Author:Mirrordance

Title:As He Breaks

Summary:Sam ran to Dean and screamed for help, screamed and cried right from the deepest parts of him, as if those who could hear could fix everything of his brother, body and soul. Tag to the irresistible 4.16.

Hi gang!

Wow, lots of love and thanks for all the comments. They really, really really keep me going; they're insightful and interesting and I intend to address your reviews more lengthily (as always) in my standard post-fic Afterword, which should be posted in a few days (or hours, haha, depending on my productivity in the next few). Either way, I am extremely, extremely grateful for your reviews and they really enrich the work. I know everyone's busy so toss them in if you can. If not, I just hope the next part does not disappoint.

Be warned though... this chapter makes me really, really nervous and uncertain. But I felt like I had to go there, so I guess I just figured I might as well get this out and see what happens. C&C's as welcome as always but be kind, haha, because I think I'm walking the line a little bit here.

Anyway, without further ado, As He Breaks, Chapter 2:


As He Breaks


2


There was a time in Sam's life when a room felt different just because Dean was awake. He could be quiet, thoughtful and unobtrusive, silent and still, but the room would feel different and charged, and Sam could sense it even half-aware.

But it was one of the many things that have changed in Dean since he got back from hell, wasn't it?

Sam had fallen asleep on folded arms by Dean's bed and woke slowly on his own time, realizing his brother was awake only when he raised his head and felt Dean's too-warm hand slide away from his head, and found those deep green eyes looking down at him.

Sam started, ignored the implications of not having woken to Dean reaching for him, and then just let his face widen to a disarmed smile. "Welcome back, man."

Dean blinked at him and gave him a small, measured nod. He was apparently determined not to move, what with the tube in his throat and the big mistake it would be to dislodge it. This was a far, far cry from the man who had more than once gasped his way back to life, years before, just taking his life back by the neck. Dean looked drained, and the fact that he wasn't raising any hell about the damned tube was also testament to him knowing he must need it.

"Quick rules," Sam said, "One blink 'yes,' and two blinks 'no,' all right?"

Dean's eyes could look so earnest sometimes, Sam realized. He stared at Sam in complete trust and dependence. He looked young and... and freckly! of all things. He blinked once, brows furrowed in concentration.

"Oh and knowing you," Sam added quickly, "I'd toss in a wink if you're not sure and the answer is something in between, all right? Then I'll just try to elaborate."

One meaningful blink for 'yes.'

"Good," Sam grinned, "Been awake long?"

Wink.

"Kind-of, huh?" Sam clarified, "Okay. Any of the doctors or nurses see you awake?"

Dean rolled back his eyes.

It wasn't in the rules, but Sam guessed what it meant anyway. "I'd have noticed," Sam said indignantly, "But I had to be sure, man. Okay, um... pain. Manageable?"

Dean could still lie with his trap shoved shut. Hesitant pause, and then one blink for 'yes.'

It was Sam's turn to roll back his eyes, "Need me to call someone?"

Two very decisive blinks for 'no.'

"Someone will be in soon anyway," Sam said with a shrug, "You remember why you're here?"

A long, hard stare, before another blink.

"Yeah, I wish I could forget too," Sam said, quietly. He chewed at his lip, thought about the condensed, PG version of this sordid tale. "I got to you just in time. Castiel's all right, so am I, and Alistair is dead."

Green eyes widened. Sam decided not to elaborate on precisely how.

"We still don't know who's killing the angels or how," Sam said, hoping that piece of news would be much more distracting, "Cas is on that case. I think. Someone fucked up your devil's trap, y'see, and Cas sure got an earful from me on that one. Your face is a mess, you got a concussion, and the worst injury is that your airways are shot, hence the vent. You've been out since we brought you in..." he checked his watch, "A little over three days ago. So. How's the breathing?"

Dean's chest rose and he looked thoughtful, assessing. He gave Sam a wincing wink.

"If it's feeling tight," Sam said, "It's probably 'cos there's been some complications too. You're kinda sick. You know how it goes, unfortunately; congestion, infection, vent complications... But you're awake, so we can sock it to the medicos all over again, huh? We'll show them."

Dean sighed, and slumped, and his eyes began to close heavily.

"I tired you out, huh?" Sam asked, making to rise, "I'm gonna go get someone in here, okay? Before you fall asleep, I'll have someone take a look at you."

Dean didn't reopen his eyes, but gripped at Sam's forearm blindly. His hand was overly-warm from the fever he was riding, and heavy from his weariness. The message was clear though, and Sam was hard-pressed to go anywhere now.

"Come on, man," Sam chuckled, "They've gotta know I didn't dream this up."

Dean ignored him, and began to doze off. Sam sighed and stayed where he was, kept that tenuous connection that they have not had in a bit of awhile.

"Okay you big jerk," he said softly, "I hate this damn chair and my ass hurts, but you got it."


If he had initially avoided running into Sam out of guilt and uncertainty, it was doubly hard finding the stomach to see Dean awake but ill, Dean with his injured eyes trying to be strong and stoic but shouting with dread and need.

Still... Castiel had promised, hadn't he, that he would watch for Dean when Sam could not? Days into this nightmarish exercise, the younger Winchester had finally been bullied out by the older one (in rare form, lately) to go sleep on a decent bed, go grab their car from wherever it was left, go take a shower, have a good meal somewhere else.

First words out of Dean's mouth after the tube was taken out, as a matter of fact. He had coughed and folded miserably against himself, clutching at his chest. His voice when it came out, was raspy and dry and strength-less, but he was insistent and undeniable. His eyes burned with so much determination and decision - just like he used to have - and so a stunned, then nostalgic Sam followed his order and left, and Castiel took his place.

For a long moment, he just watched an oblivious Dean sleep. He was ill apart from injured now, and he looked it. He was a drawn, gray-white where he was not bruised and swollen, and his face had a sheen of sweat to it. He was perfectly unmoving, and yet despair seemed almost to be seeping off of him, just emptying him out.

Castiel let his eyes do their careful watching. The older Winchester had given him repeated grief about it, watching people sleep. It wasn't a perversion, really, but more of a fascination. Angels didn't sleep, after all.

Dean tended to sleep fitfully since returning from Hell. He tossed and shook and ultimately jerked himself awake. Castiel had at first found it sad and pitiful, but now missed the movement of those nightmarish slumbers compared to the resigned weightiness of how he now slept. Dean, plagued by hell in his dreams, still had a sense of resistance: he cried out, he moved, he ultimately woke. But now, body battered and spirit worn, he just sank on the sheets and slept on. Castiel doubted the memories of hell went away. He could only guess that Dean suffered them resignedly now.

He looked like he would sink right through the bed, the way he laid down into it. Like a substance-less ghost, translucent and... vanishing.

Castiel did not like that change in Dean.

Castiel liked Dean as he had been, before finding out his role in breaking the first seal; hell-battered and down on the ground, yes, but alive and kicking and throwing blind punches. Castiel had admired that unsubtle barn-cat spirit. This present incarnation was almost as good as... dead. And Dean dead inside had been a lot to lose. He meant it truly when he told Dean that he'd have given anything to keep Dean from having to torture anyone ever again.

When Dean had promised Castiel that if he went in to torture Alistair, they would not like what would come back out, Dean was effectively asking Castiel if the angels could afford to lose what little was left of Dean. Castiel had said yes. And so Dean had gone in, shoulders low and slumped and face shadowed. As if he'd been told that what was left of him wasn't worth preserving as much as the information he could torture out of Alistair.

And here they both were.

This was probably not what Dean thought he would be when he came back out, but he was right nonetheless.

Castiel did not like what came back out.

Castiel did not want him to lie so still.

Castiel wanted him to strike out against his nightmares, to kick back against the world, to rage, just to be alive.

Castiel...

...was not supposed to like or want anything, other than what his Father commanded. But as he had earlier decided, this heart of his screams, and this is the same heart his Father had given. It could not be wrong, could it? Or even if it could, he could not not-do what he felt to be right.

"Are you all right?" Castiel asked, quietly, knowing it would wake the hunter. Hoping it would wake him, because Dean's silence and the stillness pained him in a way he had never thought he could feel pain before.

Wake.

Move.

Fight...

"No thanks to you," came the scarred, delayed, but ultimately clever reply.

Castiel felt a pang of guilt and regret, but more than anything, he felt relief that there was still something of Dean that bucked and resisted. He sat back, saying, "You need to be more careful."

"You need to learn how to manage a damn devil's trap," came the retort. His voice would still not carry, and he gulped painfully at the strain of talking. His chest rose and fell with labored breathing. Or maybe they were just weary sighs.

"That's not what I mean," Castiel said, mildly. He paused, and let his grief and sense of loss be buried deep, saying, "Uriel is dead."

Dean looked mildly regretful. His eyes went cloudy like that, in sympathy for Castiel and, as if in the span of a few seconds, he had already wondered if it was his fault, if he hadn't been good enough to wrangle information from Alistair, if there was something else he could have done.

"Is it the demons?" Dean asked.

"It's disobedience," Castiel said, looking at Dean meaningfully, "He was working against us."

Dean took this in thoughtfully. He looked away from Castiel's penetrating gaze. Their lives were a mess, alliances all jumbled up, further compounding already-untenable situations. When Dean gulped nervously and gathered his words, Castiel already knew what the next question would be.

"Is it true?" Dean asked, looking to Castiel searchingly, and the angel could swear it was one of the bravest things anyone could ever do, to face up to so harsh a truth, so heavy a responsibility, "Did I break the first seal? Did I start all this?"

Castiel looked him square in the eye, and found that the bravest man in the world deserved nothing short of the straightforward truth.

"Yes."

Dean looked away, eyes downcast, disappointed, self-angry. Ashamed.

"When we discovered Lilith's plan for you," Castiel went on, "We laid siege to hell."

Memories of that campaign streaked across Castiel's mind. The fire, the burning, the screaming, the sheer desperation of those dark days, the brothers and sisters he had lost. The disappointment and crippling sense of failure that they arrived too late.

"And we fought our way to get to you," he said, "before you--"

"So I started the apocalypse," Dean cut him off, brokenly.

Castiel could not help it. He looked heavenward, once more asking for an answer, for guidance, for some sort of... of... comfort to offer to so tortured a soul. Or a reason, at least, why all of this was happening. Heaven was silent, and Castiel found that the only thing he could do - the best he could do for Dean - was to give him the truth, truths that could only hurt him, yes, but truths that he deserved.

"We were too late."

He had found Dean in Hell bloodied and mad, eyes wide and manic, fingers curled like tight claws. He looked like a sick dog that should be put down. Castiel had at first been angered, had wanted to strike him down, had wanted to leave him. All the pain, all the loss, all for nothing--

"Why didn't you just leave me there, then?" Dean asked, the self-loathing loud and clear and unmistakable. Punish me. Destroy me. Let me die. Burn me. Hurt me. Leave me.

Castiel could have asked God the same thing. But he had been an angel long enough to understand a few things too. First, that if blame could be put on Dean for breaking under all the wrath of hell – and to break a righteous man, Lilith could not have subject him to anything less than that – then blame could also be put on the angels for failing to get to him in time. Dean's task was to hold on, and Castiel's task was to reach him. It was a shared failure. Secondly, God made redemption possible for the both of them, and that was the beauty of this curse. Castiel was assigned to Dean on Earth to help him. And the righteous man who begins it... is the only one who can finish it. If Dean is the only one who can end this, then God had given him the exclusive chance to save himself. They both had the chance to make up for errs.

"It's not blame that falls on you, Dean," Castiel said, even as he knew that he would not be listened to, that the hunter had already become his own judge, "It's fate. The righteous man who begins it... is the only one who can finish it. You have to stop it."

"Lucifer?" Dean asked, disbelieving, "The apocalypse? What does that mean?"

Castiel turned away. He didn't have all the answers, he couldn't even offer false comfort. He had nothing much to give, and heaven, heaven was still silent...

"Hey!" Dean demanded, his voice rising, undoubtedly painfully, so even more undoubtedly desperately, "Don't you go disappearing on me you son-of-a-bitch, what does that mean?"

"I don't know--"

"Bull!"

"I don't," Castiel insisted, wishing the other to calm, to rest, to gain his strength back, "Dean, they don't tell me much. I know our fate rests with you."

"Then you guys are screwed," Dean declared with simple finality, and his voice had taken on a tone profoundly unwelcome. It was nakedly broken. He's been broken for awhile, but now the resistance, the indignation, the fight had gone out of him. He could not even find the inclination to pretend.

"I can't do it, Cas," Dean confessed, "It's too big. Alistair was right. I'm not all here, I'm not str-" he stammered, hesitating because this was the one thing he could never say, "I'm not strong enough."

The pause after the admission was weighty; weighter than all the silences Castiel had ever endured in that room. This was Dean, decidedly defeated.

"I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be," he said, and Castiel could hear the tears lodged in that broken voice, breaking further. This was a battered soul, shriveling.

"Find someone else. It's not me."


It had been a dismissal, hadn't it?

Or maybe, knowing his aversion to assertiveness lately, more of a request, or a plea.

Find someone else.

Go away.

Leave me alone.

But Castiel didn't. And so Dean alternately pretended to be asleep and pretended that Castiel was not there. His chest burned with restraint as he tried to keep from weeping or coughing. The angel remained silent on the seat beside him, pretending too, not to notice.

That damn room was like a stage; pretend, pretend, everyone pretending. When Castiel left and Sam came in, Sam was someone else too, Sam with his secrets and trying to be Sammy again, all the while refusing to talk to Dean about some things. Sam was as precocious as always, though. He's been lying, pretending for weeks now, ahead of everyone else.

Dean, I'm not keeping secrets!

Whatever...

His damn room was like an amateur stage. Like someone putting Groundhog Day up in high school or something. People in, out, same kind of different, over and over...

When the angel left, Sam came in.

When Sam left, the angel came in.

It went on for hours or days, indiscriminate. His chest tightened all the more, and his breaths came in harsher and harder. It was a damn good excuse not to say anything.

Dean kept his failures and apprehensions to himself, and suspected the angel hadn't told Sam yet either. He kept quiet, chocked it up to his damaged voice, damaged chest. Should have mentioned his damaged head, his damaged soul, his damaged everything.

His fever rose, and the congestion in his lungs and throat worsened. Sam was worried, he could tell, but again, he had that pretend-thing going and he would just smile at Dean reassuringly.

It wasn't working very well.

Dean's skin was on fire, and he hated that because the fire was going to burn out his mask, show everyone the fraud that he was, show everyone the monster that he was. But everyone else got to keep their pretensions and masks and meatsuits on. Not fucking fair. Everyone's gonna see he's a monster. Everyone's gonna see he's weak. Everyone's gonna know that all this shit is his fault...

My face is burning off...

Indiscriminate day, unknown hour, same players, same scene, kind of different, and cool hand pressed gently against his burning cheek.

"Oh god," Sam breathed, and Dean knew then and there that Sam saw, Sam saw he was a monster, because his face was hot and the skin was melting right off, "Oh god, Dean... Help! I need some help in here!"

It was so darn hot, his chest felt heavy, and his brother had just seen what kind of a monster he really was. The room began to spin, or maybe that was him, running away from all this bullcrap. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, weaving so that the ones running after him – screaming Sam included- couldn't catch up. The world was a blur, indistinct around him. He was going so fast the colors and the shapes melded and blurred and coalesced to black.


Dean was burning up.

It was only the Winchesters who could attach several dire variations to the meaning of this; his mother burned on the ceiling of his nursery room. His girlfriend burned in his apartment. They burned corpses for a living. His father burned in hell. His brother too. He was burned out. The fever-thing? The illness-thing? It was, in their world, the last variation when it comes to saying that something was burning.

But his hand against Dean's furnace-face, and there was just no two ways about it. Burn. His skin could have scalded, his skin could have scarred. And, hours later, Sam could still feel that mark on his palm, like a tattoo.

Dean had been ill for days, to both their miseries because Dean had always been better at taking care of Sam and Sam had always been better at being taken care of by Dean than the other way around. It was the very fabric of their relationship, forged that night he'd been shoved as a bundle into his older brother's arms, and Dean had shielded him from smoke and flame and took him to safety.

It was funny, how he only knew about that a couple of years ago. That it had been to take him away and save him. His older brother had been four years old, must have been scared and confused, but took to the task because someone else depended on him now. Sam could imagine he's felt like this since; Dean scared about Sam hunting, Dean scared about Sam and his abilities, Dean scared about what his father asked him to do about Sam... Dean scared, and Dean still moving on, because Sam needed him.

It's my turn, big brother, Sam thought. And damned if he wasn't scared too. But that's all right. He can live with scared, and he can trudge on too. Trying to be just like my big brother...

Dean had kept his own secrets to protect Sam. Sam can do that. Dean had done some pretty terrible things to save Sam – It just uh... it scares me sometimes, he had said – Sam can do that too.

But he was pretty damn new at this.

So when he placed his hand on a disoriented Dean's face, felt the heat like fire licking at his fingers, and Dean's eyes rolled back, and he became even more limbless on that bed, Sam cried out for help again.

He'll get better at this looking-after thing, but this time, he cried out for help again.


They switched his room, and Dean ended up on a lonely floor with more restrictions than his older one, and someone would bully Sam out at certain hours, and for some reason, Castiel did not come as much anymore.

One night, he woke to find himself dizzied and alone. He was burning up, maybe not thinking straight, maybe thinking straight for the first time in a long time.

It was so damn hot he thought he was back in the Pit.

Hot.

Burning.

Alone.

He realized that even without Sam to remind him of his weakness and even without Castiel to remind him of his failure, there was still no escape from despair, because he still had himself.

There was no escape, not while he was with people and not while he was alone.

Not in wakefulness or in sleep.

Not even in life or death.

Awake he remembered, and asleep he dreamed.

Dead he was tortured, raised alive he was torn by guilt, alive he was worn and frayed by work to repair the damages of his sins, never stopping until he won or until he died.

He imagined it could thereafter start all over again; he would work until he dropped and died, where he would be tortured in a hell he now deserved. He would be raised back to life because no one else could fix the mess he made, and alive he would work to make up for his sins, work until he died and went to hell, hell where there was torture, brought back to life to work... death, hell, torture, life, death, torture, life... over and over...

There was no escape.

The idea was paralyzing, made him feel like a scared kid standing stock-still and peeing his damn pants right on the streets. There was no place to move, nothing else to think about, nothing else to be done. Deer in the damned headlights.

He spent days in the hospital like that; staring, feigning sleep, not wanting to move or speak or do anything. He had become devoid of ambition, robbed of desire, and the fire was eating him up, just burning him from the inside going out. He couldn't get two thoughts straight, aside from fire and escape.

The television was off, the chagrined-offering of skin mags (the most of an attempt at humor jumpy old Sammy could make lately) untouched, and the iPod his brother had brought, bearing his music now too aside from Sam-crap, was numbly ignored. Wanting things was damn tiring. He could just sit here 'til he burned and died. He could be dead 'til he was tortured. Tortured 'til he was resurrected. He could be resurrected to work 'til he died again. And all of it all over again.

His life had become fucking fruitless.

It takes days, or maybe just hours, or maybe just moments; it was hard to tell the meshing of night and day in this impotent room, but the feeling inexplicably turns.

And from mind-whited paralysis, it becomes aflame with kinetic, restless recklessness. To hell with life and death. To hell with it all. He was not alive, he was not dead. Wherever this was, he did not like it here anymore.

"I'm out," he said experimentally, his brutally broken voice carrying in the empty, stock-still room. He let the words hang in the air, imagined them hovering over his head like wispy tendrils of smoke, moving upward, dissipating.

He reached - quite casually - for the bleeping machines around him. He'd been in hospitals enough to know how to keep the damn things from alerting the docs and nurses if something in his damned broken body fucks up.

The machines died in a sighing, tired whir. They sounded resigned, like they knew what he was planning to do.

The lights on the machine screens dimmed to nothing, leaving the night-darkened hospital room to the mercy of the dull glow of the moon seeping from the world outside, and the lighting from the quiet corridors of the hospital a half-shut door away.

He sighed, and took the nasal cannula from his face. Damn thing's been bothering him since they pulled him from the vent and switched him to it. It was itchy and uncomfortable. And the pissiest thing of all about it was that he felt like he was being latched to this stupid situation by that damn thing. No escape, as long as he had that on, the damn thing keeping him tethered to this life.

He tossed it to the floor, somewhere nice and awkward, like the space between bed and nightstand, where his arm couldn't reach, because he was feeling spiteful and committed and about all this.

He sighed, already dizzy with excitement and exertion and the pointed lack of air. He was on the damn thing for a reason after all, wasn't he? He closed his eyes against the spinning room. He'll be outta here soon enough.

He wondered if angels were watching over him.

He wondered why no one was stopping him.

Maybe he deserved to die.

Not that he expressly wanted to die, not really. He just wanted out, so it's not really suicide. Not really. If he lived then maybe it's a sign. If he ended up a vegetable from brain damage, awesome – not alive, not dead. If he died, well... he died. Whatever.

He felt hot and sick and reckless and adrift, and all he wanted was to let the wind blow, and see where the story goes from here. They needed to move on, he was sick of this page.


Wake.

Move.

Fight...

Sam shot up awake in the lonely motel room, and already inexplicably had his hands reaching for the Impala's keys on the nightstand. He was not surprised to find Castiel there, standing and looking at him expectantly, the dim glow of the lamp – which he knew for certain he had shut off before going to sleep – casting shadows on his face.

"Your brother needs you," Castiel said, and just like that – a rush of the wind and the sound of flapping wings – Sam found himself standing right outside Dean's door, Impala's keys uselessly in hand, leaning against the doorframe – his knees would not hold – watching as his brother's body arched form his bed at the force of that dreaded electricity prying him back from death.

It felt like a nightmare, because they've stood here before and he's always always hated it. Him on the outside, Dean waging his own battles inside.

Paddles against damaged, constrained chest. Body rising from the bed, like a soul being wrenched from one place to another. It reminded Sam of that time, after the accident, when doctors had to bully their way into getting Dean to live. It reminded Sam of that time the hellhounds had taken his brother away. There was always a sense of violence and struggle, this life-and-death thing. Bodies arching away from gravity, gravity pulling back. Breaths forced, parts pushed, things injected, things shoved, things taken...

Just... Violence.

They get him back.

Someone always gets Dean back to him, somehow.

Sam stepped back from the door and leaned against the wall, letting himself slide to his rump on the floor. He just sank there, weary and relieved and still shaking in fear. A shadow loomed over him, and Dean's doctor said they needed to Talk.


2005


In the days after she died, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would die soon too. It was the only thought that offered him any relief. He was just so damn sure that he was almost dead, and that was a good thing. That can save him. It was a relieving thought. It was the only thing that could help him find sleep at night.

Dean was there with him, this weird shadow of his that he couldn't shake. Like a PA or a conscience or a puppy or a pitbull or... whatever he needed, Dean gave. Water and food, and research material and bullets and guns and knives, and even the remote control. He was never left alone but never pressed to speak, never imposed on for anything.

The one time Dean had gone away from him in the middle of those indistinguishable days, he had plied Sam with sleeping pills and left for... wherever. Sam couldn't bring himself to wonder and anyway, Dean was back just before Sam woke, and Sam found a neat, unobtrusive pile of things from his apartment on a corner of the motel room. His clothes were there (newly-washed and not-at-all reeking of smoke), some photographs. His school books. The fire had taken her away from him, but not the memories of the life that they had there. Un-fucking-fortunately.

Sam felt a surge of anger, inexplicable and helpless, directed at his brother. Dean dared touch these things​, and worse, bring them back? Back, as if he could just pick up life all over again? Besides, there was one more theory to all this that none of them had openly discussed. Maybe it was the reemergence of Dean in his life that brought this danger into the home he had made with her. Maybe it was Dean's fault.

But then again, he's been having dreams about her. He knew what this was. He damn well knew this was going to happen. All of this was is fault. His fault. His fault...

"I can get rid of them," Dean said, quickly, quietly, already making a move toward the things when he saw Sam's face and mildly panicked. There was a time in their lives when they knew exactly what to do for each other, and doubt and unhappiness streaked across Dean's screaming gaze when he realized he'd miscalculated or worse, had only given Sam more grief.

"I won't need the books," Sam said, quietly, taking pity on him. The feeling was alien, and the first time he'd thought of anyone else apart from her or himself since she died.

"Sure you will," Dean said after a hesitant beat, relaxing a little.

"Thanks, but no."

"Okay..."

"Okay."

"The clothes," Dean said next, gulping, "You look kinda funny in mine. I took back what I could, and uh... nothing smells like smoke, I promise. I got the good detergent, you know, and the softener's supposed to be..." his face flushed, a little, "Anyway, I washed it twice. We can toss the clothes out later if you like, after we buy you new stuff whenever you're up for it but I thought, you know, in the meantime, you can use a few things and--"

"That's fine, Dean," Sam sighed, willing to save Dean from the embarrassing ramble he had stepped into, "Thanks, man."

Dean smiled at him, lopsided and clumsy. It was... a little bit warming, and the thought disarmed Sam enough that he suddenly wanted to cry.

He kinda did.

Dean crossed the space between them in two wide, determined strides. He grabbed his brother by the shoulders, and it was almost violent, how he pressed Sam's face against his chest, wordless.

"It's my fault," Sam sobbed against Dean's shoulder, "It's my fault."

"No it's not, Sammy," Dean said, "We'll get the damn bastards who did this, but don't you go on thinking that."

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Sam said, imagining it sounded incoherent and breathless, and also imagining his brother also understood what he had said somehow.

"We'll take care of this, Sammy," Dean said, "We'll take care of this, I promise."


The lowest point he got to was after her funeral.

Everything was his fault, he had been the danger to her and in danger, he had failed to save her. And he had to face up to her family and her friends, all looking at him like he had lost the most when this was all his fault.

He stood by Dean, both Winchester brothers wearing dated, cheap rental suits. Dean had borrowed them from some bit-shop somewhere, looking chagrined and making disclaimers, but Sam had warmed up again, feeling his older brother's efforts.

Dean stood back after the service, letting Sam be surrounded by family and friends. But he felt like a fraud, and seemingly just minutes into speaking to this person and that – he raised his eyes up for rescue and just like that! found his brother's steady gaze on him.

Dean swooped in like an avenging angel, and Sam was moved out of there in a shuffle of clothing and quiet footsteps on grass, sounding like feathers ruffling in the wind. And he was suddenly somewhere else.

Back in their motel room, away from the watching eyes and the pitying stares.

All he had was his face in the bathroom mirror, looking grave and forbidding. And he came to the realization that with people or alone, there was no escape, no escape from his guilt and his despair.

Maybe he can just sleep this off, and wake up and everything was different.

Escape.

Let's go to the next chapter. Let's hit the next page. Let's just get away.

He made a grab for the sleeping pills Dean kept behind the bathroom mirror. The rattle was unmistakable as he dropped half the bottle into his determined hands and suddenly, Dean was by the door, watching him with anger barely veiled in his clear eyes.

"I just wanna sleep," Sam lied, quietly.

"Don't treat me like an idiot, okay?" Dean said mildly, but with quiet lethality. He reached over and took the bottle from Sam's slack hand. One by one, he plucked off the pills from his brother's palm, looking green as he made a quick count of just how much his brother had been thinking of taking, "You don't get to do this to me, Sammy. Think about that, the next time you wanna try something like this."


2009


One of Samuel Winchester's worst flaws was that he constantly sinned in Anger.

He thrived in it, the wrath and rage and the permissive sinning accompanying it making him stronger, always stronger. Anger at the loss of Jessica. Anger against his murderer. Anger at Dean's death. Anger at himself. As if he considered unfortunate events as a personal affront.

He tended to exude menace, restraining and all at once building up rage when he was quiet and pacing, aching for a fight, fists clenching at his sides. This was Sam at his most dangerous, Sam at his most reckless.

Castiel watched him from where the angel stood by the door of Dean's room, seen but unnoticed, or probably pointedly ignored. Sam was busy waiting for Dean to wake up. Sam was busy aching for Dean to wake up.

The moment those sunken eyes fluttered open, Sam hovered over him, scowling.

"You awake?" he asked, without preamble.

Dean caught the danger; it was hard not to, when Sam was pulling absolutely no punches. He took a deep measured breath, oxygen mask fogging. Castiel watched, and marveled at how Dean had asked about his responsibility in starting the apocalypse with more bravery than he was showing now, cowing and shameful before Sam's wrath.

"You don't get to do this to me you son-of-a-bitch," Sam said, "Think about that, the next time you wanna try something like this."

Dean gulped, opened his mouth to try to say something. His hands and arms jerked to move, as if he wanted to put the mask aside. But they were restrained, on padded straps against the bed. Sam had allowed them. And Sam would keep them there as long as he wanted. Dean looked up at him wit despairing eyes.

"They stay on whenever I'm away, brother," Sam seethed, "You wanna try shit like that, you have to know we're both in on this. You wanna kill yourself? You're gonna have to find the goddamn balls to do it in front of me."

Tears were pooling on Dean's openly-devastated eyes, and he blinked at them defiantly. Sam set his jaws, his look softening, mirroring his heart, such that he turned away from his brother and walked away.

He shouldered his way past Castiel, but the angel followed after him after a moment of indecision. Sam kept on walking, stalking away, aimless, but determined to get away.

"What?" he scoffed at the angel, not even bothering to face him, "You're gonna tell me that was uncalled for? Tell you what, Castiel. You can shove it. I know I hurt him. I can fix him later. Right now, I'll say and do anything I need to, to keep him alive."

"His despair stems not merely from having been tortured, Sam," Castiel said, "Or for having done so himself. I am not offering you excuses, just reasons."

"What are you talking about?"

"And it is written: That the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell," Castiel said, softly, watching the meaning of the words dawn on Sam's face, "As he breaks, so shall it break."

Sam closed his eyes, misery dizzying and closing in all around him.

"God..."

"Alistair told him," Castiel said, "In the midst of torture, Alistair told him. He asked me, and men like him... men like him deserve the truth, don't you think?"

It was a damned loaded question, and they both knew it.

"You should have lied," Sam said, darkly.

"That's what you would have done," Castiel said, helplessly. And surprising even himself.

Sam snorted, and pinched at the bridge of his nose.

"He needs you," Castiel said.

"I know," Sam said, "Damnitt, I know. Why do you think I'm--"

"He's not the only reason you do the things you do," Castiel said, "Be fair, and see so. But I cannot expect any sort of admission from you, the same way you cannot expect me to believe otherwise. And so we cannot speak of this now and expect to resolve it. What you have to take away from all this, is what to do now.

"Do you know why he hates your powers so much?" Castiel asked, "You know what that makes you become, and you know what he is supposed to do once you've taken that dark path. You disrespect him by putting him in that position where he would one day have to harm you, or at the cost of himself and at the cost of others, not to harm you. We both know which path he will take. And so you have to know: if you sin, he will sin all the more.

"The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can end it," Castiel said, "Only Dean can fend off the apocalypse. But I think we both know he won't, if it means harming you. You bring him to defeat. You bring him to damnation."

"You're wrong," Sam insisted, "I know the difference between right and wrong, Castiel. We're not just made of flesh and blood, that's God's line, isn't it? We have free will, all that crap. I can take this curse, and I can make it right. I can help him, he doesn't need to be as strong as he used to be, he doesn't have to be anything he doesn't want to be. I can save him. I can save all of us."

"Your thoughts are dangerous," Castiel said, not knowing what else he can say.

"You keep telling him to fix things, to stop things," Sam pointed out, "You always forget to tell him he's not alone."

To be concluded in an Epilogue and Afterword...

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