-.-.-.-.-Even in Death-.-.-.-.-
Summary: WARNING!! Death fic! After a hunt goes wrong, Sam goes on a downward spiral but after several very close shaves, he learns that his big brother still can't stop protecting him… even in death. (Possible Spoilers). One Shot.
Disclaimer: I really wish I owned them but alas, I don't… Kripke you rock!
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"I'm sorry Sammy." His hoarse voice whispered and Sam had to lean in closer to make out the dying man's words, "Please forgive me."
"No Dean, don't you die on me. Please." Sam begged but his pleading went unheard. He held his bloody brother close, praying to anyone and everyone, begging for this nightmare to be just that – a nightmare that he could wake up from, "Dean! I need you. You can't do this to me. You can't leave me here alone."
He felt a hand on his shoulder trying to separate him from his dead brother and he struggled with what little strength he had left, refusing to let go. "Dean, wake up. Please. Open those green eyes, please Dean. Don't leave me."
"Son..." A voice belonging to the hand spoke and Sam looked up with tear filled eyes, not wanting to hear the words coming out of the strangers mouth, "...you have to let go. He's dead."
"No..." Sam choked out, "Please..."
"There's nothing we could have done. He was too far gone. You on the other hand... you've got a really nasty head wound there and something tells me that not all that blood belongs to him." The man knelt down in front of Sam, motioning his arms for someone to come closer.
Sam shook his head in reply, refusing to believe the doctors words.
"Sam, is that your name?" A young nurse who had been standing near the doctor, awaiting instructions knelt down as well, "My name is Jenna and this is Doctor O'Conner. We can't help him now but let us help you."
Sam begged once more before he was dragged away into some white room where he was bombarded with questions and prodding. The nightmare just refused to end. There was no waking escape because even though he refused to believe it, Dean was dead and there was nothing he could do to save him.
"He's not supposed to die... we still have time. There's still a few months left."
It couldn't be possible – his big brother, his protector, his hero, his Dean... was dead.
It took three weeks before he exhausted all his options. He read every book he could find, spoke to everyone mentioned in his Dad's journal, hell he even drove himself to a crossroads to demand that the deal making demon brought him back. She had smiled at him, though Sam couldn't help but notice the slight grimace on her features, and told him that there was nothing she could do. He was dead and where he'd gone there was no getting him back.
"Even with your soul up for sale... there's nothing I can do. What I bring back won't be your brother because... well, he just ain't home anymore Sammy boy. I may be a demon but I'm fair and I keep my side of the bargain."
After that he just tumbled into a downward spiral of hopelessness and despair. Bobby continuously called him, pleading with him not to do anything stupid and telling him about a new hunt he was working on and that he really didn't want to leave Sam alone when he was like this. After all, past experience had taught him that leaving a grieving Winchester alone could only lead to disaster.
So it had been three weeks since the death of Dean Winchester and Sam was a mess, sitting inside some rotten old bar with a glass and a bottle of whiskey in front of him – drowning his sorrows, drowning himself. Three guys near the pool table had been eyeing him up for the past hour; obviously not liking the look of the newcomer that they just knew was trouble.
The taller one walked over to the bar, standing about half a foot or so away from him. Sam picked up his glass and stared at the amber poison, swirling it before finishing the glass off and placing the glass back on the table. Minnie, the young waitress behind the bar walked up to him and picked up the bottle of whiskey, pouring a sizeable portion into his glass again, pushing it towards him.
"Down this last bit then leave. Walk it off. Find a bed somewhere 'cause Jimmy and his friends are looking for a fight and I hate to see a guy like you becoming their punching bag." She whispered to him, a gentle drawl on her tone, "I don't know what happened and I can see you're angry but don't waste yourself here. Don't waste yourself at all."
"Thanks for the advice sweetheart but I just wanna be left alone with my old friend Jack so I can just forget." Sam winked at her in the way that told her he was dismissing her and in reply she turned and sighed, shaking her head. He heard her mutter a warning at Jimmy but he ignored her exact words, too busy tasting the whiskey.
As soon as Minnie was out of sight, probably fetching some more bottles from out back, Sam felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and he turned his head to the side to stare at Jimmy and his two friends who had finally joined the party.
"Howdy." He smirked, raising his glass at the man, "How you doing?"
"I'm doing a hell of a lot better then you will be in a few minutes." Jimmy answered, the smirk he wore didn't even compare to Sam's.
"Oh… okay." Sam set the glass down and made to stand up but Jimmy pushed him back down into the seat.
"You gonna buy us a drink stranger?" Jimmy's friend asked, "I'm pretty thirsty."
Sam shook his head lazily, "Nah, don't really feel like it. Tell you what though Jim-bob, why don't you let go of my shoulder and I won't break your nose."
"What did you just call me?" Jimmy asked, his grip tightening.
"Surely it's the threat that matters and not the name." Sam mumbled - his hand grabbing Jimmy's, swiftly pulling himself up and swinging himself around so the arm was half way up Jimmy's back in a very painful position, "But you really do strike me as the redneck type."
A rough hand belonging to Jimmy's friend swirled Sam around and away from Jimmy and a second hand flew straight into Sam's face. He stumbled and rubbed his now bloody lip before readying himself for the fight ahead, silently wondering if he hadn't planned this since the moment he'd walked into the bar and spotted these three guys.
He took a knee to the guts and a whack around the head before he managed to land a few hits of his own, one thing he was certain about was that he'd kept his promise and had managed to break Jimmy's nose. But shortly after that, he felt a stinging and sharp pain somewhere around his front midsection and the last thing he remembered was a loud crack that quite possibly came from hid head slamming against something hard.
Then it all went black.
When he finally managed to open his eyes again, everything was far too bright, too loud, too everything, his senses working overload after just waking up. He thought he caught a familiar scent of leather and as the memory stung his brain, he could briefly see that cocky smile of Dean's and his smart ass mouth telling him that he'd gotten far too rusty, getting his ass kicked by a couple of redneck hillbillies.
"Like you could have done much better." Sam grumbled but the memory fled and he was left alone with an annoying beeping sound and room that was too white to be anything else besides a hospital room.
He coughed once or twice, trying to bring his mind up to speed with his body. He had one hell of a headache and his guts stung like mad, damn those freaking cheats using a damn knife. It was several minutes before a nurse came in to check up on him; she was pleasant and greeted him as though he were some kind of celebrity. Of course it wasn't until the doctor came in to see him and explained how he was a very lucky man that he began to understand why. When Sam had asked how, he was told that his heart had stopped whilst he was in surgery and they were so sure they had lost him.
"I wish you had." Sam cursed after the doctor left him.
The next time it happened was exactly three months after Dean's death. He was still no where near over it, he'd started wearing Dean's necklace, refusing to take it off and the Impala played nothing but classic rock and thankfully there was no one else to complain about it. Bobby still kept calling and begging Sam to join him on his latest hunting gig. Eventually Sam gave in and that was when it happened.
It was a simple salt and burn but Sam was reckless and he'd picked up manly characteristics of Dean's, the main one being able to piss off even the mildest ghost. But this particular ghost wasn't mild… it was a raging nasty son of a bitch and when Sam just would not stop provoking it, he managed to get himself thrown into a glass cabinet.
Several hours and quite a few stitches later, Bobby was driving Sam back to the motel telling him that if that long shard of glass had been even millimetres in any other direction then Bobby would have yet another dead Winchester on his hands. Sam swatted his hand away when Bobby tried to check the wound again, mumbling under his breath that he was fine but he'd probably be a hell of a lot finer if it had been millimetres in another direction.
Sam lay awake that night as Bobby snored loudly in the bed beside him. That smell of leather had returned, it lasted longer this time and Sam rolled onto his front, smothering his face into his pillow, wishing for the pain to stop. He thought he heard a whisper of words near by telling him he was a dumb ass but he ignored them.
The next year, exactly a year after Dean's death, Sam was in yet another run down bar drowning himself in yet another bottle of whiskey. This time there were no trouble makers looking for a fight, no ghosts or ghoulies looking to throw him into dangerous life threatening pieces of furniture - it was his stupidity and his stupidity alone as he pulled the Impala's keys from his pocket and stumbled towards the car, fumbling and messing about, trying to unlock the door and then trying to start the car.
He always refused to let Dean drive after drinking, so if Dean could only see him now, swerving about the road in a drunken state, singing loudly with the rock tape that was playing as equally loud. He barely saw the animal, or whatever it was, run across the road and in a weak attempt at avoiding it, he managed to crash the Impala into a tree just off the side of the road.
Just like the times before, everything was black. He didn't know how long it was black for but a rough voice roused him from whatever dream state he'd been in.
"If getting yourself damn near killed all the time wasn't good enough, now you're trying to wreck my car as well. I told you before; I'll haunt your ass if you don't look after her."
"Dean?" Sam whimpered, trying to force his eyes open, they were like lead. His head throbbed like mad, white hot pain flashing across a gash he was sure had opened up somewhere. He could feel the sticky blood trickling down his face.
"Damn it Sammy. You've really made a mess of things this time."
"What's going on?" His eyes finally flickered open and he felt a hands pulling and tugging at him, looking down to the side he saw the driver's door wide open and a worried Dean searching him for wounds, "You're dead."
"So are you if you don't get your act together." It was definitely his big brother. Everything about him just radiated Dean and he couldn't believe his eyes, his ears, he couldn't believe it. Dean was in front of him.
"What?"
Finally satisfied with his body, Dean grabbed Sam's chin and twisted his face around, staring at the gash across his face, "That's really not gonna be easy to fix."
Sam swatted Dean's hands away, the smell of leather filtering through his nose, "Talk to me. What the hell is going on? You died…"
"I still am dead Sammy and you are practically moments away from joining me, now let me take a proper look at that wound." Dean reached up to Sam's head again, poking and prodding at the bloody mess.
"OW! That hurt." Sam growled, "And what do you mean you're dead? How can you be here if you're dead? Unless… Dean… you're not are you? You're a ghost?"
Dean laughed and moved away, pulling himself up he leaned against the Impala, "That should do. Now you better get her fixed back up and don't go spoiling her anymore."
"Dean?" Sam pushed, kicking his legs out of the car to look at Dean.
"No Sammy. I'm not a ghost." He sighed and his eyes met Sam's.
"Then what? How can you be here like this? And what do you mean by 'that should do'? Damn it, please Dean." Sam grabbed hold of Dean's arm, gripping tightly and noticing how his big brother was still wearing that old leather jacket, "Those other times, were you there as well? Each time I smelt you, I heard you."
"I couldn't let you die Sam. I still can't. It's my job to protect you."
"Dean, you said so yourself – the only thing that can give or take life is a reaper." Sam stated.
"Yahtzee." Dean smirked.
Sam's brow knitted together and his grip loosened, "No… you're not. You're not even my brother! How can you be?"
"Reapers aren't the bad guys Sam, they just do their jobs. They take people when it's their time to go, they're not bad. I'm not bad. You see, this way, I still get to be in the big fight and keep your sorry ass out of trouble… only problem is you seem to be determined to get yourself killed."
"Dean… How?"
"How doesn't matter. What matters is I am and it's not going to change, I'm not going to change. And I'm still gonna have to look after my pain in the ass little brother. Now get your act together and go find Bobby, last I heard of him he was on the tail of some bad son of a bitch and he could really use your help." Dean smiled one last time at Sam before pulling himself away from him and walking off, quickly glancing back only to say, "Look after my car this time Sammy."
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