A/N: I couldn't resist another fic. This oneshot has been nagging me for a while after I saw a clip of fanart on tumblr. I lost the link to the picture but I think you can guess what it might be about. It's definitely on the darker side, especially emotionally. I hope you like it. Thanks for reading and if you have a moment, let me know what you think!
Well, I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms.
These days of dust
Which we've known
Will blow away with this new sun.
"I Will Wait" -Mumford and Sons
Sam knew it was bad. Even before he slipped all the way into consciousness, he knew that he wasn't getting out of this one. Not alive, at least.
His head wasn't just throbbing, it was raging with the fire of hell, the power of the sun. His vision blurred as his eyes blinked open and something wet dripped across his eyelid, stinging with the warmth of a tear but he knew from the smell that he wasn't crying.
Sam knew the scent of his own blood.
That's not what scared him though, not what sent a bolt of cold fear scraping through his bones. Sam liked to think he had pretty good senses, heightened to the extent of being able to see what usually went unnoticed, taste the undercurrent of lies in someone's voice, hear what wasn't being said. They were gifts given to him by an obsessive father or maybe they had always been sitting beneath his skin, waiting for the prime opportunity to burst forward. It was possible hunting had made Sam Winchester extraordinary. But now, he heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing.
Gray fuzziness not only filled his vision but it filled his ears like radio static, traded his tongue for a piece of sandpaper until Sam was unable to distinguish beyond the pain.
It ebbed and flowed like the ocean at high tide, gathering him up in waves and locking his muscles into place, so much so that his jaw was clenched too tightly to scream. It stole his breath, suffocating him more than any hands wrapped around his throat ever had. He didn't know pain could do this, that it was capable of feeding before it killed.
Feathers.
That's what came to him right after he figured out he was lying on a floor and that the floor was cold. He remembered feathers floating through the air but not in a graceful way, in a way that blinded him, somehow the soft edges had cut his skin, raining down on him and Dean like razors.
Dean.
It was the sudden thought of his brother that spurred Sam into motion, his head jolting back to connect with that same cold ground, sending a fresh explosion of pain through him. But that didn't matter now; what mattered was that Sam had been with Dean and now he was not. There had been feathers but now there were not.
"Dean."
He meant it as a shout, a cry of searching, but instead it came out as rasp and a bubble as blood collected in the back of his throat and spilled from his lips. Sam coughed and gasped, his inward breaths feeling like he was trying to swallow a wet cloth. He spit the blood out, feeling it slip down to his ear, run into his hair.
"Dean."
He coughed his brother's name and then couldn't hold back an agonized howl as he shifted his upper body, rocking up onto one shoulder, feeling bones grate where they shouldn't, click together as moved. However many moments later and he was staring down at his hand or at least the red thing that was stretched out in front of him, whether it could still be considered a hand was debatable.
It was when Sam figured out he couldn't move his legs that he threw up. Not much came up other than blood but God, there was a lot of it and rushed from him, warm and coppery in his mouth before cooling against the concrete floor. Sam's legs weren't moving, in fact, when he could turn his head to look down at them, it was hard to believe they were still attached to his body. He'd never been paralyzed before but he'd also never considered how strange it would be to stare at a body part willing it to do something and having it like refuse like an obstinate teenager.
I'm dying.
It was also surprisingly hard to accept that as fact. Sam liked life, he liked living. Maybe not every part of it but the majority wasn't bad. He had Bobby and Cas and…Dean. Dammit, Dean had slipped his mind in his efforts to get off this floor.
Sam's hand that did not resemble butchered meat cleared the hair from his face as his gaze turned outwards. Blackness was edged around the futures of the warehouse and the ground seemed to be tilting a bit but he could make out two shapes lying not so far away from him.
"I'm coming, Dean," he whispered and glancing back at his rebellious legs, Sam dragged himself forward half an inch, feeling every part of him come unhinged as the pain reached new levels. There was definitely some wrong with his head, his vision was going in and out and it felt so much heavier than it should have, as if it were a rock lolling on his shoulders. He made it another half and inch and threw up again, blood welling like venom from deep in his stomach. Internal bleeding probably. Still, he had to get to Dean. The fact that Dean wasn't up and around already was terrifying. Sam prayed that his big brother wasn't as bad off as Sam, that he'd somehow managed to stay out of the worst of the fight, even though the thought sounded absurd the moment it entered his brain.
Dean not in the middle of a battle? Sam knew better than that.
He crawled again and rested and soon – or maybe not so soon he couldn't tell – there was a pattern emerging, a method to his madness as Dean would have said. If Dean was up and talking.
Cough.
Spit.
Crawl.
Don't die..
Cough.
Spit.
Crawl.
It wasn't a fast way of doing things but the distance between him and the closest body eventually closed and then Sam was only a foot away and he could see through his waning vision that it was not Dean.
It was Cas.
Not Castiel, Servant of the Lord, not the angel who brought fury from Heaven to earth, not the man who had given them so much. This was Cas in a trenchcoat and a bloody shirt, his lips parted as if he were mid-sentence when Sam could clearly see they would never speak again.
"Cas," he groaned and rested his forehead against the floor. It was getting colder in here, this place of death. He was shaking now, quivering from head to toe with violent intensity and no matter how much he tried to stem the spasms, they did not fade. He knew he should stay with Cas's body for a moment, say a prayer, recite a poem, whatever you did for those who died like this. But Sam was frightened that he was going to die before he could get to Dean and that thought spurred him on. He refused to entertain the possibility of finding Dean like Cas. Of him being…not alive.
To occupy his time and keep himself from passing out, he thought of anything and everything. He listed the creatures in his father's journal as Dean used to quiz him in the early mornings before school.
Vampire, werewolf, shapeshifter, skinwalker, rakshasa, wendigo, crocotta, wraith, demon.
Angel.
The last one he added when his memory went slack. John Winchester had not played with angels and yet he'd still gotten burned. Those angels, those bastards who preached holiness and equality and fairness, the ones who had come in droves and encircled the suddenly very small team of three. They had had no chance. An angel blade in each hand, protection sigils carved into their skin at the last minute. Of course it wasn't enough.
Nothing they ever did was enough.
Still they fought because that's what the brothers did. They ducked and stabbed and damn near pirouetted their way though how many angels? Ten? Thirty? One hundred?
Cas had finally pointed out the portal in which they were coming through but getting to it on the other side of the warehouse was an option they didn't have by then. Sam remembered the feeling of Dean's back pressing up against his. Back to back, as John had taught them to fight as a team.
You have to learn each other's strength and weaknesses and then you have to fill them in. You have to protect each other.
There had been so much noise and then those razor feathers had cut Dean away from, a limb severed, and Sam had flailed, had let down his guard for a second and that was when he went crashing to the floor. Take Dean away and what was left of him? Clearly not enough to survive.
Dean's body was closer now and Sam could see that his brother's chest was rising and falling with long intervals of pause. He nearly died then and there from the force of the relief. His heart stuttered out several stilted beats before he could regain control and if Sam's ribs hadn't been shattered, he would have laughed. As it was, he attempted a twisted sort of smile.
"Dean!"
He made sure to cough and spit before creeping up to his brother's body, not wanting to tarnish it in any way. The relief was short-lived when he realized that Dean might be in even worse shape than he was. Nothing was out of place and nothing looked particularly wrong at first, aside from the cuts decorating his skin. But upon closer inspection, Dean's skin was so pale it appeared almost wax like, almost blue. As Sam laid his head near his brother's mouth, there was definitely breathing but it was not the normal kind, not the kind Sam used to fall asleep listening to as a kid. There was a rattle to Dean's chest as if pushing the air out was actual work, as if someone was keeping his lungs in a prison cell and they wanted out.
"Dean," he whispered and then it wasn't just blood on his face but tears too. He swept them away with the back of his hand and continued to assess the situation. Unlike Sam, Dean's limbs seemed to be in working order and Sam was thinking internal injuries when his hand brushed up against something hot beneath Dean's shirt. His strength was seeping away, but he managed to pull the shirt up and then immediately turned his head to vomit what felt like the last bit of blood his body possessed.
There was a hole in Dean's body. Not a bullet hole or stab wound, both of which Sam had seen plenty of but a massive hole the size of his fist and Sam's crying turned to weeping as reality set in.
They were both going to die.
"S'mmy?"
His choked sobs stopped the second Dean's voice hit the air.
"Dean?"
"S'm?"
"Yeah, I'm right here." He pushed himself up near Dean's head, pulling the shirt back down first. Dean's eyes weren't open but his face had lost the smoothness of unconsciousness. A soft groan turned into a whimper and Sam felt the tears start again. "Hey, bud, I'm right here, okay? I'm going to stay with you." He nestled into the puddle of blood growing beneath them, their lives mixing in the most literal of senses. Dean whimpered again and Sam ran his fingers through his brother's hair.
"S'mmy?"
"Yeah?"
Dean's eyes finally opened and Sam could see they were lost, the green flickering around uncertainly, drugged and beaten by pain. When they landed on Sam's face, an anchor seemed to settle in Dean and he let out an audible sigh. Sam felt more blood pool under him and tried not to think of that hole. Instead, he positioned himself up against Dean's side, lending any warmth he had left to the person who had always made sure Sam was the one who had the only blanket, pillow, bed.
"'s not good."
"I know," Sam said. "I know. But you'll be okay."
"How bad?" Dean's eyes closed for a moment as his body convulsed of it's own accord and Sam pressed into him, holding on tighter.
"It's not so bad. You'll be fine."
A necessary lie.
"'kay," Dean said, believing his little brother, proving again just how far gone he already was. "It hurts," he said, peering at Sam with half-opened eyes, one hand twitching as if to move but ultimately going nowhere.
"I know. But you're going to be fine. There was a big fight with all the angels." Dean's eyes opened all the way.
"Cas?"
"He's fine," Sam lied again.
"'s good," Dean slurred. "'m cold."
"You won't be for long," Sam said and there was no way to stop the tears now. He let them come, almost welcomed them. "I promise it's gonna stop hurting soon." The rattle of his brother's chest was worse, the pause in between breaths growing longer each time. "We're going to get you fixed up and it won't ever hurt again." Dean's eyes watched Sam's face and his one side of his mouth twitched up for the briefest moment.
"What?" Sam said. His head was even heavier and it was starting to hurt more fiercely now, the room jolting around the two of them with every beat of his heart, the blackness surrounding his vision growing wider and darker.
"Will you," Dean pulled a shallow breath in, "talk to me?"
"Yeah," Sam said, nodding over and over. "Of course I will, of course."
"S'mmy, 'm tired."
"That's okay," Sam choked out. He ran his hand through his brother's hair again and Dean's eyes closed most of the way at the touch. "Just go to sleep and when you wake up, it won't hurt anymore. I promise." Then Dean's eyes were shut and Sam let his exhausted body sink to the floor. He couldn't feel the blood soaking into his back but he knew it was there, could hear it splash it on the ground as he searched for Dean's hand. There was little warmth left in it but Sam clutched at it anyway.
"Do you remember when we were little?" Sam said, shutting his eyes for a second to allow the memory more space in his mind. It burst forth like a rambunctious toddler and there was Sam and Dean, standing at a streetlight. "And you made me hold your hand every time we crossed a street until I was ten?" Sam's breath caught in his throat as his own lungs started to give out. He looked over at Dean whose chest was still moving but only in the shallowest of dips. Sam shut his eyes; he didn't want to see when his brother stopped breathing. "I was so annoyed with you because I didn't want you to think I was a baby. I've always looked up to you, Dean."
He gripped Dean's hand tight to his chest. He could feel the calluses and the scrapes and the scars and that comforted him. This body next to him was just the same old Dean.
"I know you just wanted to protect me, to keep me safe."
There was young Sam and Dean again and they were holding hands across the street, taking the asphalt at a sprint because who didn't and Sam was laughing and Dean was watching the road for cars. They got to the other side and Dean didn't let go and Sam didn't pull away and that's how they walked the whole home.
"I'm gonna hold your hand Dean, okay? We've got one more street to cross but don't worry, I'm going to keep you safe."