Supernatural Imagine: Helping Sam cope after Cas dies and bringing Dean and Sam together again
There's an elusive flogging noise a ways down, reverberating from the antechamber, thwarting your mind from enjoying Dean's company. Even though his mouth trails further down your neck, strident in pushing you into the mattress, you don't elicit a reaction, because you can't help but wonder if he's deliberately trying to tear your mind from the noise. You've heard it before, this noise, this unceasing pounding, and every time, Dean seems to be more persistent to distract you from it. It also seems strange that he hasn't once brought up Castiel—maybe not while you two are spooning, but also when the silence in the bunker becomes so deafening that it's insufferable. You know that Dean should be coping, but there's another thought in the back of your head that keeps you under his stature, tongue and fingers into every part he can reach, because that's how Dean Winchester copes: through distractions.
But the pounding gets increasingly louder, and it takes everything inside you not to throw him off of you. Something could be seriously wrong. Investigation at this point seemed like the most logical thing to do.
"Where're you going?" he grumbles. You can see the hurt glistening like fire in his eyes. Never have emeralds had such an effect on your life until you fell in love with Dean.
"I'll be back," you say, planting a soft kiss on his lips, "I promise."
Dean obliges, throwing himself back on the mattress and sliding his headphones over his ears. You try not to notice that the first song blasting through is "Stairway to Heaven" as you distance yourself further away. You can perceive that the noise is coming from the other end of the hall. You venture in that direction, trying not to get sidetracked by the dozens of doors surrounding you. The bunker was huge, which meant that the sound could be coming from any of those openings.
However, one door of the cluster is cracked. You know that that's where the noise had originated, because it chimed once more before you approached the scope. You know that this is Sam's room; anyone could deduce that from the heavy artillery hanging on the walls, and the heaps of moose-sized clothes strewn across the floor.
The door isn't open enough to see the younger brother, but you make it so by pushing the door lightly with your fingers. You didn't even want to begin to imagine the consequences of barging into a Winchester's room uninvited.
From a better view, Sam is sitting on his bed, hands buried in his thick brown tresses. He stays that way, even when he knows that someone has walked in. "Sam?" you say, tilting your head to the side as if to perceive him better.
When he doesn't reply, you walk into the room anyway, sitting on the bed an appropriate distance away. You glance around the room. Even though the illumination is faint, you can detect that there are multiple fist-sized clefts in the opposing wall; a more-than-subtle indication that Sam's been doing this often. You repeat his name. He turns to you distantly, removing his hands, and you try not to take note that both are battered and bloodied.
You don't even have to ask what's wrong. He comes forth with the truth, after heavy reluctance: "I miss him, Y/N," he says in a voice hardly classified as a whisper.
You move closer to him. Instead of offering your words, you wrap your smaller hand over one of his larger ones, and lay your head against his shoulder. Like the holes, you can both feel and hear that his breathing is sporadic, so you also offer your naturally soothing nature, and thankfully he feels it and begins to breathe. Then there's a rumble. He's about to speak again, after he's mastered the art of strapping his tears to his eyes.
"Why isn't he sad? Why—why isn't he sad, or angry, or—?" His words are replaced by those tears that refused to fall moments ago.
"I don't know," you say honestly, "maybe he's just coping with it his own way. You know how Dean is, 'Drown all your problems in the bottom of the bottle'." You think that maybe you shouldn't have said that, until a small scoff escapes Sam's lips because he knows that the words are gospel truth. "Sam, I know that you worry about him, but you have to take care of yourself, too. We'll find a way to bring him back, we always do." You weren't sure whether you were talking about Dean or Cas, but either way, Sam was back to Earth enough to nod in agreement.
You sit with him for a little while longer. You know that even though you can't guarantee what you had just said, by offering your presence to a broken man, you say enough. You feel Sam's fingers open and close a few times; a sign of release. By the time he's completely relaxed, you silently detach yourself and head for the door. Sam's voice falters your grip on the handle.
"Where're you going?" he asks, heaving from his strained position. It was so adjacent to Dean's vexed tone that you couldn't imagine someone thinking that they weren't brothers.
"Downstairs to drown my sorrows in a carton of ice cream; I was opening you'd join me."
Sam smiles as he walks over to you and bends down to place a kiss on your cheek. "Thank you."
You return the smile and close the door behind you, knowing that he doesn't have to orally say that he'll be joining you in the kitchen in a few minutes. Because sometime after midnight, about five minutes after you had your heart-to-heart, you hear the drumming of footsteps coming down the staircase, and Sam's face appears from the shadows of the night.
The two of you sit together at the kitchen table doing as you said, one super-size carton of Rocky Road to share. You try not to laugh at the irony of the flavor, because Sam is actually eating for the first time, and not just "rabbit food" as Dean likes to call it. There's small talk in between bites that is when he wasn't stuffing his face. You've never seen Sam eat so heartily, and if that wasn't a small favor from the man upstairs, you didn't know what was.
Another few minutes later, Dean came downstairs to ask what was going on. Sam got up from his seat, and just when you think that he's going to turn in the other direction back to his room, he reaches into the fridge instead and sets another container of ice cream and a spoon in front of him. Dean stared from Sam to you before sitting across the table and digging into the comfort food.
You three sat in silence, basking in the dessert and that too, ironically, was comfort to your souls.