Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.
A/N: Hello, everyone. Ready for the big premiere of S10 tomorrow? I can tell you I am, and thinking about it has gotten me all angsty and nervous after S9's ending. So, in honor of how screwed-up the brothers' relationship is right now, here's an angsty fic set after 9x23. Enjoy!
"I'm proud of us…"
"I should have seen this coming," Sam thought bitterly as he gently wiped away the blood that was already drying on top of his brother's pale skin. Red trails covered most of Dean's body, from clots of congealed blood caked into his beard to a cascade of red that had dried into a sticky sheet on his chest and belly. It made him look vicious, like a Wendigo returning fresh from the kill with its victim's blood still slathered over its skin like barbeque sauce, a chilling reminder of the murderous, broken man his brother had become.
It didn't even look like Dean anymore.
The younger Winchester bit his lip and continued wiping off the blood and dirt, removing as many traces of the night's battle as he could and wringing out the wet rag again and again until Dean's skin was pale white and the water in the bowl was an opaque red-brown. Once he was finished, he set his brother's arms down at his sides, relaxed and a little bent at the elbows like he had simply flopped down onto the mattress that way and stayed there. It almost looked like Dean was sleeping, a little beat-up from a rough hunt but ready and willing to jump back into the fray after a few hours of rest.
Except…
Sam stared blankly at the bloody, triangular hole ripped through the flannel over Dean's heart, watching and willing his chest to start moving, for him to gasp or cough or scream or anything that would show Sam he wasn't truly gone from the plane of mortal existence forever. That he hadn't left Sam behind forever.
But Dean made no move to get up and comfort his little brother, made no attempt to tell him "It wasn't your fault, Sammy," like he would have done so many times before. Instead he just continued lying still, his corpse already cool and beginning to stiffen as the remaining blood in his veins seeped out and dried hard and black just beneath the surface of his skin.
Seeing Dean now, laid to rest on his favorite memory foam mattress – "Memory foam, Sam. It remembers me." – Sam couldn't help but feel as if even Dean was telling him what an asshole he was, how ungrateful and misguided and cruel he had been to tell his older brother that saving his life had been done purely out of selfishness. If there was one thing Dean wasn't when it came to Sam, it was selfish.
A few bitter tears trailed down his cheeks against his will, and he clasped his brother's cold hand tight in his, pulling it up and pressing it against his cheek as if he could pour the warmth and life from his own body into Dean's. "I should've seen that he wasn't okay. I should've helped him before it came to this."
"I'm proud of us…"
"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam whispered, suppressed sobs tightening his throat until he could barely speak, until he felt like he was going to choke on his grief and loneliness. "I'm so sorry. If I would've known this was what it'd do to you, I never would've…"
But he suddenly trailed off, closing his eyes tightly as a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him the terrible things that he already knew to be true.
"I did know. I knew the moment I told him I'd let him die that it broke something inside him, and I didn't do a damn thing to make sure he understood what I really meant. I let him think I hated him – let the man who raised me from the time I was six months old, who gave up his entire childhood and broke the law and got arrested at sixteen for stealing food to feed me, not him, think I hated him. I let him take on the Mark of Cain without a single question.
"Why? How did we get this way? All of this was a cry for help – the Mark, the violence, the drinking. It couldn't have been any more obvious if he'd started slitting his wrists every day instead. And I did this to him. He was begging me for redemption, begging me to forgive him or at least show him I still loved him even though I was pissed, and I denied him. I knew how this was going to turn out in the end and I ignored it all. I let my brother kill himself."
That thought was too much, and Sam finally found himself unable to hold the tears back anymore. He sat heavily on the bed beside Dean, bending over to wrap his arms around his brother and hating that there was no second pair of arms embracing him back.
"Dean, please, don't leave me," he whispered into his brother's still-wet brown hair. "What am I supposed to do here alone? You brought me back so I could be with you again, remember?" His voice was rising higher in pitch by the second, grip tightening on Dean's shoulders in a way that probably would have been painful if he was living. "You brought me back, Dean! I'm the one who's supposed to be dead, not you! Don't you leave me here alone!"
Silence was all that met his ears. Sam cursed and stood up from the bed, tugging at two fistfuls of his hair in anger and desperation. All the terrible things he'd said to Dean, all the ways he'd stabbed his brother right in the chest without ever leaving a mark, ran through his head in a rush, and it was only now that he realized just how hard he'd tried to push Dean away from him – and how well he'd succeeded. He should have known how terrible an effect his words would have; if anyone could understand the unbelievable havoc that rejection could wreak on a person's psyche, it was Sam. And he had forgotten that until it was too late.
"I was ready to die."
"Go, I'm not gonna stop you. But don't go thinking that's the problem, 'cause it's not."
"We don't see things the same way anymore."
"I can't trust you – not the way I thought I could, not the way I should be able to."
"I'm saying, you want to work? Let's work. If you want to be brothers…"
"You say that like it's some sort of cure-all, like it can change the fact that everything that has ever gone wrong between us has been because we're family."
"No, Dean, I wouldn't. Same circumstances, I wouldn't."
And despite all of that, despite the fact that Sam had practically spat in his brother's face every time he'd tried to open up and tell Sam how much he meant to him, Dean's final words hadn't been born of hatred. He hadn't cursed Sam's name, damned him back to the cage with Lucifer or told him he regretted pulling him from the fire, the way Sam might have expected him to do. No, instead of rejecting his brother as his last breaths rattled through his lungs, Dean had told Sam, in no uncertain terms, that he still loved him even if Sam didn't return the feeling.
"I'm proud of us…"
And suddenly, Sam knew exactly what needed to be done. Dean was going to come back. He would. Crowley would bring him back, or Sam would string the demon up and filet him until he had no other choice; either way, he would be seeing his brother again. There was just too much left unsaid and unforgiven between them, and Sam knew he would never be able to cope with living on this Earth alone until Dean knew he had been forgiven a long time ago.
It didn't take long to gather the ingredients for a demon summoning spell, and Sam smiled triumphantly, mixing the items together in a brass bowl and lighting a match as he flipped open the book of incantations.
"We still have work to do."