting and turning and it was easiest to keep his eyes shut, maybe the directions were good.
The worry in them definitely felt good. The Mark hadn't won as long as his brother still cared.
The late-afternoon sun on his face made him blink up, and then the Impala's warm metal was under Sam's hand. He leaned on her gratefully and took a few breaths to settle the nausea.
"You good?"
He almost nodded, realized that would not help his equilibrium, and mumbled instead, "Yeah."
Dean stepped away, but only as far as the Impala's trunk, which creaked as he opened it. Sam listened to his brother poking around inside, and focused on the weight of the book in his hands. The Codex, possibly the key to curing Dean. That was worth any exhaustion and sickness, and even the lies to Dean.
"Okay, ease in." Dean's hands again, manhandling him onto the seat. One of his hands was grabbed and folded around a can. He didn't need to look to see what it was; they kept orange juice in the trunk for blood loss. Just one of the tricks of the hunter trade.
Sam drank the lukewarm juice, breathing slow in between to make sure it stayed down. He opened his eyes when he finally felt less lightheaded, to watch as Dean, sitting on the cooler in front of Sam's door, cleaned his bloody arms.
"How'd you shake it?" The question had been buzzing in his head since Dean had showed up in the basement, decidedly present and unsuicidal.
"The curse?" Dean glanced up, then back down. "I think it was the Mark. Maybe you noticed, it's not exactly a fan of me pushing up daisies."
The alcohol was cool on his skin, and Sam braced himself for the actual cleaning of the wound. As the sting became a burn, he clenched his teeth and forced the next question out, distraction more than interest now. "What'd you see?" The curse had clearly worked through hallucinations, destructive ones.
Dean didn't answer for a few seconds, long enough for Sam to wonder if he would, if the answer was so terrible. When his brother rasped out, "Benny," he knew why. Dean's old vampire buddy was a sensitive subject between them.
But the mention didn't bring the wave of resentment it usually did. Maybe because Dean was so gentle and focused on treating him, or maybe because so much water had gone under the bridge since, the old petty issues had been washed away.
Dean cleared his throat as he patted the cuts dry. "How 'bout you?"
It took him a moment to understand the question. Sam realized he'd started drifting, and he freed a hand to take another swallow of juice. "Suzie," he said ruefully. He'd never meant the last survivor of the curse to pay the price this time.
Dean grimaced; he must've seen her body, too. "Yeah, that'd do it," he admitted. "She the one to get you to…?" He made a slicing motion over the gash he was just starting to sew shut.
Sam thought about lying, but there was so much he already wasn't sharing with Dean. At least he'd tell the truth when he could. "Rowena, actually." He hissed as the needle bit deeper than the lidocaine had dulled, and barely heard his brother's murmured apology. "I guess since Suzie couldn't talk me into offing myself, the curse found a way to make it logical."
"Well, it worked," Dean commented. There was a bandana tied around his own arm, the blood he'd added to finally open the cursed box.
"Yeah." Sam drew his hand over the old book. Like the Book of the Damned, it seemed to be made of skin, and he shuddered at its touch.
"You cold?" Dean misinterpreted the reaction. He glanced up at Sam as he wound gauze around his forearm. "I can grab you a blanket."
"I'm okay."
"Yeah, well, next store we come to, we're gettin' you some watermelon, soup, and juice that doesn't taste like it's been sitting in a car. And you're sleeping all the way home," Dean added pointedly.
"Wha'bout my car?" Sam was drowsy with the warmth of the car, the blood loss, even the careful way his brother's callused hands handled his own. He had arrived alone, not wanting to bring Dean into the search for the Codex, but of course Dean had shown up anyway.
"I'll wipe it down. Just gonna go destroy that box first." Dean was taping the second roll of gauze down, then easing Sam's shirt sleeves over the patch job. "You stay here and work on topping yourself off."
Sam snorted but didn't argue, even as his brother's shadow moved from in front of him, leaving him bathed in the light of the setting sun. He listened as Dean returned to the trunk, took out something heavy—crowbar? sledgehammer?—and his steps faded back into the house.
The tempter in Dean's hallucination had been Benny, not Sam. And Sam had only succumbed to his own because it promised to help his brother. If Sam had been alone, Dean would have eventually tracked down a drained corpse. It was because they'd done it together that they'd survived this case, this curse.
You'll do anything to keep clinging to that doomed brother of yours, Suzie had said. Anything's worth it. How many more will die?
She didn't know, if it'd really even been her. She didn't know he was trying to save Dean from something worse than death, that he was trying to save the world from what his brother would become. How this wasn't about him, but about something he had to do.
Sam looked down at his carefully stitched and wrapped arms, the bottle of juice, the blanket he only now realized Dean had actually retrieved and set by him.
But, yeah…he would admit it, if only to himself: he would find a cure because he needed Dean, too.
The End