Yet another fic inspired by last week's amazing and heartbreaking episode. I've been struggling to get this posted before the next episode aired, and I just made it even if I had to stay up all night to do it.

Please let me know what you think!

Utterly Sam

Dean Winchester knew himself far better than most men.

He knew his depths and his shallows, strengths and weaknesses. He could kill with his bare hands. He could create with them, too. He could make decisions with his heart, his soul, and not just his trigger finger. A few lifetimes of sacrifice, torture and brutal hunts had rendered him hardened, cynical and with the sobering knowledge of just exactly what he was capable of.

So there was no self-hating attack of guilt when he released Sam's collar, letting his unconscious brother flop gracelessly to the marble floor below. The seething red that was only there when Dean was truly unleashed eased back, only tinting the edges of his vision, and allowed him to feel the hot, kaleidoscoping throb in his hand, and reverberating into his shoulder. He stood up and stalked through the beautiful modern home littered with mangled corpses and severed limbs. The kitchen was all clean lines and exposed concrete and stainless steel appliances. The poor, goddess-possessed chick had great taste. Dean snatched a kitchen towel off the hook and dug through the freezer for some ice for an icepack.

He pressed it to his bloody, split knuckles with a hiss. He left it there for a moment before changing tactics and lifting it to the back of his neck. An intense shock of cold was followed by the earth-shattering soul-crushing realization that whatever was unconscious on the floor a few feet away wasn't his brother. The hunter inhaled shakily, fighting to expand his lungs that were tight with panic and to wrap his mind around the fact that he'd lost his brother again or that Dean already knew he wasn't strong enough to power Sam through another crisis of the supernatural.

He sent a pleading prayer to Castiel and trudged out into the great room, ready to pile all of the corpses into the drained indoor pool to salt and burn them.

But Sam was waking, all fluttering eyelids and unfettered groans of pain. Whether it was Sam or not, the pathetic sounds still made Dean's stomach clench with sympathy. Dean watched as Sam gingerly rolled over to cough up blood…and lunch, apparently. Pink, gooey strings of saliva hung from Sam's busted lips. There, a twinge of remorse sparked within him and Dean took a few tentative strides forward. Sam's dark fringe of hair was fanned out over his face, but the head cocked slightly at the sound. His left eye was lost in the puffed, rapidly swelling skin. Blood marred the rest of it, flowing steadily from his nose, a gash on his check and above the eyelid. The twinge snowballed into a full-blown throb of shame.

He moved on instinct, because something that looked like his brother was suffering, trying to stand up but wobbling woozily like a drunken giraffe. Dean fisted the back of his jacket and collar and thrust the icepack into view.

"Get off…" Sam barked, shoving Dean with a roughness that spoke of anger and betrayal.

The ice, molded in perfect squares, skittered across the concrete floor.

"Sam would be hurt, but whatever you are…thought you 'couldn't feel it.'"

Sam made it to his knees only to sway like a reed in a hurricane. He leaned forward again, head on resting on his forearm, butt stuck up in the air. It was just like how he napped as a child. Dean slapped himself mentally. Not goin' there.

He moved with a subtly and stealth to nudge the toe of a desk chair within reach.

Stubborn as Winchesters and humans were known to be, Sam pushed up again to glare at his brother with one functioning eye. "But I'm not stupid…can't stay." He sounded like his mouth was full of marbles.

Dean narrowed his eyes too, conveying a nasty intent. "Sam never was."

He draped himself over the chair and managed to get long, trembling legs beneath him. When he was standing, Sam poked at his face, wiping some of the blood away with his sleeve.

His little brother had always been stoic with his pain, like a part of him was fascinated by the bluing of bruises and the coppery smell of blood. This Sam was no different. Long fingers probed his bloated face without a flinch or a grunt.

"Is he in there with you, freak?" Dean asked softly.

"I'm right here." The frustration was clear.

"No, Sam, you're not. Sam's been gone for a whole year, and whatever came back got me turned into a vampire and cost my family, so… Fool me once, shame on me, right? Not buyin' it again."

"And you wonder why I didn't come back."

Sam turned his back on his brother, all bowed shoulders and busted face, and walked out.

-SPN-

The darkness and one functioning eye conspired against him to make his speedy escape decidedly slow. He weaved down the stairs, giant feet heavier than anvils, and into the starless night. He tripped over curbs and broken sidewalk, crashed forward, skinning knees and palms. The glare of streetlights and headlights were like hundreds of separate suns amped up an already unbearable headache and made the world that much more treacherous.

His face felt irrevocably dented. Sam knew severely concussed not just from the Tyson-worthy blows his face. There were also knots on the back of his head from it rocking back into the floor from the force of the assault.

Sam ducked into a gas station bathroom to scrub the blood off his face. He stole a pair of sunglasses from a kiosk and went into the station for ice.

He'd felt…free ever since he escaped The Cage—not tethered by horrific guilt over starting the apocalypse or the perpetual pain of failing his entire family. It was the burden he lived with before he fell. One he'd been untethered from once he returned.

Sam thought he'd been saved by God.

And not for the first time, Sam was relieved he couldn't really feel it. He didn't miss Jess or Ellen. He didn't smolder with anger or feel like a curse upon the Winchesters, the world. He didn't feel grief when he couldn't save someone. Emotion was a hindrance and he was more efficient a hunter without them. No one had really known that he'd came back different, streamlined like the blade of a knife.

The youngest Winchester had always been analytical and cerebral which helped him discern what he should have felt in social situations. He remembered what was it was like—the exhausting catharsis of crying, the frigid-tipped heat of anger, the lightness and sweet cadence of a laugh. All of it seemed closer, brighter when he was with Dean.

His brain was a little scrambled, but it was telling him that Sam, the brother Dean knew, would try to fix things. He'd try to make it better.

So Sam did that. He stole an old Honda, drove it as far as he could and managed to park before he passed out.

In the morning, he drove again—one hand on the wheel, one with a plastic bag of McDonalds ice pressed against his face. Because even Sam's broken spirit knew he looked downright scary.

He reached the house in less than six hours. Getting out of the car and trudging up to the front gate drained what little strength he had. He panted, leaning against the fence, sweating a little from exertion and probably a fever. Determined, he pressed on, ringing the doorbell with a shaking hand.

He heard quick, light footsteps on hardwood before the lace curtain was swept ruffled. "Whoisit?"

Sam pressed his sunglasses further up on his face. "Ben, it's Sam."

The lock clicked and the door opened a mere three inches. Earnest brown eyes peered up at him. Sam remembered how imposing he could be, and stooped down slowly. Ben's eyes followed him, wary and awed. "You can't be here," he whispered. "Mom'll be pissed."

"It's okay, Ben. Go get her."

He could see the whole face now. "She'll make you leave, Sam, and I…" he peered around him, searching. "Where's Dean?"

"He's not here, but he sent me. He wanted me to apologize to your mom. But especially to you." Sam said. The days when Dean and his dad were his heroes were nebulous and eerily romantic. He'd already know that Dean had been Ben's hero. Until a week ago. "When he came to see you, he wasn't himself."

"Was he poisoned?" The kid seemed almost hopeful.

"Yeah…by a monster we were hunting."

"I knew it! Tell him…I'm not mad and that he should come home. I'll convince my—"

Ben was snatched backwards with a yelp. Sam gripped the doorframe and pushed to stand with laborious effort. Lisa had Ben pressed against her, one maternal and protective arm slung across him. In the other was a gun.

Sam sighed, wearily. He had to gain her trust before she shot him. "Ben, go upstairs in your room and lock the door."

"Why?"

"Your mom and I need to talk and she wants you safe."

Ben lifted his chin to look at his mom. "Sam said Dean was sick from a monster's poison. It wasn't his fault, Mom."

"Go on, baby. Sam will be gone in a minute."

Ben did as he was told. Lisa's face didn't flinch until she heard the slamming of a door. "Get out."

"Lisa…" his legs trembled and the room twisted like funhouse mirrors. Sam ignored it, pressing forward. "I just need to say this…and then I'll leave."

"Hurry up. We're finally getting settled here…this can't happen again, Sam."

"Just hear me out. Preferably without the gun."

Lisa assessed him. Her dark eyes scrutinized his rumpled, blood-stained clothes and partially concealed face for a long moment, before deciding to thumb on the gun's safety and set on the hall table. "Close the door."

Sam acquiesced. "C-can I sit for a minute?"

She rolled her eyes, flippant and angry. "Sure. You want me to make some meatloaf while I'm at it?"

He staggered to the nearest chair, an overstuffed armchair that padded his battered head. "I hate meatloaf, maybe some pie."

"Did Dean do that…to you?"

Sam shrugged. "Call it an occupational hazard."

"Did he send you to talk me down?"

"No. I just…I just wanted to clear the air. I know Dean came to see you a week ago, and he was pretty out of it. I know what happened was horrible, but it was my fault. Not his. He got attacked...and poisoned. I didn't watch him like I should have."

The hard angles of Lisa's face didn't soften one bit. "The second you came back, Sam, he checked out. He abandoned everything, kept us on lockdown. It's…not normal for him to be so attached to you. It's not a healthy situation."

"Nothing about our lives are normal. I didn't want Dean to ever hunt again…I wanted him happy with you, but how do you go against everything you've been taught, everything that was engrained into you? He's just…he wanted to save me—again—and I think he just realized that he can't."

Lisa sat down across from him, her guard finally dropping. "He did do that to you, didn't he?"

He laughed, but it was humorless, emotionless. "I had it coming, believe me."

"Ben's been acting like Superman died or something."

"For him, he did." Sam sighed. His head was aching and his nose was packed with dried blood and it took real concentration not to puke all over Lisa's pretty blue rug. "I'm not here to sway you either way. I just wanted to know that he loves you both and he'd cut out his own heart before he'd hurt you and especially Ben."

"Love doesn't fix everything, Sam. I thought if we loved him enough it would fix him, but he left us way before I told him to go."

"Lisa…" Sam said, mind whirling with memories that should have been riddled with darkness and calamity, but felt detached and clinical. "Love is what kept him in the same place, dedicated to you for a year—that's a huge thing for a guy who hasn't had a home in thirty years. Love—that insane thing we had—is what saved the world."

-SPN-

The whiskey offered no solace but it dulled piercing pain and quelled a whirring mind. He had nowhere to go now and his instincts and training were of no help to him because Sam was gone and Lisa hated him and Ben was so traumatized he wasn't speaking. So he drank, Lisa's candid words mocking him as he did, and didn't do much else. Maybe tonight was the night his liver finally exploded from all of the booze or whatever was giving him life after life simply decided he'd had enough.

The lock rattled before opened with an eerie creak. A huge boot stammered in. Dean followed it up to see Sam's face, generously streaked with purple. He stood up, whiskey and anger ignored.

Sam barely acknowledged him, just steered his body towards the bed before sitting down with a hiss. "You drove like that?"

"Hitched a ride," Sam's voice was curt, spent.

Dean peered through the window, heart leapt as he saw Lisa and Ben standing under umbrellas in relentless rain. Instead of holing up to lick his wounds, Sam had somehow gotten across two states and convinced the world's most protective mother—a woman who called him a co-dependent, alcoholic whackjob—to come back with him, son in tow. It was ballsy move, one that was dripping with compassion and understanding and squishy chick-flick shit he hated.

It was so utterly Sam that it took his breath away.

He moved to his side. "Cas seems to think something took your soul."

Sam didn't even flinch.

Dean made another icepack and pressed it with light pressure to his pulped face. "There aren't words to tell you how horrible I feel about what I did to you. It wasn't fair, Sammy. It's not your fault. You asked for my help…and I hurt you. I'm so sorry."

"Can't really be mad at you, so…"

"We'll get it back, okay? I promise."

"Okay. But Dean, you gotta…keep me in check so I won't do anything I normally wouldn't. There is no line for me anymore and I don't want to hurt people, but I just don't feel…"

Dean palmed Sam's lolling head, surprised and a little worried by the heat there. "I got your back, little bro. Just try to rest."

Sam opened the eye that wasn't swollen shut, and glared at him, "there's a lady out there waiting for you."

"Only a Sammy with no soul can still manage to be an emo bitch."

His little brother smile, probably by reflex, but Dean just pretended it wasn't. "Jerk."