Fic contains dialogue from the episode 'Wishful Thinking', it belongs to Eric Kripke and Ben Edlund.
Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)
Sam finds Dean on the pier after he melts the coin down. Dean's sitting on a bench glancing at a newspaper, and Sam smiles to himself as Audrey walks past his brother with her restored teddy bear and Dean gives her a little wave. Her parents are sunburned when they pass by Sam, and in a way he sort of thinks they deserve that for wishing they were thousands of miles away from their daughter. But then, Sam figures they probably made the wish on a whim never thinking it would come true, and then woke up in a foreign country without their passports and have been trying ever since to get back. He's happy he didn't make a wish. It seems like Dean got off pretty easy with a mild case of food poisoning. The look on Wes's face when he gave the coin back to Sam proved that. He shouldn't have done what he did, but he did love that girl. Sam didn't like having to take her away from him, even if it was the right thing to do.
"Well, uh, the coin's melted down," he tells Dean as he approaches. "It shouldn't cause any more problems.'
"Audrey's parents are back from Bali. Looks like all the wishes are gone," Dean agrees. "And so are we."
He starts to walk back down the pier, and Sam follows him, but then Dean stops.
"Hang on a second."
"What?"
"You were right."
Sam frowns. It isn't very often that Dean says those words. "About what?"
"I shouldn't have lied to you. I do remember everything that happened to me in the pit."
Suddenly, Sam feels like he's about to be sick. It isn't a surprise. After what Uriel told him the other day, after the way Dean's been acting the last little while, Sam figured he remembered Hell. But he'd been hoping, praying, that he was wrong. He'd have given just about anything to be wrong.
"Everything," Dean adds.
Sam has no idea what to say, and what comes out of his mouth is, "So tell me about it."
"No," Dean says simply, and Sam opens his mouth to protest but Dean talks over him. "I won't lie anymore. But I'm not gonna talk about it."
"Dean, look, you can't just shoulder this thing alone. You gotta let me help," Sam pleads.
"How?" Dean asks flatly. "You really think that a little heart-to-heart, some sharing and caring, is gonna change anything? Huh? Somehow heal me? I'm not talking about a bad day, here."
"I know that," Sam mumbles. He wishes he knew how to handle this.
"The things that I saw? There aren't words. There is no forgetting, there's no making it better," Dean says through clenched teeth. He taps the side of his head. "Because it is right here. Forever. You wouldn't understand. And I could never make you understand. So I am sorry."
Sam blinks back tears, and Dean just walks away, so Sam follows him again. He doesn't know what else to do. Leaning on each other is the only way they've ever found to deal with things like this – not that they've ever dealt with something like this before – and if Dean won't let Sam help, it's like he's handcuffing Sam to a telephone pole and asking him to juggle. Sam needs to help him, for himself as much as for Dean. He doesn't know what either of them are going to do if Dean refuses to talk about it.
Dean leads them to the Impala and then they drive. For probably two hours, they just drive over miles of generic highway, through trees and past bare fields and in and out of rain. Dean clenches the steering wheel and stares out through the windshield, and Sam sits in the passenger's seat and stares at his hands and tries desperately to hold it together. It always happens this way. Something horrible happens and Dean just builds his walls up thicker and higher while Sam falls apart. He'd give anything to be stronger, but he never has been. Especially not when it comes to bad things happening to his brother.
Sam's just numb. He can't feel anything, not the pain inside or the memories of life without Dean or the nightmares of what Dean must've been through. He can't even feel where his fingernails on his right hand are digging into the palm of his left. Everything has gone blank. Because the truth is – the terrible, unthinkable, inescapable truth – is that this is all. Sam's. Fault. All of it. It always has been, and Sam knew that, but it all comes back now as they burn rubber on asphalt and Sam has time to think about it.
It goes back so far. Years; back when Sam was first discovering his visions. Dean promised everything would be okay, and Sam let himself believe it. Nothing was okay. Yellow-Eyes took Sam and the others to that place, that abandoned frontier town. He told Sam about his plan, told him only one of the psychics would be leaving there alive. Sam didn't want to believe it, but then Lily got strung up when she tried to leave and Ava killed Andy. It was kill or be killed. That's what Sam told himself – that's why he didn't kill Jake when he had the chance. Sam didn't blame Jake for trying to kill him. Jake was a soldier, he knew about what it's like to be in a battlefield just like Sam did. He attacked Sam to save himself, and Sam knew that. So he let Jake live. And then everything went wrong. Jake stabbed him, Dean made the deal, Dean went to Hell because Sam didn't listen to Ruby, didn't take the chance to save his brother when he had it. Dean spent four months under a knife, or whatever unimaginable instruments of torture they used to slice into his brother's beautiful, freckled skin, and it was Sam's fault. Completely.
Sam spent the four months hating himself for it. He drank until he almost died every night for weeks. He cried until he was out of tears and screamed until he was out of breath. He tried to bargain with the crossroads demon, irrationally angry and devastated and more than willing to take Dean's place in Hell. He drove to the edge of more cliffs than he could keep track of, sat in the driver's seat where Dean should have been, and sobbed himself hoarse while he tried to work up the courage to hit the gas and send himself and Dean's baby over into the canyon below. The only reason he never did is because he knew there was no guarantee he'd end up in Hell – and Sam knew he didn't deserve Heaven, even if whoever it is that decides these things thought differently and if Heaven even exists. And, more importantly, Dean wouldn't be there, so Sam didn't want to be there either.
He dreamed every night of what must be happening to Dean, and it made him sicker than the booze did. When Ruby found him, Sam was nothing more than a broken shell of grief and pain and empty black nothingness. At first he pushed her away, but then she gave him something like hope. She couldn't bring Dean back, but she could help Sam punish the demon bitch who'd sent him to Hell. It wasn't even close to what Sam wanted, but it was something. He let her talk him into honing his abilities, drinking her blood, fucking her even though the thought of it still makes Sam hate himself. Sam has no illusions. He knows what he did with her was reckless, dangerous, even plain stupid. He did it because he was smashed to pieces inside over Dean, over losing his brother and knowing that it was entirely his own fault. He wanted Dean back so badly, and when he couldn't have that, he focused on the one thing he could do – get some payback.
But then Dean was back, his mangled body had been magically healed, and even more miraculously, he didn't remember his time in Hell. It was too good to be true, but Sam believed it anyway. It was like he'd gotten a pass. It was still his fault Dean went to Hell, but if Dean didn't remember it? Suddenly Sam felt like he'd been given a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sam had still made so many mistakes, and getting Dean back didn't erase what Sam had been through without him, but he'd allowed himself to wonder if maybe someone upstairs was letting him off the hook. It was like a lucky break, and Sam managed to forgive himself just a little for not killing Jake. Dean couldn't be affected by something he didn't remember, so Sam's intense sense of guilt cooled down a little. It was even part of the reason he agreed to stop working with Ruby – if Dean didn't remember what happened to him, there was less of a need to make someone pay for it. Sam still wanted Lilith dead, but not as much as he had before.
And now, that's all flipped upside down. If Dean remembers Hell? That changes everything. It means everything is Sam's fault again. It means Sam should never have forgiven himself for letting Jake live. Dean suffered because of him, Dean was tortured for months because of Sam. Everything Sam was feeling in those months comes rushing back in hot, sticky, nauseating waves that make Sam's head spin like he's on a ride at one of those county fairs Dean used to take him to in the summers. Sam wonders if he made a mistake by cutting Ruby out. If Dean remembers Hell, if that's the reason for the nightmares and the drinking and everything else Dean's been doing lately, Lilith needs to be gutted like a fish and Sam needs to be the one to do it. He's wasted so much time; he should have been drinking the blood and practicing all this time, getting better so he could take Lilith out. He's going to miss his chance to kill her again, all because he listened to Dean instead of Ruby. This time, Sam's not sure he's ever going to be able to forgive himself.
Hours later in a motel room – in what town and state Sam doesn't even know – Dean takes a shower and orders them dinner and then flakes out on a bed to watch a football game like nothing is different, like Sam doesn't know what he knows now, and Sam can't take it. He knows Dean doesn't want to talk about it, but to be honest he's not sure he cares what Dean wants. He picks the remote up from where it's sitting on the table between the two beds, shutting the TV off and earning himself a dirty look from his brother.
"I was watching that."
"Yeah, I know."
Dean raises his eyebrows. "So?"
"So do you really expect me to just pretend nothing happened earlier? That you didn't tell me what you told me?"
Dean rolls his eyes and looks away. "You already knew before I told you. So you were already pretending."
"I wasn't pretending, Dean, I was hoping I was wrong! And now that I know I wasn't?" He doesn't finish the sentence because he doesn't know how to make sense of the thoughts that race through his mind.
Dean takes the option away from him. He sits up, swinging his legs down over the edge of the mattress and facing Sam with an annoyed look on his face. "What? Now that you know you weren't what? What's your plan, Sam? Slow-dancing? Roses?"
"Stop it," Sam mutters, glaring at him, but Dean stands up and carries on anyway.
"No, tell me. Tell me what exactly it is you're planning on doing to make this better. Oh, I know, couple's massage. Yeah, that would really do the trick. Get us all oiled up and rubbed down by strangers, that would make me forget."
Sam glares at him again. He doesn't often have the urge to hit his brother, but he does right now. He doesn't want to be that person, though, so he clenches his fists at his sides instead. Dean makes a mocking, derisive noise through his nose and then walks a few steps away.
"That's what I thought," he says as he puts distance between them.
Sam is suddenly irrationally angry. "Okay, fine. You don't wanna talk, then I will. Why don't you let me tell you about my time while you were in Hell."
"Sam," Dean starts, turning around to face Sam again, but then he doesn't say anything else.
"Dean, I was a mess. And I'm not saying that to make you feel bad, I'm saying it because it's the truth. I was drunk off my ass for almost a month. I locked myself in a motel room and I drank until I passed out, woke up, puked up the contents of my stomach, and then drank until I passed out again. For a month. Because I couldn't bear to be sober because I couldn't handle how much I needed you back. Honestly, I think I'm lucky to be alive."
Dean just shakes his head and looks away.
"A little while after you died?" Sam continues. "I went to a crossroads, and I begged the demon to let me take your place. Not to bring you back and give me ten years before my deal was up, to trade places with you, right on the spot. To send me straight to Hell and put you back up here where you belong. All I wanted in the world was to be the one in the pit so you didn't have to be."
"What do you want me to do with that?" Dean asks angrily. "I'm not gonna tell you I'm sorry for making the deal, because I'm not."
"I want you to talk to me!" Sam cries. "I want you to get that you're not alone! And I know it's not the same, okay, I do. I'm not saying what I went through is anything even close to what you did."
"Then what are you saying?"
"That I'm not okay either! I'm not okay at all! I know what it feels like to be broken, Dean, because I'm still there! Shit, I mean, think about it. I let a demon talk me into using my psychic thing after I promised you I wouldn't. I wanted more than anything to trade places with you, but when I couldn't, all I wanted to do was kill the demon who put you in Hell, and my powers were a way to do it! I knew it was crazy, I knew it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway because it was the only thing I could do. Don't you think that proves how fucked up I was?" Sam doesn't mention how, now that he knows Dean remembers Hell, he doesn't think it was such a bad idea anymore. Dean doesn't need to know that part, especially before Sam's fully decided what to do about it.
"So what, so we're both fucked in the head." Dean spreads his arms out and raises his eyebrows. "What's step two, Sam? Where do we go from there? You think the fact that we're both damaged means if we cry and hug it out we'll somehow be fixed?"
"I think it's a start! I don't think we can just click our heels together and make this go away, but I think if we deal with it together we've got a hell of a lot better chance at getting through it!"
"Yeah, well, sorry kiddo, but you're wrong on that one. This isn't something to get through. Maybe this is just who we are now."
"Are you seriously talking about giving up?"
Dean shoots an icy look at him. "No. I'm talking about putting this behind us. It's over, alright? I'm back. I have to remember every day for the rest of my life what it was like down there, and you have to remember what it was like up here without me, and maybe those are just crosses we have to bear."
Sam's mouth opens a few times but no words come out, and Dean shakes his head again and disappears into the bathroom. Sam sinks down to sit on his bed, blinking furiously against the sting of tears for a moment before he loses control and they spill down his cheeks. He drops his head forward into his hands as the grief washes over him for a minute or two before he manages to reign himself back in. It's another five minutes before Dean comes back out, and Sam just sits there and stares into space and runs everything over in his head. He should have killed Jake. It's the only thought he can focus clearly on. Sam didn't want to kill a person, especially a person who hadn't really done anything wrong. It's not who Sam is. But it should be. He should have been stronger, he shouldn't have been so soft. Everything would have ended up okay if he'd just killed Jake the first time he got the chance.
When Dean comes back into the room, he stares at Sam for a moment and then he walks over and sits beside him.
"What, you wanna talk now?" Sam mutters, both irritation and emotion apparent in his thick voice.
"No."
"Then what?"
"Just don't like it when you're upset," Dean says quietly. He folds his hands together in his lap and stares at them.
"I'm not gonna lie anymore either, Dean," Sam tells him. "If you wanna pretend everything's fine, then I guess I can't stop you. But I'm not going to."
Dean nods and doesn't answer.
"How are we supposed to do that, anyway, huh?" Sam hears himself ask, even though he doesn't remember his brain telling his lips to form the words. "Dean, we spend every minute of our lives together. I know everything there is to know about you. I know your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite parts of your favorite movie and favorite song. I know the seeds in tomatoes gross you out. I know exactly how much hot sauce you like on scrambled eggs. I know where every scar was on your body before and what caused them. I could still tell you where they all were. I know the things you're scared of and the things you're proud of. The things you don't like about yourself. The things you don't like about me."
Sam's voice wavers as emotion grips him again, and Dean looks away from him. His shoulders clench, and Sam thinks maybe Dean's holding back tears too.
"I even know a whole host of things I wish I didn't know about you, like what time of day you shit and the face you make when you wish you could scratch yourself in public!" Sam continues desperately. "How the hell are we supposed to – I don't know, drive around together, share a meal, have a conversation, while we're both pretending we're not pretending something's wrong? Something this enormous?"
Dean shakes his head, glancing back at Sam for a moment with shiny, devastated eyes and then dropping his gaze again.
"Yeah," Sam mumbles, instantly feeling like shit for pushing.
"M'sorry. I really am," Dean says.
Sam blinks again and wipes at his eyes.
"I like everything about you."
Sam snorts. "No you don't."
"I mean it. Even the things that bug me. 'Cause all of them make you the person I went to Hell to save."
"I wish you hadn't," Sam whispers miserably.
"I don't."
Tears flood Sam's eyes again, and then Dean's kissing him before Sam's mind can wrap itself around what's happening. Dean's in his space, his fingers in Sam's hair and his lips wet and warm and insistent against Sam's. He's doing it as a distraction – because he thinks if they get into it, Sam will drop everything Dean doesn't want to talk about – but Sam doesn't care. Even if it turns out Dean's right, he still doesn't care. The sadness that grips him is unbearable and Sam needs Dean to make it better, even if that makes him selfish.
Dean pushes him back onto the bed, both of them moving around awkwardly until Sam's head is on the pillows and Dean is on top of him. Dean kisses him deeply, in that way of his that's hard and predatory but gentle and loving at the same time. He licks along Sam's bottom lip, drawing it into his mouth to suck on it before he pushes his tongue into Sam's mouth. Sam brings his hands up to hold Dean's head, angling it to the side so he can kiss Dean back roughly. He pushes his hips up into Dean's as the blood in his body rushes south, and Dean rocks back down into him, grinding the top of his thigh into Sam's filling erection. Sam rolls them over so he's on top, and he rolls his hips into Dean's, too fast, too hard, but he's lost all sense of himself and the only thought pulsing in his brain is that if Dean won't let Sam help with words, Sam has to make him better another way. It's his responsibility. Dean is broken because of Sam, so Sam has to fix it.
"Sammy," Dean mumbles, his voice thick with lust and affection and it slides down Sam's spine like hot oil. He kisses Dean harder, trying to climb inside of Dean so he never has to be away from him again.
Sam pushes himself up to his knees, pulling his shirts off and tossing them behind him and then attacking Dean's buttons with his fingers. He kisses Dean sloppily as he fumbles with getting Dean's shirt undone, and then he roughly pulls Dean up to a sitting position to shove the fabric off his arms and then pushes him back down. He knows he's going too fast, too forceful, but he can't help it. He kisses down Dean's chest as he walks backwards on his knees and reaches for Dean's pants. He drags his teeth over a nipple, cupping Dean's cock in his hand over Dean's jeans and squeezing, and Dean hisses and arches up into him. Sam licks down his abs, over the place the scar under his ribs used to be, as he rubs the heel of his palm against Dean's trapped erection. Dean isn't even fully hard yet but Sam doesn't have the patience to wait.
Dean's mumbling his name, almost like he wants him to stop, or at least slow down, but Sam doesn't listen. He flicks open the button on Dean's jeans and drags the zipper down, sliding them over Dean's hips and chasing after the newly exposed skin with his tongue. Dean's scent is masked by the smell of soap from the shower he took earlier, but Sam can still smell him, and his mouth waters. He gets Dean's pants all the way off, just narrowly missing Dean's foot connecting with his nose, and then he tugs Dean's boxers off too and throws everything carelessly over his shoulder to the floor.
"Sam," Dean says again, and this time Sam takes a moment for a breath and to glance up at his brother. Dean's propped up on his elbows, watching him with concern shining through the arousal in his dark eyes. Sam tries to smile at him but he isn't sure he quite manages it, and then he hunches over and licks at the head of Dean's cock where it's lying red and swollen against his abdomen. Dean makes a happy little humming noise, and it's all the permission Sam needs to go right back to frantic.
He spits into his palm a few times and then picks Dean's cock up and strokes it, squeezing and twisting the way Dean likes. He pushes his tongue into the slit to lap up the bittersweet precome and then he slides his lips over the head, swirling his tongue around it twice and then sucking hard. Dean moans above him, reaching down to thread his fingers through Sam's hair. Sam closes his eyes, lets the sensations wash over him. The feeling of Dean hot and heavy on his tongue, his flavor in Sam's mouth and his scent in Sam's nose, the little pinpricks where Dean's tugging at his hair, the soft, breathy sounds Dean makes. It's all familiar and it's all right to Sam. It soothes him, even if his heart still pounds against his ribs and his mind still races.
He bobs his head up and down, letting Dean's stiff flesh slide in and out of his mouth, and he lets more spit dribble down to slick the movements of his hand. With his other hand he cups and squeezes and pulls gently on Dean's balls, his head swimming in the way Dean moans and the arousal deep in Sam's own gut. His cock is still stuck behind layers of fabric and metal zippers and Sam wants to touch himself but he doesn't. He focuses on Dean, on laving his tongue over the sensitive spots and stroking quickly and pulling Dean closer to the edge. Dean's hips buck up a little, his cock pushing into Sam's throat just barely but enough to have his eyes watering, so Sam abandons Dean's sac in favor of draping his arm over Dean's hips to pin him down. He strokes even faster and sucks at Dean for all he's worth and then Dean's groaning his name and pulling at his hair to warn him before he grunts and twitches and come bursts out of him and onto Sam's tongue. Sam swallows it all, greedy for any little piece of himself Dean will let Sam have.
When Dean's cock finishes dribbling the salty fluid, Sam licks at him, cleaning the leftover come and saliva with his tongue, and Dean shivers at the sensation on his sensitive flesh. Then Sam rests his forehead against the crease of Dean's thigh, breathing in the moist air heavy with the smell of sex. He closes his eyes as his head still spins, in more than just arousal now. Sam isn't just turned on, he's … he doesn't even know what he is. Scared. Upset. Desperate. Too many other things to name.
"Sam," Dean whispers, for what feels like the millionth time, petting his fingers through Sam's hair now, soft and gentle and loving in an almost motherly way, despite what Sam just did to him.
Sam shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He can't do this. He can't keep going, knowing how Dean's suffering and that he won't let Sam help. And he can't pretend everything's fine. Everything is about as far from fine as it could possibly be. Suddenly Sam's right back there, back in the weeks after Dean was gone. All the anger and pain and heartbreak comes flooding back like it's happening all over again.
Hands slide over his shoulders, and Sam realizes Dean's sitting up now and is tugging at him. Shakily, Sam lifts his head up and lets Dean pull him back up the bed. He rests his head on the pillow, on his side facing Dean, but he doesn't look at him. He can't.
"Hey," Dean murmurs, sliding his thumb over Sam's bottom lip and then threading his fingers back into Sam's hair. "It's okay."
Sam shakes his head, because it isn't okay. Dean leans forward and kisses Sam softly, and then he gathers Sam up in his arms and Sam lets him because he can't fight it. Dean's arms feel too good around him. They make him feel less scattered; they calm him down a little like they always have. Dean rests his face against Sam's, his lips moving against Sam's cheek as he whispers something Sam doesn't quite catch. It doesn't matter. It isn't okay, but it will be. Sam is going to make it okay. Because he has to.