A/N: Basically, Sam hates the pain Dean has caused him by bringing him back, but not because of Hell. Because Sam can see what his soulless self did to Dean and his brother can see what Hell reduced him to. That's the long and short of it.
Even through all that though, his brother's pain is still enough to pull Sam out of himself to save Dean.
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Summary: Season 6 spoilers. Dean tries to protect his brother and Sam protects him. There will always be a love-hate between the Winchesters, but love will always, eventually, win. Hurt!boys, Limp!Sammy.
Taking Time
Dean spit blood and grunted as he was kicked onto his back. The demon smirked and stalked closer, a kind of controlled madness in her eyes that could only come from a soul being twisted into something darker than human.
"Bad Winchester, trying to get away." She admonished. "And when I've been kind enough to kill you first, too. Spare you from watching baby brother's slow end and this is how you thank me?"
Adrenaline surged with the spike of protectiveness, but it had nowhere to go. Dean couldn't move, she was too strong and Cas wouldn't be able to rematerialize from the banishing sigil for minutes still.
What was Sam gonna do? Sam couldn't defend himself, couldn't take care of himself. He'd barely been lucid since getting his soul back. The only time he opened his mouth was when he was screaming. Dean tried everything. Cajoling, pleading, yelling, hitting, nothing worked.
Dean had torn his brother from the Pit, but he had been too late. Sam was always in pain. Whether physical or mental, remembering wounds or deeply embedded lies, Sam was always hurting.
Every time he touched Sam, his brother didn't just flinch, but cringed through the entire contact. Dean thought it was because of fear for what had been done to him in the Cage. Lately, irrationally, he told himself, he felt that it was fear of him.
Turning his head, Dean sought out his brother. Sam was what he lived for. If he was gonna die, Sam was going to be the last thing he saw.
But his brother wasn't there where he had left him, slumped against the wall. Sam was still catatonic and Dean panicked even more for some reason. Because that meant there was more than one of these things and it had drug Sam off somewhere to die alone and they couldn't die apart when they only really lived together. It couldn't end like this.
"Oh, but it can, Dean." The smirk hadn't even left her face when her vessel's body lit up under it's skin. Round eyes stared at Dean in shock as she dropped to the ground.
It took a minute to process, but there was Sam with the Colt leveled at her. His aim was steady and Dean wanted to cry.
"Sammy. Thank god. You're okay." Sam lowered the gun and looked toward the ground. Relief fled quickly and Dean's gut clenched. "Sammy?"
"You brought me back." Sam's voice was gravely from disuse, but it sounded beautiful to Dean. "You put me back together and trapped me here."
Ice ran down the hunter's spine.
"Everything that happened to me in the Pit. Everything I did up here without a soul, did to you…" Sam trailed off and bit his lip.
Dean remembered warnings always ignored from Castiel, from Bobby, and he remembered the one, ever-present reason they were ignored; Dean wanted his brother back. Even if he was in more pain here than in the Cage it didn't matter, not really. Because Dean knew he could make it better, make it worth it and Sam would get over it. He had to believe that.
"It wasn't…You were never supposed to see what…" 'What I'd become, what I'd endured. What they did to me.' "Torture, you can get used to, but…" Sam didn't need to finish the thought.
Here, Dean could see Sam suffer. He knew what Sam had become without his soul, seen what he was capable of. And he knew what Michael and Lucifer had done to his brother. Dean's own shame at breaking under Alistair had been so much worse when Sam had learned about it, Dean could imagine what it was like for Sam.
Maybe even worse than that, Sam could see the pain in Dean. What his death and their year apart had done to his brother. Which was nothing to speak of what his soulless self had put Dean through.
You can get used to torture eventually, no matter how bad, even the tortures of hell, of the Devil himself. You find a way to acclimate to it. But to truly hurt a Winchester, down to the core, to the bone and substance of who they are, you just had to let them see how much they hurt each other.
"It was supposed to be goodbye, but you wouldn't let me go."
Dean heard no relief, no peace in the sentiment.
"And I hate you for it." Sam's words held no fire or condemnation, no intent to harm because Sam loved his brother. But Dean felt like he was back on the rack anyway.
They loved each other more than anything. More than the world. But that meant that they could hurt and wound each other deeper than any stranger's word or blade.
Sam knelt down and began gently tending to Dean's wounds, never once looking at him. Neither of them said a word.
'I'm sorry.'
'I know.'
'I'm not sorry.'
'I know.'
'I forgive you.'
'I forgive you.'
They never needed words, just time.