War Stories
The bunker has an unsettling air to it, smelling thickly of stale smoke, char, and blood. The dim, cavernous rooms feel vaguely unfamiliar, like it's been weeks since he's been home instead of mere hours.
His head is pounding and his feet are uncooperative and sluggish, weighed down by a potent combination of spent adrenaline, aching muscles, and a profound need for sleep. For rest. But that can't come. Not yet.
"Mom, what you did, the deal…"
Can't say he doesn't have a knack for timing. Dean's deep voice carries through the bunker, a comfort to Sam's tired ears. He's not trying to be quiet but they haven't noticed his approach, so he stops just short of the threshold, allows his brother to finish his thought.
"Everything that's happened since has made us who we are. And who we are? We kick ass. We save the world."
Damn straight. Sam lifts his chin, recognizes this tone of Dean's, the one that says it'll be okay even when he's not exactly saying it. Even when it's not okay. A weary smile tugs at his lips, though it's somewhat old-school of his brother to put such a positive spin on one of their family's darkest hours.
"And Sam? I'm scared," Mom admits in a quiet, fragile tone. "What if he can't forgive me?"
Because they all know her deal isn't Dean's to spin. That moment set forth a series of events that doomed each of them differently, but it's always been about Sam.
But Sam has to side with his big brother on this one. Every dark, tragic, heart-wrenching moment of their lives has gone into making them exactly who they are. Kicking ass, saving the world. The family business. There might be some things he's yet to make peace with, but he's not holding the deal against her. They each have their dark spots in this story.
"Mom." He steps into the library, hot tears welling in his eyes. "You don't have to be scared of me."
She falls into Sam and he folds her into a firm, desperate embrace. Pressed against his chest, he feels the shudder of emotion course through her. Dean claps a hand to his shoulder, and Sam turns his head, resting his chin on top of his mother's head.
"Glad you're back, man."
He can see in Dean's eyes just how close he thought they'd come to the end of something today, and Sam can't bear that sort of raw vulnerability in his big brother, drags him into the hug.
The three of them stand that way a long moment, a reunited family unit sagging in exhaustion, holding each other up. It comes as no surprise when Dean breaks away first, thumping Sam on the back with a rough sniff. He grimaces as he drops his arm, swaying where he stands.
Sam grips his brother's elbow, steadying the man while giving him a proper appraisal. "You look like hell," he says bluntly, and feels that's rather generous of him.
Dean raises his eyebrows with a huff that's almost a laugh, acknowledging the assessment and not arguing it. A deep, bloody gouge in his cheek has been haphazardly cleaned and patched, and evidence of blood lingers at his split lip, the juncture of his neck and jaw. Several berry-hued contusions are coming to color along his forehead, cheek, and chin, each one a mark of a viciously-delivered strike. His eyes are finely lined, bright with the pain he won't dare verbally concede. He shrugs his shoulder in a half-assed attempt to dislodge Sam's hand from his arm, and as he steps away his limp is even more pronounced than it'd been at Jody's, wounded leg threatening to buckle completely.
"Sit down," Sam orders, forcing his emotion down and tugging Dean toward the nearest chair.
His brother locks his good knee and splutters wordlessly – some weak, reflexive protest – so Sam removes option from the equation and forces him into a sit with a firm enough push against his chest.
Dean collapses with a harsh rush of air through clenched teeth, shoulders slumping as he melts against the seatback in a manner that suggests he won't be getting vertical again any time soon. Not on his own, at least. He closes his eyes and stretches out his hurt leg, fingers kneading into his thigh above the bulk of bandage and swelling at his knee.
Sam worries his lip, gaze rising to meet his mother's watery, mascara-smudged eyes and drifting back down to his brother. Unable to help himself, he asks the first stupid question that tickles his tongue. "Seriously, man, you all right?"
"Mm. Super," Dean answers, though the state of the room would suggest otherwise. He keeps a hand on his leg but opens his eyes, nods around at the wrecked library. "Might not look like it, but we won today."
There are two corpses in the room and neither of them is Dean, so that's exactly how it looks to Sam. "Yeah," he agrees quietly, tearing his eyes away from his brother's bruised face to take a hard look at the room.
"Victory beer?"
"No." Sam sighs, shaking his head. The most he's allowing his brother is a victory Vicodin. Maybe a victory nap.
He knew he was coming home to a battlefield, but had been too fatigued on the drive back, to preoccupied with Mom, with Lucifer, to properly steel himself for the sight of the blood and the bodies. The intrusion in their home. A sudden, severe chill travels through him.
This isn't the first time he's come home to find bodies.
"This place is a mess," he comments, forcing some degree of detachment, trying not to think about exactly how the table splintered or the glass shattered. He'd like to pretend none of these bloody drips and drops belong to Dean, but knows better. "God," slips out like a whispered curse Sam's too tired to hold back.
"Mom," Dean corrects solemnly, eyes seeking her out, looking white and pinched and exhausted. "She saved my sorry ass."
"You saved mine," she returns with feeling, the corner of her mouth lifting in a warm, thankful smile.
Dean shrugs a shoulder, won't make eye contact with either of them. He drags a hand down his face, and Sam catches sight of a dark, circular bruise on the side of his brother's neck, frowns. He'd write it off as a tremendously ill-timed hickey, but for the angry red hole at its center.
Under other circumstances he'd point out the mark from a safe distance, maybe crack a joke, but as things stand Sam doesn't hesitate to move closer and put a hand on Dean's shoulder, squinting down at the suspicious spot. "What's this from?"
Dean's focus takes too long to shift. He overshoots, blinks hard. "Hmm?"
Sam's heartrate increases as his fingers twist in his brother's collar. "This hole in your neck."
"Oh." Dean wrinkles his nose, frees himself with a slow twist of his shoulders. He brings up a hand to the spot with a wince, and his eyes drifts toward the smaller of the covered bodies. "She gave us something. Connecting brainwaves or whatever the hell."
"She stuck you with something?" Appalled, thinking back on his own trip at the end of Toni's needle stick, Sam whirls toward his mother, searching for a similar mark. "Both of you?" It's not like the woman had gone into detail about how she was going to help Dean save Mom, about what exactly her "rig" was for, but the knowledge of the drugs still hits Sam like a vicious slap. He sees the scene: the two chairs facing one another, the hunk of antiquated machinery to the side, attached wires hanging limp and two empty injectors on top.
"I don't…" She lays a light hand to the right side of her neck, cocks her head like she's remembering.
"Yeah." Dean clears his throat and shifts in his chair, tries and fails to act nonchalant about someone jabbing a needle full of strong, unidentified drugs into both of them. "A, uh, something hypnotic. A sedative."
"Jesus," Sam mutters. Mom can't seem to confirm or deny the specifics, but it's too disturbing an answer not to be exactly the truth as Dean knows it, and probably accounts for his glazed eyes just as much as the blood and the bruises on his face. He puts the pieces together, a grotesque horror movie playing out in his head. Ketch dispatching of Toni expertly and too easily, while Mom and Dean, unconscious, helplessly await their turns.
His brother had been a damn sitting duck for the son of a bitch, and he's lucky to be alive. They both are.
Sam shoots his mother a meaningful look, struggling not to imagine exactly how close he came to losing both of them.
Dean stretches gingerly, uncomfortably, and scrubs at the back of his neck. "Tell me about the raid, man. Play by play."
His intense gaze is tinged with pride – no doubt about that – and it tugs at Sam's heart almost as much as the obvious pain also brimming there. He's hurt, and hurting, and should be in a damn hospital, probably. Not swapping war stories in an underground bunker with a hole blown through it and a pair of bodies cooling under blood-soaked sheets.
"Uh, no," Sam replies with a frown. He's never quite had the same appreciation for violence as his brother, and he's not looking to relive the day's carnage. They might have pulled out the win today, but their side still suffered losses.
"You took out the whole operation?" Dean presses. Behind him, Mom begins to quietly gather strewn books, the larger pieces of a broken table lamp.
"Yeah." Sam nods, knowing his brother is looking for a distraction from his pain. He crosses his arms, lifts his shoulders. "Whatever was in that base, anyway. Didn't shut them down completely, but I doubt we'll be hearing from the British Men of Letters anytime soon."
Dean continues to fidget, rubbing his eyebrow and jiggling his good leg. For the first time, Sam notices the pill bottle at his brother's elbow. "Find anything worth taking?"
"Yeah, actually, I did." He'd almost forgotten, so relieved at finding them both more or less okay. Sam pulls the Colt 1911 from his waistband. "Figured you wouldn't mind having this back."
Dean's eyes light up and he straightens to take the gun. "Hello, gorgeous." His excitement is short-lived, as he reverently sets the pistol aside and palms his forehead, looking haggard and fighting to stay awake around an obvious headache. "So Lucifer, huh? That's fun."
"In the morning," Mom says firmly, stepping forward to grip his shoulder. "You need to rest."
He jerks his chin, a grunt slipping out as he scoots forward, like he actually means to stand. "No, it's okay. I'm good. We gotta – "
"You've done enough, man," Sam says, shaking his head, marveling at the stubborn wonder that is his big brother.
"Sam…" Dean grips the arms of his chair. "Look at this place."
"Dude, I got it. Really. You sit." He jerks his chin toward the hall. "Better yet, go sleep."
They all know he's not worth much in the way help in his current condition, and is likely to slip into the canal himself if he forces Sam to let him help dispose of the bodies. Still, it takes a long moment for Dean to nod, and even then, he doesn't move.
"Need a hand?"
Dean's eyes dart toward Mom, and Sam knows he'll never admit to such a thing with her in the room. He bails his brother out, grips him under the arm and hauls him to his feet in as fluid a motion as they can both manage. Dean hops a bit on his good leg, jaw clenched, and Sam drags his arm over his shoulder before the martyr can object.
"Wait here," he tells his mother, not sure why he feels the need. "I'll be back."
She nods, adds another book to the stack on the table.
When they reach Dean's room Sam doesn't flip on the light, hasn't entirely ruled out the possibility of a concussion, given the thrashed state of his brother's face. He carefully deposits Dean on the edge of the mattress and steps back, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.
Dean's been putting on a show for Mom, the tough guy act that he no longer bothers with when it's just them. He releases a slow breath and sags, looking godawful. He seems to have given up on words, and Sam knows the pain his brother's in is no joke. They need to find Cas, now.
He drops to a knee and loosens the laces on Dean's boots, then leaves him to it with an encouraging pat on the leg. "I'll be right back."
Sam returns to the library, scoops up the pill bottle from the table where Dean had left it. He meets Mom's eyes. "He take any of these?"
"I don't know," she replies honestly, lifting a shoulder. She's taken off her jacket, draped it over the back of a chair. "Not that I saw."
He nods, recognizing the bottle for what it is: a prop. Something Dean had used to put her mind at ease, and nothing more, because there's no chance in hell he'd take the pills and let his guard down before Sam was home safe. It's not self-importance, it's just knowing better. The name on the label is one of their older aliases, and the date of the prescription puts this around the time he wrenched his elbow a couple of years back. Expired, but better than nothing.
"Okay." Sam surveys the room, the remaining damage, the bodies still needing to be discretely disposed of, and tries not to think about the late hour, swallows the yawn threatening to escape. "I'll be right back." Pinballing between messes, between the day's victims.
He pit-stops in the bunker's small infirmary to grab a couple of chemical ice packs, and by the time he makes it back to his brother's room Dean has managed to worm his way out of his button-down and pants, clothes left in a rumpled pile. He's stretched out on top of the covers, a hand tented over his eyes against the intrusion of light from the hallway. He looks all of fifteen years old, and absolutely miserable.
"How's the knee feel?" Sam blurts, batting a thousand as far as stupid questions go.
"Probably as bad as it looks," Dean answers, voice muffled by his hand.
It certainly doesn't look good. Alex's careful wrap job is a torn, blood-spotted mess of displaced gauze, and Sam really should have snagged a fresh roll of bandaging, too. He wants to check the wound, but what he needs is for Dean to get some rest. They aren't remotely out of the woods, with a line of crises just waiting for their attention.
Sam fills a glass of water at the sink and peels his brother's hand from his face, presses two tablets into Dean's palm. "Take these." Dean opens his mouth to protest, and he's quick to shut it down. "You should see yourself, Dean. Take the damn pills."
His brother rolls his eyes tiredly but complies, and Sam gives him a moment to find a comfortable position, then adds the ice packs to the mix, at his knee and swollen cheekbone. He lingers close by, taking his time, waiting for Dean's eyes to flutter and fall closed before he turns to go. A cool hand on his arm stops him.
Dean's got just enough left in the tank for one more coherent thought, but it still takes its time in coming. "You did good today, Sammy," he says finally, hoarsely, eyes already sliding closed once more.
Sam's throat works. He nods. "You, too," he says, though by the time he manages it, he's pretty much talking to himself.
He trips over his own feet in the hallway on the way back to Mom, shoulder-checks the tiled wall and leans there a moment, blinking the fog from his vision. Long-ass day. Not done yet.
In the library, his mother is hard at work stubbornly cleaning up a mess she'll blame herself for no matter what her sons tell her. She stumbles, dropping what looks like a table leg as she catches herself on a palm against smooth, polished wood.
Sedatives, Dean had said. It's a miracle she's still on her feet. In more ways than one.
Her mind had been violated, everything about her scrubbed and twisted and changed until she'd retreated within herself.
The Mary you know, the good Mary? She's hiding. Behind impenetrable psychic walls.
But Dean had done it. He'd broken through and gotten Mom back, somehow. They've been through a lot together – through figurative and literal HELL – but Sam's never been in such awe of his big brother.
There's still dried blood clinging in the creases of her neck, her nail beds, her clothes. But unlike Dean, it's not all her own. It's hunter's blood. Maybe Jody's blood.
"Mom." Sam's voice is too sudden and loud in the large room, and it startles her. "It's late. You should get cleaned up. Get some sleep."
She straightens, instinctively shaking her head. "What about you?"
He looks around at what remains to be done. The splintered table, the spilled books are easy enough to clean. But the bodies, the blood. He clears his throat, finally shrugging his jacket from his shoulders and tossing to the tabletop. "It'll be better if it's not here when he wakes up." It'll be better for all of them, to put the blood and the death of this day behind them.
She nods knowingly, and moves toward the hallway with heavy, weary steps, wringing her faintly stained hands. She pauses on the threshold, turns back. "I love you," she says, giving him that warm, crooked smile.
For the moment, nothing else matters. "I love you, too."
Sam waits for the sound of a closing door to echo down the corridor, stifling a yawn. Then he gets to work, digs up a couple of tarps and some heavy-duty tape, and tries to make this next part go as quickly and clinically as possibly.
Okay. NOW I'm done with tags for this episode. :P