Author Note: I emerge from my post-Nanowrimo writer's coma with an offering of this short tag to last week's episode. (How much of a cinnamon roll is Jack? *dies*)
I've got a few half-finished shorter pieces I'll be bouncing around working on while I think on a bigger, multi-chap story.
Eye of the Storm
Watch over him. Stay by his side…as he dies.
Rowena's diagnosis lingers and echoes in Dean's mind long after it's spoken, filling the prolonged, weighted silence that's overtake the room and tugging at weary, aching corners inside of him.
They've been here before. Been in this same awful, painful spot too many damn times. It seems their doomed little family is always being sentenced to watch one another die. Dean's own crossroads deal winding down, the trials ramping up, the Mark of Cain tearing him apart, and nearly a dozen injuries that should have been their last.
But it shouldn't be the kid. It can't be the kid.
"No," he says softly, to no one in particular.
Sam's head jerks at the word, and Cas rotates to face him, but their eyes don't meet.
Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, shakes his head firmly. "No, there's gotta be something. Gotta be…" He doesn't finish the thought, just backs away from the others and out of the infirmary, stalks toward the library.
The polished tabletops are buried beneath a week's worth of collected research – files taken from the archives and dusty hardback books pulled from the shelves, legal pads scribbled over in Sam's blocky print, Rowena's loopy swirls, and whatever passes for handwriting when Cas finds a pen in his hand. Dean drops heavily into the closest chair, pauses for only the span of a breath before reaching for the nearest book and dragging it across the table. He opens to a random page and lays his forearms on either side of the cover, squints down at the text and struggles to settle his racing mind enough to focus. He fails.
If I don't make it, the stuff I'd miss wouldn't be the things like Tahiti, or the Taj Mahal. I'd miss more time with you.
Dammit, Jack. He'd been too hard on him in the beginning, took too long to open up to the kid. Wasted time being stubborn and angry and blaming Jack when he should have been looking after him.
I'm getting that life isn't all these big, amazing moments. It's time together that matters.
He was right, and Dean's blown almost every chance he's had with Jack. Without warning, the text on the page blurs as his vision lazily doubles. His fingers tighten around the thick leather cover of the book, denting the pages as a high-pitched buzzing builds in his ears.
Not this again.
He's just tired. His head's been in a weird place and he's been sleeping for shit since…well, for a while now. He's just tired, and anxious about Jack, and lunch was hours ago.
That's all this is.
Dean blinks roughly, and when his tired eyes still refuse to focus, he reaches up with his right hand to rub at them with the pads of his thumb and forefinger.
His vision finally clears, and the ringing gradually subsides. He swallows and rolls his shoulders, shaking the whole ordeal off. Figuring it's the sort of thing that will go away if he ignores it. He doesn't have time for it to be anything else.
He doesn't realize his brother has followed him into the library until Sam settles into the chair across from Dean with that kicked puppy look. He immediately lowers his eyes to the pages of the book laying open in front of him, maybe hoping that his brother too will go away if ignored.
"Dean."
"Hmm," he grunts, gaze pinned on the pages.
"Dean."
"What, Sam?" Dean snaps, looking up sharply.
His brother shifts in his seat, props his elbows on the arms of his chair. He jerks his chin at the book. "What are you doing?"
"I'm – I'm…" Dean throws up his hands, drops his palms to the open pages of the book in front of him. "What's it look like? I'm gonna find a way to save the kid."
The line between Sam's brows deepens, and he clears his throat. "Dean," he starts, voice infuriatingly calm and even. "We've been through all of this. Multiple times."
"Then we'll look again." He slumps in his chair, rubs at the back of his head and tips his gaze to the high ceiling. "We'll…I don't know. We'll throw out a wider net."
"We've been at this for days already, man." Sam exhales, scrubs his hands over his face. "A witch, an angel, and a pair of hunters – that's already a pretty wide net."
"What do you want to do, Sam? You wanna give up on him?" Dean narrows his eyes. "Watch him die, like Rowena said?"
"Of course I don't, Dean." Sam sighs, in a specific way that has Dean tensing. His brother meets his eyes, intensely staring and studying. "You look tired," he observes after a moment.
Dean immediately wonders if Sam has caught the show, just now or any of the multiple times over the past few days he's caught himself zoning out, but no. His brother's wide, anxious gaze is a familiar one, a worry for the generic air of weariness they carry on a nearly-permanent basis.
"We're all tired," Dean replies gruffly, but he reflexively rubs once more at his traitorous eyes.
"I know," Sam says with an understanding chuff of laughter. "I just mean, you look…"
Dean holds his brother's gaze steadily. There's a storm brewing inside and he's barely keeping it all in check. If Sam goes poking at it, the entire dam will come crumbling down, taking him right along with it.
"Tired," his brother finishes.
"Okay," Dean replies, a patented tone neither agreeing with nor entirely dismissing the assessment. Just okay. Just I hear what you said. It drives his brother crazy. "What's your point, Sam?"
He already knows his brother's point. Knows "chief" over here has an innate need to fix things. And if he can't fix Jack, Sam's damn well going to find something else that needs fixing. But Dean's not about to let that something else be him. He might have shitstorm churning in his mind right now, but he ain't broken.
Sam narrows his eyes. "Don't put more into – " he makes a sweeping gesture around the piled table - "this, than you have to give."
Dean blinks. "Meaning?"
"Meaning…" His brother sighs, a weighted exhale that seems to hang in the air between them. "What's happening to Jack isn't your fault, Dean. This isn't happening because you were hard on him, or because you said yes to Michael, or because you took him out today. It's just happening."
He sits back heavily in his chair, taps his fingertips on the tabletop. "You're handling this remarkably well."
Sam huffs. "I'm not."
Something about his tone kicks Dean's older brother instincts into overdrive, and he raises his eyes. "What is it?"
"Cas just said something to me earlier, about…" Sam shakes his head, gaze pensive and faraway. Then his eyes meet Dean's, and his look changes. "You know what? It's nothing." He clears his throat and straightens, tugs at the stack of books. "I'll help you." His gaze lands to the pages of the open book in front of Dean, and with the faintest hint of a smile on his lips, he tugs free a thinner volume from the middle of the stack and offers it. "Here. Why don't you take this one."
Dean frowns. "What? Why?"
"Because that one's in Enochian."
He blinks down dumbly at the pages, which he now realizes are covered in an unintelligible scrawl. "Huh."
"Yeah." Sam smirks as Dean rips the book from his hand, then his face falls. "We'll figure something out, man. We always do."
Dean keeps his eyes down, determinedly flipping the impossibly-thin pages as his vision threatens to fuzz once more. "Yeah."