Author Note: All right, let's get this party started.

Be All Our Sins Remember'd

Chapter One

Dean isn't in his room.

Instinct had driven Sam to check in on his big brother upon waking. A strange feeling, though one that was apparently warranted.

Light from the hall floods the empty bedroom, granting Sam just enough of a visual to ramp up his already-present worry. The tangled bedsheets are evidence of restless slumber, and a brief survey of the room drives home the fact that Dean can say whatever he wants, but he isn't really doing well. With the exception of the Impala's hidden weapons cache, he's always been somewhat prone to messiness and disorder. But from the day he'd planted his flag in this room, Dean's kept it nothing short of immaculate.

The unmade bed is telling enough, and Sam doesn't need to step fully over the threshold to see that the rest of the room is still in a state of complete disarray, as though Dean hasn't yet rummaged up the energy or motivation for even minimal tidying. A faint sting of gasoline attacks Sam's nostrils, causing him to sniff sharply and tilt his face into his shoulder, away from the box of Styne-tainted clothes and belongings that doesn't seem to have been given so much as a second's thought.

He rolls his neck, forces himself to take a deep, calming breath. He's had almost too many reasons to worry about his brother lately, but that's all passed. They're past all of that. Things are better now, and Sam knows he shouldn't panic, or jump to conclusions. There's no fratricidal demon running rampant inside his big brother, no Mark of Cain twisting and destroying everything that makes Dean DEAN. And as brothers, they're in the best place they've been in years.

He's not Dean's warden, and he's definitely not his babysitter. His brother's a grown man, and a habitual night owl, and Sam can do his best to keep tabs but he can't demand a schedule or itinerary or anything.

Still, he can't prevent the frustrated thought from screaming through his head: where the HELL are you, Dean?

Last time he had eyes on his brother, Dean was so run-down he was barely keeping his feet underneath him, and Sam had encouraged him to use this bit of unanticipated downtime to rest. He was badly in need of it, no question – had looked like shit after the scuffle with Castiel, and even after a couple days' sleep, wasn't yet on the way to looking much better. He'd been wrecked by the Mark for a while, worn-down and exhausted, and these particular bruises and breaks are taking their sweet time in healing.

Not that Dean hadn't been offered an out, as far as the pain goes.

Guilt isn't a particularly attractive color on anyone, and Castiel had seemed positively miserable in the wake of Rowena's curse, a feeling he wasn't alone in harboring. Sam hadn't liked the look in his brother's eyes as he drew back from Cas' hand, refusing to allow the angel to reverse the damage his fists had painted across Dean's face.

Dean's looking to trade wounds, to get what he – wrongly – feels he's due. For the things he'd done and the blood he'd spilled under the influence of the Mark of Cain. But Sam will be damned before he lets his big brother fall down the rabbit hole of unnecessary guilt and responsibility, to which he's already lost Dean on more than one occasion over the years.

Dean was not the Mark, and the Mark was not Dean, and Sam's not looking to entertain any sort of debate on the matter.

Besides, if Dean wants to start throwing down reasons to feel ashamed and guilty over past indiscretions, well, Sam's pretty sure he can trump his brother's hand with an apocalypse-sized one of his own.

He resists the urge to flip on the light and explore further, instead forcefully tearing his eyes away from the room and his brother's scattered belongings. Sam bites down on his lower lip and pointedly drops his gaze to the floor – some unimportant, nondescript spot of speckled tile where he's not at any sort of risk of violating Dean's privacy.

But Dean's not the only one who's locked himself away to heal under the veil of solitude, and Sam's rounds aren't yet finished. Once he drags himself from the threshold of his brother's room, he sets a course for where Cas has been holed up the last few days.

They'd set up a spare room for Kevin a couple of years back, but Sam's gotten the angel settled in his old room instead, the first one he'd laid claim to when they initially moved in here, the one he'd switched from after Kevin…

Go. I'm not gonna stop you.

I can't trust you. Not the way I thought I could, not the way I should be able to.

I'm saying, you want to work? Let's work.

Those are my terms.

In any case, this was the room that reopened fewer wounds when he unlocked the door.

Sam raises his fist to knock on the closed door, when a harsh bong of bone on metal echoes down the empty corridor and alerts him to a presence at the end of the hall.

"Ow. Son of a bitch."

Clearly, that presence is his big brother.

Sam frowns and drops his hand, turns to follow the noise. "Dean?"

"Mm." Dean looks up, squints as Sam flips on the light. He raises a hand to block his eyes from the burn of the bulb overhead. "Inside voice, Sammy," he croaks.

Sam's appraising gaze darts between his brother's bloodshot eyes and the thick, iron stairwell banister he's clearly just collided with. "Wait, are you – are you going out? Or coming in?"

"What?" Dean asks after a concerning pause, groggily blinking at something over Sam's shoulder.

The whiskey smell slams into Sam and he recoils, gags a bit and answers his own question. "Never mind," he chokes out.

Dean snorts, sways and slaps a palm against the banister to keep his feet. "Busted."

He looks busted. He looks…Sam hisses in sympathy as his eyes scan the lingering bruises coloring his brother's pale face, the gray rings of exhaustion under his eyes, the unnatural puff of swelling along the cracked cheekbone.

"Yeah." Sam rolls his eyes, reaches out to grab his brother's sleeve. He can be annoyed – possibly even pissed – over his brother's antics later. Right now, he's just happy to know where Dean is, to have him tucked away in the bunker. Safest place on Earth. He gives the jerk a mostly gentle tug in the direction of the hallway. "Come on, man."

Dean shrugs his shoulder in an attempt to shuck Sam's hand, ends up stumbling face-first into the tiled wall with a smack. He groans and stays there, plastered against the tiles like a bug on a windshield.

"Dean, it's – " Sam looks at his watch, raises his eyebrows. Christ. "It's eight AM. Are you still drunk?"

Dean chuckles, pushes away from the wall and bounces into Sam's side. "Kinda seems that way, don't it?"

Sam sighs and resumes herding his lumbering, uncoordinated brother down the narrow corridor. "Yeah, it kind of does." A thought strikes him and pauses, tightens his grip on Dean's jacket sleeve. "Did you drive?"

"Mm. Drove there. Walked back. Gettin' REAL good at this walkin' thing, Sammy." He lays a sloppy, heavy hand on Sam's shoulder.

"You – you left the Impala outside the bar?"

Dean wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, that doesn't sound like me, does it?"

Sam clenches his jaw, jerks his chin. "No, it really doesn't." None of this sounds like Dean, who's just come out from under the control of the Mark of Cain, who's just now reestablishing a foothold. That's not something Sam thought his brother would be so quick to give up. "Come on."

Dean stops just short of his room, groans a truly miserable sound and tips sideways until his shoulder bumps the wall next to the door.

Sam turns the knob with a click and pivots with as innocent an expression as he can muster. "Headache?"

"Shh."

"Seems about right." Sam swings the door open, ushers Dean inside.

He makes a good go of it, but while Dean's upper body rotates against the doorframe, his lower half seems rooted in place. "M'feet aren't workin' so good, Sammy," he mumbles.

Sam gapes dumbly. He's seen his brother truly drunk a handful of times, but nothing like this. He's seen Dean fight through hellacious hangovers before, but this one is sure to take the cake. He takes advantage of this opportunity to really survey his brother's room, eyes dropping instinctively to the spot where he'd left a snack and pain meds for a basically comatose Dean the day before. The sandwich is still there, soggy and limp, but the pills are gone.

Well, that explains a lot. The jackass had gone out and gotten drunk on some pretty hefty painkillers and – more than likely – an empty stomach.

Sam shakes his head, precariously straddling that fine line he's come to know so well, wavering between frustration and concern. "Your brain isn't working. What were you thinking?" Should have locked him in his room. Should've bolted the goddamned door. He hadn't, because of this whole mutual trust and honesty thing they've got working.

He gets his brother lined up with his bed and lets Dean flop onto his back, jacket, boots and all. Dean bounces once then seems to melt against his beloved memory foam mattress with a wretched groan.

Sam sighs, places his hands on his hips. "You gonna be good here, man? Wanna lay on your side?" Because the last thing he wants to hear is his brother choking on his own vomit.

Dean waves a weak, uncoordinated hand, drops it onto his chest like it weighs a hundred pounds. "M'good. G'way, Sammy."

"Yeah, sure." But before he leaves Sam steps back to the bed to rid his brother of the stiff jacket and heavy boots, in hopes of making him a little more comfortable. He pauses on the threshold, nose guiding his eyes back down to the box of wrinkled, soiled clothing set just inside the door, where he'd left it for his brother days ago.

The smell is what stops him but it's not what brings him shooting a tentative gaze back to where Dean is stretched out and already snoring, not what has him stooping to collect the box. He could live with the smell; it's the memory.

Blood on his hands, thick and cooled and stubborn, caught in the grout between the tiles and a real bitch to get out.

Didn't you do this already?

He did, and he'll keep doing it, keep scrubbing and scouring and washing and rinsing, until the stain of that thing is no longer visible.

His brother doesn't like his things being touched, so Sam tries to tell himself, with everything that they've gone through in the past week, this isn't THAT big a deal, and Dean will understand.

After all, it's just a load of laundry.

Dean blinks himself awake to a gauzy, unpleasant feeling and from a dream he can't really recall. It's a slow, groggy, painful process, and he doesn't remember much of what's happened. Not why he feels like he was plowed over by a cement mixer, and not how he got here, though he'd put his money on his handsy, overly helpful little brother. The room seems unbearably stuffy, pitch-black and tilting dangerously.

Son of a bitch.

Dean might have just scraped by with a GED, but he's got a master's degree in hangovers, and this one is of the monster variety. His head is pounding mercilessly and his body is sore and stiff all over, limbs bent awkwardly like he's spent the night – day? – thrashing in restless sleep. His legs are tangled up in the sheets, leaving him with a nauseating caught and strangled feeling, but he can barely muster enough energy to think about kicking them free.

He knows he ventured out of the bunker last night, and knows with even fiercer certainty that he didn't make it back to his room on his own. Which means he's going to be subjected to even more nagging when he manages to drag himself out of bed, so he might have to stay in this room forever. But getting up and out is something he's going to have to do to secure a glass of cold water and a handful of aspirin, which he'd pretty much sell his soul for at the moment – and that's not a thought Dean has lightly. He exhausts himself weighing his options, drops his eyelids closed and succumbs momentarily to the spinning room and his hammering head.

Sam's no stranger to manhandling his drunken big brother into bed, and he knows exactly where all of the lines are, how far his care can go before he gets himself hit. So Dean's jacket and boots are gone, but he's otherwise fully clothed, his traditional layers exacerbating the stuffy, strangled feeling.

Dean rolls his head against his seemingly rock-hard pillow and stares at the bedside table, blinking heavily until his vision clears. The painkillers Sam had left him are gone, which could explain the gaping black hole currently occupying the space between his temples. Smart move, dumbass.

In as fluid a motion as he can manage, Dean holds his breath and swings his legs from under the covers and over the edge of the mattress, feeling each and every one of those bruises he'd been looking to forget as he shoves up to his feet.

Which is a giant, massive, FUBAR kind of mistake. Because lying still was one thing, but standing upright is proving to be something else entirely, and there's a moment of encroaching black spots and searing pain as Dean's head can't seem to decide if it's up to the challenge.

He's had headaches before, and often – a nearly constant throb of stress and tiredness tugging at his temples that kind of comes with their lifestyle. But this…this is no headache, and no mere hangover. This is brand-new fucking territory.

The pain is exquisite, seemingly rooted in the tight muscles occupying the space between his shoulder blades and branching up through his neck to wrap around his jaw, travel through his injured cheekbone and stab through his left temple. Dean finds himself sinking heavily back to the mattress and longing for a swift return to unconsciousness, but he's one unlucky son of a bitch. This pain in his head seems relentless in its brutal attack. His eyes hurt.

And that's not even yet bringing into account his suddenly churning gut.

Dean gingerly drags himself upright once more and doubles over, groaning. He braces a hand on the rumpled covers of his bed, wills the room to stop spinning. The room basically tells him to go fuck himself, takes a harsh rotation that nearly sends him face-planting into the mattress.

He clamps his jaw shut, lips pressed tightly together, and struggles to remind his queasy gut that while he might have hit the bottle a little hard last night, he's no lightweight like Sammy, and he's not gonna puke.

He's NOT.

Except – yeah, he really is.

It's nearly dinnertime, and Sam's just passing through the library on the way to the laundry room when Dean staggers into the large, brightly lit space like a foal just learning to stand, like he doesn't have a damn clue what his legs are for.

Sam inhales sharply. Jesus. His brother looks like death warmed over in a gas station microwave. He'd looked like shit to begin with, but that'd been a good ten hours ago, and…just…damn.

Dean's stumbling pretty seriously, is glassy-eyed and chalk-white and still dressed in the clothes Sam had dropped him into his room wearing, which were already the same clothes he'd had on the day before. He trips mid-step and collides into one of the wide tables with a grunt, folds over the edge and stays there, bracing himself on precariously splayed hands.

"Good morning," Sam greets, somewhat pointedly but trying not to glean too much joy from his brother's hangover.

Clinging to the polished table like it's a lifeline, Dean bows his head and mutters something unintelligible in response.

Sam quirks an eyebrow, jiggles the plastic basket under his arm. "Trying to avoid laundry duty?"

"What?" Dean frowns, shakes his head gingerly. "Christ, Sam. I hardly ever understand what you're saying." He raises his unsteady right hand and presses the heel to his forehead, still leaning heavily against the tabletop on his other palm.

"I just haven't seen you all day." Sam sets the laundry basket aside on the table, suddenly moving from mildly amused to fairly concerned at the severity and persistence of Dean's hangover. His brother's never been hit with a morning-after like this, not with his inhuman alcohol tolerance and professional-grade liver. He cocks his head. "You good?"

"Mm. I'm super." Dean drops his hand, rolls his head to squint up at Sam. "Those're my clothes?"

Sam glances down at the laundry basket. "Uh, yeah. The gas smell might not be bothering you, but I couldn't take it anymore, man."

Dean swallows, pales further at the mention of the odor. "Remember what I said about messin' with stuff? This is what I meant."

Sam cracks a smile, because Dean just sounds tired and pained, not pissed. "Gotcha." He sighs, sends another appraisal over his stiff, clearly hurting brother. "So you went out last night, huh? Shoes and everything?"

Dean huffs, swallows roughly. "Sam? You're my brother, and I love ya and all, but I need you to a, use your inside voice, and b, not be impressed by the fact I put on shoes."

"I'm just saying, being up and about in town is a big step from skulking around the bunker."

Dean drops his aching head fully into his hands. "I'm not skulking," he says, his protest muffled through his fingers. He raises his chin, seems confused. "Did I, uh…did I leave the car somewhere?"

Sam nods, holds up a hand at his brother's suddenly wide, panicked gaze. "Don't worry. I already brought her home for you, safe and sound." Dean grunts in response, and Sam uses his years of experience to translate the sound into something akin to relief and thanks. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I just, uh…had a really weird dream, I think."

"Can't say I'm surprised." Sam snorts. "What the hell were you drinking last night, man? Absinthe?"

"What?" Dean frowns up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You were totally out of it this morning, Dean. I don't think I've ever seen you like that."

"Huh. I don't really…" He trails off, kneading a hand at the base of his skull and rolling his neck on his shoulders. Standing for as long as he has seems to have taken too much out of him, and Dean drags a chair away from the table with a long, loud scrape that causes him to wince in pain as he tumbles onto the seat.

Sam wrinkles his nose sympathetically. "Headache?"

"Understatement."

The honesty throws him, though he figures he shouldn't expect any less. After all, this is the agreement they'd made, not more than a week ago. To do things differently, and not fall into the same old trap of making the same old mistakes. Not that Sam is doing anything approaching an A+ job holding up his end of the deal.

He hates lying to his brother but at this juncture, there's nothing to be gained from telling Dean about what happened in that hospital. He was infected – WAS – and now he's not. He can't see any point in giving Dean just one more thing he can't do anything about, to weigh on his mind and worry himself sick over when he's already nowhere near the top of his game.

Sam's convinced himself of this, but still, he knows better. Knows that, in the interest of fresh starts and full disclosure, Dean should know. Even so, he has to mentally berate himself for hoping – however fleetingly – that his brother feels like too much shit to properly kick his ass after he tells him.

He taps fingertips on the tabletop. "Hey, Dean?"

And Dean might feel – and look – like beat-up roadkill but he's got good instincts, knows this isn't anything he wants to hear. He plays up the hangover, scowls in the direction of Sam's tapping fingers and drops his head once more into his hands, rubs at his temples and responds with a muffled, purposefully pathetic, "yeah?"

Sam opens his mouth, only to catch sight of something that has his eyebrows drawing together and his jaw snapping shut with such force his teeth clack together. He takes a big step toward Dean, who makes an affronted, choked noise as Sam reaches out to yank down the collar of his t-shirt.

Sam's jaw drops. "What the hell is THAT?"

To be continued...

Prompt lines included in this chapter:

Sam turns the knob with a click and pivots with as innocent an expression as he can muster. "Headache?"

"Your brain isn't working. What were you thinking?"

...tries to tell himself, with everything that they've gone through in the past week, this isn't THAT big a deal, and Dean will understand.

Which is a giant, massive, FUBAR kind of mistake.

"Trying to avoid laundry duty?"