Author Note: Tiny liberties taken in a place or two. Other than that takes place 9.23. Not really original, I get that, but I started this a couple of months ago after my grandmother passed away. Figured if I was going to start it with her in mind, then I owed it to her to finish it. So this one is half-writing exercise, half-coping mechanism.
The stomp-scrape-drag of Sam's shoes along the narrow tiled corridor echoes all around him, partnering with his own labored breathing like a horror movie soundtrack. It's cold down here, and quiet. Much, much too quiet.
The floppy weight of his brother is an uncomfortable pressure against Sam's shoulders and neck but he doesn't dare adjust the way Dean is draped over his back. He's heavier than he should be, is lighter by liters of blood, blood that Sam can feel wet and thick and still warm through his jacket and shirt. And his soul, lost or stolen away by who the hell knows this time. A piece of a Winchester has always proven to be a hot commodity.
He lurches down the hall, focusing on maintaining balanced steps so as not to slam his brother's unfeeling head into a wall. Dean is a large but familiar burden. Sam's borne this weight before, many times. He's been a shoulder, an extension, a crutch. Something to lean into, onto. This isn't the first time he's carried Dean in death.
It's a slow, tedious journey, but Sam forces himself to make the trek, puts Dean in his room because he was comfortable here. The small, square space is the first place his brother thought of as his own. Sam has always thought of the Impala as Dean's but Dean always saw it as Dad's, even after the old man died.
He lowers Dean to the bed as reverently and as carefully as possible, tired muscles straining and protesting, wanting to call uncle –
"It remembers me."
- and doesn't intend to unload the body of his brother as jarringly as a cumbersome sack of potatoes, but Dean's weight slips from his shaky shoulders and he thumps to the memory foam mattress that had once given him comfort. A smear of blood from his head swipes the pillowcase.
"Sorry," slips out as a whisper. Sam swallows the rock in his throat, pushes the ball of grief down until it lands like a boulder in the pit of his stomach as he arranges Dean's limp limbs like an action figure, trying for a position that could suggest he was only sleeping.
This is temporary, he thinks. S'just temporary, Dean. I can fix this. I can get you back. The thought is automatic, a reflex. Sam takes slow, laborious steps backward, not all the way into the hall but putting just enough distance between them because Dean doesn't like to be crowded, or watched. Dean doesn't like to be still.
Dean is movement, and noise. He is riotous calamity, a cacophony of bangs and shouts and curses. He's loud when he eats, sleeps, walks, drives. Silence is an unbearable companion that brings with it all of the thoughts and memories Dean tried so hard to keep out, and so he always sought to drive it away with belligerence and violence and rock music.
Sam understands. Standing here, staring at his broken, bloodied brother brings the grief monster out of its cave, and he averts his eyes even though he owes it to Dean not to do just that. So he lets Dean have the hot tears that run down his face, doesn't wipe them away as he glances around the room.
He gets exactly what he deserves, brought face to face with all of Dean's belongings, the stark realization of how little time he's been spending with his brother over the past few months. Sam reaches out a tentative hand, lightly places two fingertips on the surface of the desk. Lightly, because you don't touch Dean's things. Not the radio knobs of the Impala. Not even his flashlight, you know, the good one. You don't check the pockets of his jacket for a stick of gum or a spare clip. Not unless you want a boot up your ass.
It feels strange to Sam, having this kind of access. Knowing this part of Dean, this much of him, when he isn't there to drive Sam away, can't protect his things from hands and eyes that can't help being curious.
The easy, obvious things are still on the surface, just like with Dean, himself: porn mags, shotguns, classic rock albums. There's more than that to Dean, so much more, but Sam can't stand being in the room any longer. The air is eerily chilly, the not-quite-yet cold body of his brother soaking up the heat.
Or maybe that's all in his head.
Weighed down by grief, confusion and denial, Sam stumbles blindly down the halls, into the kitchen, in search of something to numb this too-familiar cocktail of pain. He barks a laugh, harsh and hurting every inside bit of him that can feel it.
That's all Dean had wanted, to numb the pain, and Sam had looked down on him, shook his head and clucked his tongue and wagged his finger when all Dean had wanted was for the pain to STOP. He grabs a bottle of something dark and potent and cuts a path out to the dark main room, shucking out of his jacket as he goes. It falls to the floor with a heavy smack.
Sam does little more than collapse into the first chair he comes across, doesn't bother with the lights. There's a glass on the table, a thick one with a sturdy base. Dean's glass, because Dean always has a glass. Sam unscrews the cap and lets the neck of the bottle fall to hit the rim with a clack, pours the whiskey like there's no tomorrow.
The bunker is an obviously cavernous space, an unnecessary excess of square footage for just the two of them when they moved in. The high ceilings and innumerable empty rooms create an exaggerated sense of solitude now. The quiet means he's alone. Sam is well and truly alone now, with no one left alive whose opinion he cares to hear about, about what's healthy or what he should do now. Bobby was with him six years ago, after the Hellhounds. He gripped Sam's arm and dragged him away and ensured Dean was planted in the ground within a respectable amount of time, gave him warm meals and a familiar home to use for as long as he wanted. Granted, he gave up on Bobby pretty quickly and now he's under no obligation to give a DAMN what anyone has to say. So Dean will lie down the hall while he figures this out, to grow as cold as the concrete slabs that line the walls down here.
Sam needs time to think. He knows what he's said, what he told Dean, the firm stance he took on "let it be." But he was speaking about himself, in that moment, knowing death was imminent but bringing along a wash of acceptance and purpose that overtook him like a comforting wool blanket. It seemed the right choice to make, knowing that if he died in this particular line of duty, for this cause, it was a good one. And he was okay with it.
But this run on Metatron wasn't meant to be a suicide mission.
Forget everything he'd said to Dean over the past couple of months. Sam understands now the fear, the desperation. The whiskey hits his tongue and he REMEMBERS that he's been through this all before, lived this nightmare.
When Dean dies, Sam moves on. It hurts like hell, and it's hard, but he deals. He finds work, love, companionship. He finds LIFE, and life goes on.
Sam dies, and Dean does whatever it takes. Whatever his motives, however selfish it all may have been, he saves his little brother every time. There is nothing else about this world or this life that ever made sense to Dean, nothing to dedicate his days to other than to save and protect his little brother. Dad made sure of that, with the first barked order of so many to follow. Dean told the story over and over when they were kids, repeated it so often that it became well imbedded in his mind, became a core part of him. And that's not even counting the times Sam heard Dad say it himself. Look after your brother. Watch out for Sammy.
He was too hard on Dean, and he's going to have to live with that now. He's going to have to live with a lot of things. With knowing that he wasted the last few months he had with the only person who's always had his back. With knowing he'd pushed his brother away, hadn't even wanted to think of him as that. With knowing that his needlessly self-righteous words drove Dean to isolation, desperation, the heaviest drinking Sam can remember, and reckless action. To the Mark, the Blade, and now his death. Now he's dead, again and gone, again.
You did this to him. You killed him, Sam thinks. The tears well up again, hot and stinging mercilessly.
No, but you can get him back, a voice whispers, tempting and toying with him. The voice is right, of course. The logistics are unclear, but it can be done. There's always a way.
It's the easy choice to make, as easy as it must have been for Dean. He's going to fix this, whatever it takes. Crowley will fix this; Sam isn't going to give him a choice. If the demon requires his own life in exchange for Dean's, then, hell, they're just one step closer to putting things right.
Sam slams back what's left in the glass, wincing as the liquid cuts a trail of fire down his throat, into his stomach, warming him inside and out. He walks a pretty straight and steady line to the dungeon of the bunker, where the ingredients for the summoning spell are still laid out like Christmas morning.
"Damn it, Crowley. You got him into this mess. You will get him out…or so help me, God."
Sam knows something's gone sideways when Crowley doesn't appear. He HAS to appear, that's how this goes, the point of the summoning spell. The demon isn't supposed to have a choice in the matter. Then again, when has Crowley ever been one to play by the rules?
Fuck.
Sam runs to back to Dean like Hellhounds are after him, slams into the doorframe so hard it steals his breath. The room is empty, stinking of sulfur. Fuck.
A bloody outline on the covers where Dean had just been laying, a note in his place. Sam's never moved quite so quickly as to snatch that piece of paper.
SAMMY LET ME GO
It's Dean's handwriting but Sam's fingers come away covered in sulfur, and his heart attempts an impressive leap out of his mouth.