A/N: This ficlet is an anwer to a prompt at the Dean-centric h/c comment fic meme on hoodie_time, but I wrote it as a timestamp to my fic "Hover Through the Fog and Filthy Air." You don't have to read it to understand this one, though. Thanks to wave obscura for the beta!
Warning: mentions of a suicide attempt.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural related.
ooo
Sam came every day, 7-8 pm, regular as clockwork. He was always a little early, five to ten minutes, and waited outside of the hospital until it was exactly 8:00, each minute feeling as long as a year. He always stayed until the very last minute, until one of the nurse came to tell him softly, "It's time to go," with pitying looks that didn't even bother Sam because other human beings barely registered anymore.
They were never alone. There were always other patients, some playing checkers or cards, some sitting alone and staring at nothing, some mumbling to themselves, some wandering around aimlessly. There were always the nurses, chit-chatting or filling out charts behind Plexiglas, coming and going according to some unknown choreography. All those people were of no importance. They were all fading into the background.
Some days Dean wouldn't speak at all for the whole hour, not exactly ignoring Sam, but acting like his very presence pained him. He would curl his fists into his long sleeves, let his eyes wander over each object and each person on the room, throw some sideway looks in Sam's direction and press his lips tightly together. Sometimes bit his lips until blood trickled down his chin, and the intentionality of it, the want to hurt even in small ways broke Sam a little more each time. He thought for a while about not coming, if it was so hard for his brother to bear, but he could never bring himself to stay away when 7 pm came. He spent all day wishing it would be evening already, his mind never quite into whatever he was doing, whether it was reading a book or watching TV or taking care of weapons he didn't use, but when he was here the hour could never be over quickly enough. Seeing Dean was painful, not seeing him was agony.
When Dean opened his mouth it was always inane small talk that was so horribly out of character that Sam had to fight the impulse to ask where his real brother was.
"Anything good on TV?"
"Oh, you know. X-Files reruns. I don't watch much TV." It was a lie, but Sam never remembered what he watched anyway, it was only sounds and colors filling the hours of the day.
"What's the weather like?"
"Sunny. Can't you see it through the window?"
"Nah. Sunshine never makes it here."
They could go like that for minutes and minutes, and it was so useless and stupid that Sam wanted to scream. The screams gathered in his chest until they formed a painful mass of frustration, and he sometimes caught himself holding his breath like it would somehow hold everything else inside. These weren't the things he wanted to say, these weren't the questions he wanted to ask, but he always let Dean lead the way because what if he set him off again and…?
It bothered Sam how there was no trace on Dean of what had happened, no bandages anywhere. He was maybe just a little paler than usual, like he was recovering from an illness, and it was so tempting to think of it that way. Because Dean had gone for the meds instead of one of the weapons they owned Sam couldn't quite believe that Dean had attempted suicide, no matter what those idiots from the hospital said. It just didn't make sense. It must have been something else. Still, it was hard to see past the shadow of himself his brother had become, and Sam couldn't risk making it worse, whatever it was.
The hour was almost finished, one of these miserably uniform days, when Sam heard his brother call, "Sam?"
Sam's breath caught. Dean had never once said his name since he was here, which fed Sam's insidious suspicion that maybe Dean didn't remember who he was.
"Yes?" He was so good at this casual tone shit, now, at pretending that there was nothing wrong with them being there and talking about TV and the weather and whatnot.
"What are you doing here?"
"What?"
Sam blinked at Dean, taken aback instead of trying to hold himself together for the first time since the day he'd found his brother not breathing. "What?" he said again, trying to make the rusty wheels in his brain turn in order to process the question.
Dean sighed. It wasn't a pissed off sigh, or an annoyed sigh, or a resigned sigh, or any Dean's sigh that Sam could recognize. It was immensely weary, heavy with the weight of living.
"You can't be here everyday."
"Yes, I can," Sam said. "It's visiting hour."
The glance his brother flashed at him, frustrated and somewhat questioning Sam's intelligence, was definitely all Dean.
"You don't have to be here."
It was when Sam understood, with painful clarity, that Dean didn't want him away anymore than Sam wanted to be away, but just didn't know how to deal with Sam, or with himself, or probably both. That Sam had focused so much on how different Dean was that he had forgotten that Dean was still iDean/i, only he was tormented in ways Sam didn't quite understand.
"I want to be here," Sam said, and he didn't know if he could call "want" this irresistible pull he felt, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
Dean didn't look fully convinced, but he didn't argue. He pursed his lips the way he did when he was considering something, and nodded slowly to himself, like he was reaching a decision. Sam waited, his heart pounding because for the first time in weeks it looked like something was happening. Whatever it was, it had to be better than the weird state of limbo they were living in.
"I don't even know what day it is," Dean said.
Not what Sam had expected, and he had to think about it for a moment because he hadn't kept track of the days so well himself.
"Uh, Thursday? I think it might be Thursday?"
"I don't even know where we are."
"Well, we're in…"
"I don't give a fuck. I want to be anywhere but here. Can we go anywhere but here?"
This wasn't really anything Sam could answer because it wasn't his decision to make, there were doctors, those fucking doctors who couldn't care about Dean, couldn't want him to be better like Sam did. And Sam didn't even know if he was really getting what Dean was telling him, but it didn't matter, what mattered was not ruining this moment of Dean finally giving him something to hang on to.
"Of course, Dean," Sam said. "Of course, we can."