Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. I am also not in the medical field, so all medical information should not be assumed to be accurate.
He lied.
He lied so many times over the years that he couldn't give an exact number, but some secrets were meant to be kept forever. Hidden away in a lead box and tucked away so deep in his soul that no light could ever be shed upon it.
Due to its nature, this secret had been particularly difficult to keep. It was physically painful to keep, and he almost slipped up so many times that it was a miracle Dean still didn't know.
He didn't know where, exactly, the hunt started going wrong. In theory, it should have been easy. Demonic activity, nothing new to them (although Mary's experience wasn't quite as extensive as theirs). The problem came when they arrived expecting a handful of demons, but found a horde of them.
Sam struggled against the ropes keeping him in his chair, feeling them rub his skin raw until it bled. Dean and Mary did the same, but he wasn't making much progress in loosening the ropes. He assumed that Dean and Mary weren't either.
This was bad. They were trapped in a shitty, sulfur-scented warehouse with a bunch of Lucifer-loving demons who wanted to prove their worth to their dark lord.
Dean yelled prayers for help directed at Chuck, Amara, and Cas, but none of them seemed willing to answer. Sam noticed bruises start to make their appearance, marring Dean's skin with purple patches, which Sam imagined could be seen on his own skin as well.
Sometimes putting up a good fight just wasn't good enough.
Mary looked surprisingly calm, but Sam had to remember that she faced plenty of terrifying creatures and bad situations in her day. Maybe there was still a disconnect in her mind about who her boys used to be and who they were now. Did she have the motherly instinct that longed to protect them even if they weren't who she remembered?
Either way, Dean's protective instinct was working at full force alongside Sam's. But instinct and brute force weren't going to be enough this time. And if Sam knew that he could get them out of this bind, then it didn't matter what the cost was.
He took a deep breath and reached into the lead box that held his secret all these years, the only option he had to get at least Dean and his mom out alive.
His own survival, well, that wasn't at the top of his list. It wasn't a matter of self-sacrifice. It was about the preservation of lives more important than his own.
Dean looked over at him, and Sam gave him a small smile.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Dean's struggled against his restraints with renewed effort. "Sorry for what, Sam?" he yelled. "Whatever it is you're thinking of doing, don't!"
The demons surrounding them simply laughed at Dean's attempts to free himself and Sam and Mary's apparent defeat. They were having the time of their lives with all the living Winchesters at their mercy.
The power that he locked away for so long felt like it was tearing him apart the second he sought it out and unleashed it from the mental prison in which he kept it.
The pain spread quickly to his head and pooled there, like ice picks being driven into his skull at every angle.
He felt the presence of the demons in the room with a new clarity, black smudges marring otherwise pure, bright souls.
"Sam, no!" Dean yelled.
Blood poured from his nose and dripped down his chin as he gripped each of the demons within their vessels, Dean's protests ignored. His skull felt like it was closing in on his brain, crushing it, and he knew that he wouldn't have the strength to kill the demons before he killed himself.
He'd be lucky to send them back to Hell before he gave himself a stroke.
"Dean, what's going on? What's wrong with Sam?"
If Dean answered Mary, Sam didn't hear it. All the noise in the world was drowned out by the heartbeat of demonic vessels, which quickened in fear and pain as Sam removed them and started them on their way to Hell without lifting a finger.
Once the heartbeats faded, Sam's sense of hearing returned to normal and the bodies dropped to the ground.
His vision was blurred and objects meant to be stationary were moving, but Dean found his way into Sam's line of sight (leaving Sam without any idea as to how or when he got free from the ropes).
"Sammy?" Dean asked.
He sounded so panicked, but Sam couldn't quite figure out why. His head was still aching and the pressure that built up wasn't leaving. The only thing he was certain of before the darkness swallowed him was that Dean was alive and alright.
And that was really all he needed.
Smell was what he noticed first. Antiseptic and too, too clean to be the bunker.
Sound. The steady, staccato beats of a heart monitor. The whirs and whooshes of other machines on alert for any changes in his condition and meant to provide his body with anything it couldn't provide for itself.
Sam opened his eyes. The room wasn't bright, but there was still enough light to intensify the dull throbs in the back of his head.
"Sammy?"
Dean's face appeared in his line of sight, facial hair longer than he normally kept it and bags under his eyes more prominent than they had been in a long time. There was a tentative smile on his face, and he looked away from Sam for a minute and towards the mess of monitors around his bed.
"You ever pull a stunt like that again, Sammy, I'll kill you," Dean said.
"Worked," Sam said. His voice was raspy and his words slurred. He wondered just how long passed since he had to reveal the secret he managed to keep for so long. "Mom okay?"
Even if she was afraid of him, or thought he was a monster, he did it for her, too.
"She's taking things in stride. Just another thing for her to wrap her head around," Dean said. "Why didn't you tell me you still had your freaky psychic bullshit?"
"Didn't want you to look at me like that."
"What?" Dean asked. He really looked like he had no idea what Sam meant, as far as Sam could tell with his aching head and the dim light.
"Looking like I'm a freak."
Too many emotions flashed through Dean's face for Sam to make sense of them, but at the end only guilt remained.
"Sammy…"
They both knew that he couldn't refute that. That he always had been adverse to the idea of Sam doing anything remotely psychic. It just reaffirmed to Sam that keeping it a secret for so long was the right choice, and he wished that he hadn't been so desperate as to need his psychic abilities to get them out of that warehouse.
"I'm sorry, okay? But you still should have told me. I would have learned to live with it," Dean said. "Instead, I had to find out when you tried to turn yourself into a vegetable from overdoing it. I know you like rabbit food, Sammy, but you don't have to become what you eat."
"Got you and Mom out," Sam said.
"You almost killed yourself doing it," Dean said. "That does not make it worth it. Jesus, Sam. You know you've been out for over a week? You strained yourself so badly, you made your own brain start bleeding. They had to crack open your skull, and even then the doctors weren't sure if you'd make it or if you'll even fully recover."
For all of the apparent damage done to him, Sam didn't feel much at all (though the headache made more sense). He raised his arms high enough to see IVs stuck in the backs of his hands, pumping him full of pain medication, fluids, and nutrients to keep him alive and numb. He felt sweet oxygen coming from the nasal cannula, more helpful than it was annoying. He suspected there were bandages wrapped around his head, but if the doctors had done surgery, he wouldn't be surprised.
"They had you on a ventilator at first," Dean said. "Needed to make sure that you were getting enough oxygen while your brain was breaking apart."
"Oh."
"That's it? You aren't more concerned about the damage you did to yourself?"
Sam shrugged, as much as he could. His body seemed less than willing to obey what he wanted it to do.
"It's supposed to be my job to get you and Mom out of bad situations," Dean said.
Dean used to talk about his job of protecting Sam a lot, but Sam couldn't remember when that stopped. For so long their relationship had been tense, and they were just getting back to being brothers like they were before the Apocalypse, Hell, angels, and demons set them against each other.
And Sam had to ruin it again by being a freak. Just because he was born with powers that he never asked for.
"I'm sorry if I made you feel like you couldn't tell me that your psychic stuff was still around," Dean said. "I don't know if I was right about it, or if you were right about it. I just know that we were being played by demons and angels to the point that we couldn't trust each other with the simplest things. But you've got a long recovery ahead of you, and I'm gonna show you that things aren't like that anymore. You can trust me."
"Trust you," Sam said.
Maybe there were times when that trust was shaken, but Dean never lost his trust completely. He just hoped that if he lied enough about not having powers anymore, then it would be true.
"Not like you used to," Dean said. "Yeah, you're a freak. But not because of your powers. I'd start the list with your height, actually."
Sam huffed out a breathy laugh.
"Mom?" Sam asked.
"At a motel and getting some rest," Dean said. "She should be back in the morning. You have no idea how difficult it was to convince her you'd still be here in the morning. Although, I didn't know that you'd finally decide to wake up tonight."
"She upset?"
"She's been worried out of her mind, too. We might not be as young as she remembers, but she said we're still her kids."
Sam shook his head, hoping that Dean got the message. His throat was killing him and he didn't think that he'd be able to get many more words out.
"Oh," Dean said. Sam could see his mind connecting to what he meant. "No, she's not upset about that. I explained a bit to her, but she remembers the deal she made and which date matches the ten year mark. She's not upset about what you can do, but she's upset about the state you're in and about the realization that her deal dealt with you."
Sam opened his mouth, but Dean raised his hand and stopped him from talking.
"I told her it's not her fault already," Dean said. "So, save your breath and get some rest. Let me worry about things for now, and you can worry again once you're better."
"Lucifer?"
"Like I said, let me worry about things for now," Dean said.
Dean pulled a chair closer to Sam's bed and sat down. "Close your eyes, Sammy," he said. "We'll deal with everything else later."
Sam closed his eyes, feeling decades younger. No matter how much it scared him that Dean and Mary knew his secret now, he still felt a lot better without it weighing him down anymore.
And if there were still any problems concerning it, well, they could deal with it later. As a family.
Author's Note: I'm still waiting for Sam to be revealed as still having his psychic abilities. Supernatural, please. Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed this one-shot. Leave a review and let me know!