Bright. Too bright.
Sam came awake in a warm bed in a bright room.
Too bright.
Even with his eyes closed and his face pressed into the pillow, the bright light stung into his brain like a spotlight.
"Wh – ?" He wasn't even sure what he was trying to ask; why or what or who. He wanted the light off.
"Sammy?"
That was Dean's voice, coming from...somewhere.
"Mmmm—nnnnnnn—rrrrrrr..."
"Am I supposed to understand that?"
Sam turned his face out of the pillow, "Turn th'light...off?" He didn't open his eyes.
"The light? Oh, yeah..."
Sam heard a sound that was familiar but just out of reach and the light dimmed to an orange glare.
"There, I pulled the shade, how's that?"
"Nnnnnnnnnn—rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
Another sound, soft clicks and scrapes of metal on metal and the glare faded to sparking gray. "Okay. How's that?"
"Why's...bright?"
"That's the sun bouncing off the snow. It blizzarded or something while we were – anyway, so, how're you feeling?"
The change in topic was punctuated by the mattress dipping and a warm presence settling next to him.
Dean.
"...happened?" Sam didn't open his eyes.
"You don't remember?"
The question was punctuated by a heavy hand on his shoulder that crept around to the back of his neck.
Bad. Something bad had happened. Something Dean didn't want him to remember.
Sam didn't open his eyes.
"Dean?"
"You should go back to sleep, Sammy. You haven't gotten enough sleep yet."
"...happened?"
The punctuation this time was the silence between question and answer and the hand on his neck moved to his shoulder, his shoulder blades, then gripped through the blankets around his upper arm.
Bad.
"Famine happened, Sam. Do you remember Famine? And what happened after Famine?"
Famine...famine...a black, thick, sulfurous memory choked up from his throat into his mouth through his sinuses into his brain.
Famine.
Sam sat up and opened his eyes and Dean was an inch away. The hand on his right arm was joined by a hand on his left arm and the grip was too tight.
The world spun around Dean's face, his shirt, the blanket, the wall, the drape, the ceiling, the blanket, the wall…
"You remember," Dean said.
Sam closed his eyes. The grip loosened but held on.
"I gave in."
"You didn't give in. You fought harder than anybody I know. Even Cas couldn't fight it. If an angel couldn't resist it, what chance did you have?"
"I gave in."
The grip tightened.
"You saved me. Hey, hey, look at me. You saved me, you saved Cas. Look at me."
Sam opened his eyes.
Dean. Dean was there.
The room spun around him.
Sam closed his eyes.
"I didn't want to give in."
Dean sighed, "Sammy..." and the hands on Sam's arms moved to his shoulders, his back, around his back. "You saved everybody, Sammy. Everybody."
Sam exhaled a long, deep breath. "I wanted to protect you."
The grip tightened.
"You did, you did protect me. You did. You protected me."
The gray, sparking glare dimmed into darkness.
The End.