Okay, this idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is. There's no plot, just a whole lot of Sam being Sam. The idea is this: Dean said "yes." The world ended. Now someone has to pick up the pieces. Rated T for the occasional use of the "f" word. I tried to keep it at show-levels of bad language, but it slipped in a couple of times.
Standard disclaimer: I own nothing, lay claim to nothing, and am VERY sad that I don't own any of it.
This story assumes canon right up until S.5.10, which is the last episode I watched. There are no explicit spoilers, but, y'know, if you haven't seen any of Season 5, you're reading this at your own risk. No slash, although if you squint really hard maybe you could read something into it if you want. I make no claims about authorial intent once my story is out there.
This is entirely unbeta-ed. Read at your own risk. ;)
Snow Blindness
It's snowing outside. The flakes drift against the window pane, cling there, trembling as the wind threatens to send them swirling away again. Sam has lost track of how many days it's been. The sky is always white with clouds, the sun long gone from the world. It's cold, even though there's still fuel for the generator; they've been trying to save on fuel where they can, building a fire in Bobby's wood stove. The only source of heat in this room is Dean. Dean, lying still and pale and utterly alien, who's been that way for so many days that Sam stopped counting because he was going to lose his mind keeping track. Longer even than the snow's been falling.
He shifts closer to the bed, takes Dean's hand in his, feels the fingers bend, unresisting, in his grip. Heat radiates from his brother, as though he's running a fever. In a way he is. Fire is coursing through him, burning him from the inside out, heavenly fire that no one bothered to put out even when everything was over, but there's no sign that Dean is aware of anything. No sign that he's alive, even, except for the very faint rise and fall of his chest, the even fainter beating of his heart, weak and thready but definitely present. Sam clings to this, clings to Dean's hand, even though by all rights he shouldn't be allowed near him ever again, for both their sakes. But now it's just the two of them, and Bobby doesn't have the strength, mental or physical, to keep Sam away, and there's no one else left to take care of Dean anyway.
Sam has given up on trying to get Dean to awaken. Has decided it's probably better this way, even if having Dean so damned still is wrong wrong wrong. Dean isn't meant to be like this, he should be moving, fidgeting, complaining about boredom, and it's Sam who should be in his place. Still, he doesn't try to talk to Dean anymore, doesn't hope for a reaction to his voice, doesn't hope for anything anymore. He hasn't seen the sea-green eyes open in what seems like an eternity, and he doesn't really believe he'll get to look into them ever again. He knows exactly what happens to mortals who look directly at angels in their true form, and he's terrified that if Dean ever does open his eyes again all he'll see are burnt-out sockets. So maybe it's better if he doesn't ever wake up again. Except that he can't help but hope, but want... and that's always been the trouble, hasn't it? Sammy always gets what he wants, no matter the price, even if it tears Dean's soul into screaming, bleeding chunks.
He spends most of his time here, watching his brother not sleep. He sleeps in the chair by his bed, doesn't really care anymore that his neck hurts, his back feels like it's always on fire. Dean is burning from the inside out, and not much else matters. The vestiges of compassion force him downstairs a couple of times a day. He goes to check on Bobby, to cook meals and haul kindling and keep the place relatively tidy. He knows he ought to bring Dean downstairs, that they ought to condemn the upstairs entirely so as to conserve energy, but he can't bring himself to do it, almost doesn't see the point. He and Bobby haven't spoken in a long time. Bobby speaks, mostly monosyllables and pointed requests for whatever needs to get done that he can't do anymore from his wheelchair, but Sam thinks his tongue may have forgotten how to form words at all. He nods when Bobby talks to him, looks him in the eye —how he manages to do that is a mystery even to him— does what he's told. In the end, though, he always makes his way back up the stairs, heads back into limbo, waiting for something he can't quite define.
Days turn into weeks, and outside the snow keeps falling like ashes, and nothing changes except nothing is the same. And then one day Dean moves. It's nothing, a twitch, a slight change in pressure of the fingers in the palm of Sam's hand, nothing at all. Sam is a liar, always has been. He's lied to everyone, including himself, he's lied to his father, to Bobby, to Dean (always to Dean, especially to Dean, to whom he's always owed everything and to whom he should never have lied). He thought that things were different, now, at the end, but it turns out that he's still a liar, because even though he told himself that he was done crying, the tears are falling, hot and fast and thick, soaking through his shirt sleeve as he sobs, head buried in his arms, collapsed on Dean's bed.
For a few days it's as though nothing happened, and Sam begins to think that maybe he imagined it, that he was so caught up in hoping that his mind started playing tricks on him, and wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake? Except that on the morning of the third day Dean stirs, just barely, and Sam sees sea-green for the first time in... well, in forever. He scrubs at the tears in his own eyes —damned if the first thing Dean sees is him crying— clasps Dean's hand in his. His brother doesn't move, his eyes don't shift, gaze fixed on the ceiling, but his lips part, and Sam can see his throat working to produce sounds. It comes out as a strangled whisper, just as muted as Dean himself, quiet as the grave.
"S'm?"
He squeezes Dean's hand gently, swallows the lump in his throat, swallows the millions of words that all want to come sprawling-spitting-spewing-spilling from his lips, forces himself to be calm. "I'm here, Dean. It's okay."
And just like that, Dean relaxes, tension Sam hadn't even realized was there draining from his body, and his eyes close again. Sam has to force himself not to shake him, to bring him back, not to cave into the fear that maybe this is it, that he'll never hear his brother's voice again. It brings no comfort to think that his last word was Sam's name. But a few hours later Dean opens his eyes again, and this time Sam is ready with a glass of water and a straw, and carefully he holds up Dean's head so he can sip at the water.
"Sam?" The voice is just as weak, only a fraction clearer than before. "You there?"
"I'm here."
"Hurts."
The word is dragged from him, painfully. Sam's chest constricts. He doesn't remember Dean ever complaining of pain, discomfort, anything. The single word is Sam's, the one he'd gasp whenever he was sick, out of it from fever or blood loss, reaching out for his big brother, demanding that he make everything all right again. It's not supposed to be part of Dean's vocabulary, and he rubs circles on the back of Dean's hand with his thumb.
"I know it does. It'll get better, okay?"
Dean draws in a ragged breath. "Can't see."
Sam hasn't dared to look at his eyes too closely, hasn't wanted to see how dilated his pupils are, unresponsive to the bright light reflecting off the snow outside, but there's no escaping it now. The light in his eyes has been burnt from the inside out, just like the rest of him. He keeps stroking Dean's hand, as though somehow he can just erase everything with that small gesture.
"Don't worry about it," he says soothingly. "I won't let anything happen. I've got your back."
Tentatively he reaches out, hesitates, smooths the hair from Dean's forehead. It seems to be enough, at least for now. With a last sigh, he's asleep again, and Sam reluctantly heads downstairs, knowing that Bobby will need to hear about this.
If Sam expected that things would get better after this, he quickly finds out how wrong he was. Now that he's no longer away (as Sam has been thinking of it) from his body, it seems Dean can feel every single glowing ember of the fire that was lit inside him. Never mind that he gave his consent (the terrible "Yes" that echoes in Sam's head every waking minute of every day, and follows him even into his dreams), nothing can have prepared him for this, and now Sam has to sit there and listen to his terrible, muted cries of pain as his body tries to come to terms with the fact that he's on fire and that there's nothing anyone can do about it. He can't be touched, but his hand reaches for Sam anyway, heedless of the pain. He cries when Sam leaves him, silent tears dripping from unseeing eyes. The first time... that's the closest Sam comes to falling apart entirely, except that he can't let himself. He takes a page from Dean's book, finds a way to piece himself back together, all duct tape and chewing gum and dirty string and sheer Winchester stubbornness, and God help him he wills himself to hold together, because Dean is crying and needs him and he's being consumed right under Sam's eyes, and Sam won't let him go. Not without a fight.
Inexplicably, Dean starts to get better. It's slow, excruciating for them both, but after a week of complete helplessness he's able to sit up for a while, propped up by every single pillow Sam can find to spare. He doesn't speak, and Sam's grateful. One word and the whole universe he's created in this bedroom might fly to pieces around him. He lets Sam feed him, spoonfuls of watered-down oatmeal, doesn't say anything when Sam cleans him up with a washcloth and a basin of lukewarm water, although Sam knows that it has to be hurting him. Another week, and he can push himself up all on his own, arms shaking with pain and effort. That's when he starts talking, haltingly, one word at a time, as though he's learning a foreign language. At first it's simple requests: water, blanket, Sam, but it's only a matter of time before he's ready to tackle what's really on his mind.
"What happened to me?"
Sam doesn't know how to answer that one, not really. "You said yes."
Dean just nods, because he knows all the worlds that are encompassed in that single word. "That's the second time saying yes has fucked me over," he comments blandly, his face turned toward Sam's, but he may as well be staring at the ceiling.
Sam snorts in spite of himself. "Tell me about it," he manages, choking on tears and hysterical laughter that all threaten to bubble out of him at the same time.
A few more days pass until Bobby puts up enough of a fuss that Sam actually carries the old man up the stairs so he can see with his own eyes that Dean is awake, that Dean is okay, as okay as any of them are ever going to be. Bobby just sits there, tears streaming down his face, and for the first time Sam feels more than a little guilty about how he's treated the man who's always taken them in, no question asked. He puts a hand on Bobby's shoulder in a mute apology, feels Bobby's callused fingers over his, accepting the apology without a moment's hesitation (just like Dean, his mind whispers), and the tightness in his chest eases, just a little bit.
After a month the pain lessens enough for Sam to carry Dean downstairs, cradled like a rag doll in his arms, and settle him on the sofa for most of the day, so they can all be together. No one speaks much, but that's not so bad. Words just get them into trouble, over and over and over. Without words there's no danger of saying the wrong thing, of driving someone away into the snow outside. Silence covers them like a warm blanket, like the ever-falling snow. One day Sam comes back from chopping more wood for the fire, and Dean reaches out with a hand, groping at Sam's thick woolen overcoat, fingers stroking the rough fabric and coming away wet with snowflakes.
"Dude, how long has it been snowing and you didn't tell me?"
Sam can't explain why he starts laughing and can't stop for the next ten minutes.
After another month Dean starts shuffling around on his own, forcing one foot painfully in front of the other, both hands braced against the wall, as much to hold him up as to keep his bearings in a house which is both achingly familiar and completely unknown to him without the use of his eyes. He hasn't said a word about it yet, and Sam can't help but wonder when the other shoe will drop, when the rabidly independent brother he's always known will rebel against this enforced helplessness, the dependence on others for absolutely everything, from food to shelter to bathing to relieving himself. It's only a matter of time, and he waits for it, and it doesn't come. Dean simply stays quiet, starts learning the textures of the walls, tests the floor beneath his feet, simply content that the burning pain —the angelic ass-fucking, as he calls it— is fading a bit more every day. He starts teasing Sam gently about hovering, a few good-natured jabs that are so very much like the Dean from before that it's all Sam can do not to scratch out his own eyes or cry until there's nothing left, because he wants this, he wants it so badly it's like blood filling his mouth and spilling from his eyes like tears, and he just isn't sure that Dean isn't putting it all on for him. Because the Dean from before would do anything, anything to give Sammy what he wants.
At night the acceptance turns into whimpers of pain and tears, and the only thing that lets Dean sleep without disturbance is if Sam crawls into the bed with him and cradles him like a child. It seems like such a very small price to pay to give his brother a few hours of peace. Dean never remembers any of it, but he doesn't say anything about finding Sam in his bed every morning, wrapped around him, forehead pressed against the back of his neck, breathing in his scent. Instead he simply disengages himself gently, reaches out to ruffle Sam's hair awkwardly, still unsure of his movements, of where his body ends and the world begins, and then he walks toward the bathroom, counting his steps carefully as he goes, one hand in front of him, a flimsy defence against the unseen. Sam can almost hear the numbers in his head: one, two, three, four, five, doorway; left; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, bathroom door. Sam never follows, now, because the one time he did, he heard his brother sobbing as though his heart would break, and something tells him that this is the one time he can't, mustn't interfere.
For a while he thinks he can get used to this. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what they had before, and so what if they can't move more than a few hundred yards away from the front door? The house is big enough that Bobby can have as much time away from them as he wants, that any of them can get away if they want, although Dean doesn't much like to leave him for any length of time and Sam is ridiculously grateful for it, even though he knows it's probably not healthy. He just can't bring himself to care. He still shovels the snow away from the door, clears a walkway all the way to the edge of the salvage yard. The cars have long since disappeared, are just lumps under the white coating, and he's pretty sure they'll start to rust before long, if they haven't already. He runs the risk of going out to try hunting —plain old game, nothing with fangs or teeth or the ability to stop his heart at a remove— and is rewarded with a young deer. For the first time in months they have fresh food, and to celebrate Bobby cracks open a can of peaches for dessert and pulls out a can of whipped cream to boot. Dean's smile is so wide that Sam thinks his face might actually split in two, and it's almost worth it, except that that night Dean sobs so hard in his sleep that he's worried he might actually hurt himself.
The next morning Dean isn't in the bed when Sam awakens, isn't in the bathroom either. Isn't anywhere in the house when Sam goes looking for him, and Bobby hasn't seen him either. Sam is frantic, trying to clamp down on the hysteria that keeps trying to bubble up out of his chest. He pulls on his coat, throws open the front door, runs out into the frigid air. He flounders clumsily to where Dean is standing up to his knees in the snow, face tilted up toward the snow-white sky, snowflakes collecting on his eyelashes, hands by his sides.
"Dean?" Sam is almost afraid to touch him, brushes his fingertips against his shoulder.
Dean turns to him, and his smile is as brilliant as the sky. It takes Sam's breath away, makes the whole world tilt and rock drunkenly, the ground giving way underneath his feet. Dean laughs, and the sound is a goddamned miracle, and Sam is falling, plummeting faster than he thought possible. He holds onto his brother's hands to keep from falling away altogether as Dean turns toward him, looking right past him, right through him as though he's not really there.
"Sammy, I can see the sun!"