Lost
A/N: Wow, guys. Season 6 and soulless!Sam have been really hard for me. My heart is breaking for Dean, and I miss my lovable moose Sammy so much…thus, angst.
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He's alone, but the room isn't empty.
He wants someone. Anyone.
Cas, who would be saying something that sounds like a comedic deadpan, until you realize he's serious…which somehow makes it funny, disturbing, and strangely comforting all at once.
Bobby, who would be lecturing and cursing and caring as he always does, promising that it will be alright without saying it, or even believing it.
There's a score of others who Dean wishes he could see…Jo, or Ellen, or—
It's useless. All the speculation, all the begging for old ghosts. The one person he wants here is here, in all but...everything.
Sam.
He's got the cool, calm, and collected thing down pat, face effortlessly grim. He even sips his beer like an automaton.
Oh, there's parts of him recognizable. Still the brilliance. But it's behind keen, blank eyes now.
No soul, no sentiment.
No Sam.
Not really.
Dean turns his eyes away because looking for scraps of a soul where there is none is a terrible game, but he can barely force himself not to play.
He sips his own beer. It tastes like dust and ashes, like the tears he keeps locked up inside…somewhere deep within him, with his memories of his brother, the fragments of happiness he once knew, and what's left of his heart.
Sam's saying something, something about research, in a voice whose level tone means far more to Dean (cuts far more painfully) than the words.
Maybe Dad would be glad to see Sam now, see the precision and the tight cold smile and the sharp empty eyes, maybe Dad would nod with the approval that even Dean always fell just short of. Sam would be the good little soldier this time, following orders to the letter.
No qualms, no questions.
Maybe Dad would be proud of how his son had changed (broken), Dad who used to say, "Stop being so damn emotional, Sam," eyes hard, and then stalk out of the room like he'd been the one hurt instead of the one doing the hurting.
And though he tries to stop to the memory, Dean's thirteen again, opening his mouth to say, "He just means, don't be a girl…" but even that's too harsh for what's behind his (baby) brother's eyes, so all he says is "C'mere," and he holds Sammy tight, so that nothing can get him…not Dad or the monsters, not the memories or the pain.
Dean, always the protector. From the thing under the bed, and the nightmares, and demons.
Dean, take your brother outside—now!
Dean, take care of Sammy.
Dean…
His father's commands rain down in his mind like a storm, but he shuts them off. Silence. In his mind, in the room. Even Robo-Sam's stopped talking.
He'd thought he could save him…save the innocence and the faith, save the laughter and the love that used to be his brother. Dean has spent his life for that, would spend it again, several times over.
But he'd missed something. He's been too focused on the outside, never looking in. Never letting himself realize the truth:
The one thing he can't protect Sam from, the very thing he's lost him to, is Sam himself.