I would have let Sam take Dean to the Grand Canyon as an episode tag if I hadn't already written that story. :) Instead, I settled for something weird and creepy which probably doesn't make a lot of sense, my apologies. I hope everyone else writes wonderful firsttime Sam/Dean or Cas/Dean fics where Dean gets to experience things, people, feelings...
Warning for possible triggering content.
Unbetaed, apologies for any mistakes.
The Least Best Better
The morning after Dean kills Cain, Sam wakes up to the smell of blueberry pancakes.
He splashes water in his face and runs a hand over the stubble on his jaw. He'd like to shave, but he can't seem to find his razor. So he follows the delicious waft of breakfast to the kitchen without further ado.
Standing at the stove, Dean looks almost chipper.
Sam blinks at his brother in surprise. "Have you seen my razor?" he asks quickly, so he doesn't blurt out with something embarrassing like What the hell happened to you? that might ruin the good mood. He can't spot any traces of the defeated slump in Dean's shoulders that had him so worried the previous night, and he really doesn't want to see it again if he doesn't have to.
Dean carefully flips the pancake he's making before he turns around. Sugar and a smudge of jam cling to his lower lip. "No." He smiles at Sam and places a plate piled high with pancakes in front of him. "You want maple syrup with yours?"
o0o
Whatever Sam expected after Dean's confrontation with Cain, it doesn't happen. Dean keeps it together remarkably well. He doesn't lose control during their next couple of hunts. The Mark doesn't seem to push him the way it did before. It's almost like this one big kill finally left it sated.
Sometimes he catches Dean staring searchingly at himself in the mirror. He doesn't know what Dean's looking for, what he's afraid to see.
The same careful, curious frown is on Dean's face when he packs away the jump start device he used on Cole. Sam already feels shaken enough by Kit's death, and the sight of the soft caress of Dean's thumb over the cable inexplicably amps up his despair.
It's moments like these that keep him searching for a cure.
o0o
"Who kills himself with a candlestick – there's about a billion better ways," Dean argues on their latest case, and Sam brushes him off with a joke about nude selfies.
Later, though, when he's waiting for Dean to come out of confession, his eyes skimming over Genesis 4, he thinks back to Dean's words, and a shiver of uneasiness runs down his spine.
o0o
The next morning Dean decides it's time to clean their guns. His voice sounds rough, probably the aftereffects of being strangled. But there's a looseness to his movements which convinces Sam that his run-in with the possessed nun left no lasting damage.
Sam goes to the car to fetch their weapons, and discovers a new rope in the trunk. He has no idea why Dean bought it. Not that they don't regularly tie up monsters, demons and other people, but he hadn't noticed they'd been in any shortage of ropes. He traces his fingers over the abrasive surface of the cord and wonders why the hairs at the back of his neck suddenly stand on end.
He fully means to ask Dean about it, but when he gets back inside, Dean is on the phone, and before he knows it they're off on their next case.
o0o
They work a case in New Mexico. It's warm and gloriously sunny, and Sam feels his spirits revive after months of anxiousness, at least until he dislocates his shoulder during a fight with the vicious ghost of a railroad engineer. Dean fixes it for him, which takes the worst edge off the pain, but doesn't exactly make it bearable. When he rummages around in their first aid kit, he discovers that their emergency whiskey is gone, and the packet of painkillers is almost empty.
Sam knows that he stocked it up only the week before.
Dean laughs off his questions with vague mentions of Cas and immediately goes to get him more liquor and meds. He also brings back a bag of frozen peas, which he presses gently against Sam's shoulder until Sam forgets to complain.
o0o
Cas visits them at the bunker bearing news about Heaven and a case of Johnny Walker. They get drunk and play strip poker.
When Sam wakes up the next day, his head hurts. Vague images of Dean leaning back with a dopey smile, and of Cas almost strangling himself when he tried to take off his tie flit through his mind, making him feel dizzy. As he bends over the trash can, he spots an empty pack of Marlboros at the bottom of it, and the sight only increases his desire to puke. He can't remember smoking, but he wouldn't rule anything out going by the pounding pain inside his skull.
His brother seems unaffected by the events of the night before, and makes him John Winchester's tried and tested hangover cure.
o0o
It all comes to a head when Sam's too late to pull Dean out of harm's way and a werewolf rips up half his stomach. By the time Sam carries him back into their motel room, Dean isn't breathing anymore.
However, before Sam can even begin to rage and storm and grieve over the fact that not one of the big fights – the Apocalypse or the Mark of Cain – but a random hunt cost his brother his life, he sees how the wound on Dean's stomach starts to close and disappear. A moment later Dean's ribcage begins to move again.
Sam watches, speechless. He knows that he ought to freak out, because a human body doesn't do this, but all he feels is a wave of relief.
Eventually, Dean opens his eyes again. He blinks up at Sam in evident confusion.
"Hey," Sam whispers.
"What happened?" Dean asks, his voice rough.
"You died," Sam explains, and the word tastes like ash in his mouth. "Except… you didn't."
"Oh," Dean says and tries to sit up. That's when Sam freaks out for real. No matter how frequently both of them have experienced that death isn't permanent, Dean's reaction is way too calm. It reminds him of … Prometheus.
And there's an association that's just wrong.
Sam's shock must show on his face, because Dean puts a gentle hand on his arm and says his name. There's something unnecessarily placating about the gesture, and just like that, Sam knows.
He stares at his brother in horror, everything weird he noticed over the past weeks crashing in on him. Prometheus indeed. Something snaps inside him. "Dean, what have you done?"
"Nothing."
"It's not nothing just because it doesn't stick," Sam retorts sharply, and Dean shrinks back from him, his hand fluttering in the air between them like a trapped bird. "What if – What would I have done? Dean?"
Dean simply shakes his head, and Sam suddenly has to constrain himself hard not to put his hands on either side of his brother's face and squeeze the answers out of him.
"So everything – that was just you saying goodbye? Pancakes? New Mexico? Was that supposed to make me feel better" he spits out the word with revulsion "if – if –"
Dean's eyes widen. "No. That was for me." He swallows. "I don't actually want to die, Sammy."
"Well, you have a shitty way of showing it." Sam glares at his brother. "Every single night?"
Dean nods, biting his lip. "I had to keep on trying." Sam wants to slap him for putting all of his efforts into dying rather than staying alive. What bothers him the most, though, is how Dean's been incredibly creative, probably never trying the same trick twice. Ropes, razors, booze and pills; Alastair's star pupil, turning his genius for violence against himself.
Rage boils bright hot inside him. The last time he was this angry, he watched the world fall into chaos and burn. He tries to rein it back in. "Why?"
"Something Cain said."
"You listened to a madman?" Sam bursts out, and Dean actually flinches away from him. A detached part of Sam's mind wonders what would happen if he channeled his rage and concentrated hard – would he send Dean back to Hell?
"It wasn't mad. What he said. If the Mark wants blood, I'll give it mine. So I did."
Sam sighs internally. Dean's clearly not honest with himself regarding his motivations, no surprise there. Even if it makes his skin itch with the need to grind something to dust.
"Don't," Sam says as calmly as he can, the hands at his sides clenched to fists. "No more, okay?"
Gingerly Dean touches his arm again. "Don't ask that of me, Sammy."
Sam hears the silent plea behind the words: It's better this way; feels it in the weight of Dean's hand on his sleeve. He shakes it off, and his next words are chips of ice, inhuman even to his own ears, and the question Which one of us is the real monster? echoes in their wake. "I have to."
Dean looks at him for a long time. Something like fear hides in the shadowy corners of his eyes. "Okay," he murmurs at last. If it doesn't sound particularly sincere, Sam ignores it.
o0o
That night, Sam doesn't sleep. He watches Dean thrash around restlessly on the other bed, while rage simmers in his blood, his bones, and every tissue of his skin.