A/N (and shameless self-promotion): my second story "A Scatter of Bones" (which won an honorable mention in the 2005 Writers Digest Best Short Story contest) is now available on Amazon. I've placed a link to it on my blog. The link to that is on my homepage on this website.


Suddenly, Sam was awake, eye level with a beige blanket that had a single microscopic blue thread somehow threaded into it, just where he was staring. That was weird. He stared at it awhile. It was weird and he stared at it awhile, because it was white and flat and not red and bubbling, and it didn't move and it didn't change and it didn't hurt.

Nothing hurt.

That was weird.

Other senses came online slowly. Since getting his soul back, fifteen days before, waking up was a prolonged, complicated matter. He never just woke up and knew where he was. It was always a slow crawl into reality. Even now, he became aware of himself and his surroundings slowly. His mouth was dry and his lips were stuck to his teeth. He was warm. He wasn't in the dark. He wasn't in pain.

He wasn't alone.

Voices behind him put him on alert, listening for the words and inflection and intonation that would tell him when to start screaming. He listened, he listened hard, not breathing, not moving, not even looking at that thin blue thread anymore.

He listened.

He heard –

The news?

Someone was watching TV?

He wasn't alone.

The pieces kept tumbling into place. This was a motel. And if he was in a motel, he wasn't in hell. He was in bed. Dreaming things he couldn't remember. Waking up to light and not dark, to mild warmth and not burning cold, to familiar sounds and not familiar horror.

When he turned over, if he turned over, Dean would be behind him, on the next bed. Awake and watching TV so Sam wouldn't wake up alone in the middle of the night. Because Dean knew Sam would wake up in the middle of the night.

Of course Dean knew.

Sam relaxed against the bed, trying to bring that blue thread back into focus. He wanted to look at it again because it wasn't weird. It didn't do anything but just be a blue thread. He wanted to stare at it until everything else was as steady as it was.

Then maybe he could turn over, just to be sure it was Dean behind him.

But he had to wait until everything was steady. Sometimes, when he turned too fast, sometimes grisly images of abiding horror flared up at the edges of his vision, threatening to spike his sanity to let it drain out in thick rivulets. Those were the times that the bottle of whiskey couldn't be close enough.

Not that he drank to forget all those memories that he couldn't quite wrap his hands around. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to make him forget things he couldn't remember. He didn't drink to forget, hHe drank to not care. That was easy enough to come by.

"Y'okay?"

The voice so suddenly so close behind Sam made him reach for the far side of the bed to drag himself away from the horror that was about to dig in and rip out and leave him bloody and ragged and agonized and alone and –

"Sam – it's okay. It's okay. It's me. Just me."

It was a voice. No one touched him, nothing hurt him. It was just a voice. Dean's voice. Dean was talking to him but he wasn't touching him. Dean knew better than to touch him without asking first.

Of course Dean knew.

"Dean?" Sam dared to ask without looking back. His lips were dry and his tongue was cardboard and his voice was harsh.

"Yeah, Sammy. It's me. You want some water?"

"Um – yeah – thanks." Still, Sam didn't turn over. Once he was fully awake, he'd be okay. Until then, he wouldn't let go of the hold he had on the bedding, he couldn't let go of the fear that he was about to be splintered and butchered and fileted again.

But all that happened was Dean saying, "Okay, I'm going to set it next to you," and then he laid a bottle of water on the mattress in front of Sam. He didn't touch Sam while he did that, he made sure the bottle didn't touch Sam, he didn't sit on the mattress. He just reached over Sam to set the bottle down and then went back to sitting on his own bed and gave Sam the time he needed to get to the point of simply being able to sit up and drink a bottle of water.

"Thanks." Sam said again, and pushed himself up and sitting with his legs over the side of the bed, still – still – facing away from Dean.

"You bet."

As Sam twisted the cap off the water and drank down the whole bottle in a few swallows, his jacket slipped off his shoulders and slid off the bed. He'd been using it as a blanket, but the room wasn't that warm, or that cold, either. Dean knew that extremes of any kind - temperature, noise, touch - were too much for Sam. So, coffee was never hot, water was never cold, music was never loud, lights were never too bright, motel rooms were never completely quiet or completely dark, Dean never let anyone get within arm's length of Sam and he never ever touched Sam without first being absolutely sure that Sam knew what was about to happen.

Of course Dean knew.

"You're still awake?" Sam asked when the water was gone and a bleary look at his watch told him it was nearly three a.m. He didn't look at Dean.

"You know I can't get enough of boring TV."

That was so not-funny, it hurt. It was supposed to be funny, but it only meant that Dean was awake because Sam was awake. Because he'd known that Sam would be awake at some point during the night, and he'd made sure to fall asleep only deep enough that he'd wake up when Sam did.

Slowly, steeling himself against horrors he couldn't actually remember but couldn't really forget, slowly Sam turned so he could sit with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out on the mattress.

"So, what's on?" He asked. He could only glance at Dean.

"BBC news. After this, Poirot. I can't wait."

Sam managed a breath of amusement at the thought of Dean watching Poirot. He set the empty water bottle on the bedside table and scrubbed his eyes.

"There's gotta be something better on."

"No, not really." Dean said it bright and perky, like there really wasn't anything he'd rather be watching. But all it meant was that Dean knew there wasn't anything else to watch that wouldn't shake Sam's stability.

Of course Dean knew.

"There's those chocolate shake things on the cupboard, if you want one." Dean said. "Since you already pretty much drank you dinner last night."

"Um - I don't know. It's - I don't know." Food, textures of food, sometimes just the thought of food could make Sam sick. Those cans of breakfast shakes were very nearly the only food he could tolerate. But he wasn't awake enough yet to know if could tolerate it right now.

"Well, it's there if you want it." Dean said. He wouldn't push it on Sam. He'd just let him know it was there, if he wanted it, when he could tolerate it. He'd get it for Sam, if Sam asked him to. He'd move slowly, talking to keep Sam focused on what he was doing, pop open a can and set it on the bedside table for Sam to pick up when he wanted it. He knew not to rush Sam or crowd him.

Of course Dean knew.

Sam rubbed his eyes again and flexed his feet to stretch his legs and watched the art deco opening credits of Poirot.

"You want one?" He asked Dean when the TV murder had taken place. He even looked at Dean when he asked it, and didn't look away when Dean turned to him.

"Sure, sounds good. Thanks."

Sam took a deep breath and got out of bed on the side closest to Dean, but Dean didn't look at him, not even a glance out of the corner of his eye. So Sam could stand there a few long seconds, giving a look around the room before he crossed to the cupboard.

The curtains were pulled shut. There was salt in front of the door, and a chair wedged under the knob, the light was on in the bathroom. Nobody was looking in or coming in, no dark shadows taunted him. All that effort Dean gave, just so Sam could feel safe walking twelve feet across the motel room.

After one more scan around, Sam headed to the kitchen wall. There were a couple of boxes of the breakfast shakes on the cupboard and a couple of huge plastic glasses that Dean had picked up at a garage sale.

One glass held two of the shakes with room to spare. Sam filled one up for himself and popped a single can for Dean. He turned, and scanned the room again, and took one step.

The curtains were pulled shut, there was salt in front of the door - and the middle of the room suddenly loomed wide and dangerous and Sam couldn't move.

"Um - Dean?"

Dean took a casual look over.

"Yeah?"

And when Dean met Sam's eyes, it was like the room stopped spinning.

"I - uh - you want a glass with this?"

It was a transparent dodge. Sam needed Dean to come closer so he'd feel safe crossing back again, only there was no way he was saying that to Dean.

"No, thanks. I can drink it straight up. Hey - did I leave that newspaper clipping on the table?"

Dean slid off the bed and moved slowly toward the table, looking for a piece of paper that Sam knew didn't exist.

As he came closer though, Sam felt safe enough to cross back over to the beds. He set the can for Dean on the bedside table and sat himself on the edge of his bed.

"Nope, guess I left it in my duffel." Dean said, after a cursory look at the table. He came back to his bed, and sat nearly straight across from Sam, because he knew Sam was okay with sitting close together, just like he'd known Sam needed him close to be able to walk to the beds.

Of course Dean knew.

"So - how're you doing, Sammy?"

Empty, Sam thought; it was the first thing that came to his mind. He didn't want to say that to Dean, though. He didn't want Dean to worry. At least not any more than he was worried already. But some deeper part of him was lost or missing or hiding. Sam felt empty.

"It comes back after awhile." Dean said into Sam's silence.

"What does?"

"Being who you remember."

And that was it, wasn't it?

Sam drank a few swallows of his chocolate feast, and Dean drank some of his own. Poirot was forgotten for now.

"It didn't take you this long." Sam said.

Dean didn't answer immediately. Sometimes words that came too soon, too fast, especially words of hell, sometimes those words went right by Sam.

Dean knew that.

Of course Dean knew.

"There's more of you to come back." Dean did finally answer. He didn't say that with a smirk; he wasn't talking about Sam's physical size.

"There's no more of me than there is of you. I'm not any more complicated than you are."

"Yes, you are. Way more complicated than I am. And I wasn't in hell as long."

"That just means there's a bigger hole inside of me."

There was another pause, and when Dean did the 'tilt head down to look in Sam's eyes' head tilt, Sam realized his own eyes were fixed on his white knuckles and the grip he had on the big, blue, plastic glass. And when Dean didn't say anything, and not just to give Sam time, Sam raised his eyes to meet Dean's.

"It'll come back, Sam. We won't push it. It'll come back."

Sam drank some more chocolate shake and his mouth didn't feel so dry, and his nerves didn't feel so shaky.

He was pretty sure it wasn't the chocolate breakfast shake making him feel better.

"I know. I know it will."

He drained his big, blue, plastic glass and set it on the bedside table.

"You should go back to sleep now." Dean said.

"There's a blue thread on my blanket." Sam told him, more just to say it than as a complaint. Still, he saw the shift in Dean's shoulders.

"I'll get rid of it."

The firm authority and no-nonsense confidence in his voice made Sam smile.

"It's a thread, Dean, not a bully." What did people do who didn't have a big brother? "Thanks, though. I think I'll just name it, and keep it as a pet."

Dean laughed and Sam didn't even flinch.

"Bed, Sam. Boots off and go to bed. Your eyes are blacker than the Impala."

"Yeah, okay." Sam agreed, on a sigh. He bent down to pull his boots off, then straightened himself out on the bed. After a few minutes, he turned onto his side and brought that blue thread back into focus. With that minute molecule of steadiness in view, he let his eyes drift closed.

"Sam?"

"Hmmm?"

"It's just me, okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah, okay…"

And Sam felt his jacket being laid over his shoulders. It warmed him, and not just physically. He hadn't realized he was a little cold. But Dean knew.

Of course Dean knew.

The End