Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural, just stopping by to play.
Rainbows in the Dark
Chapter 3
"Mr. Bernstein?" Sam looked up, a doctor stood in front of him.
"Yes?"
"I've just come from your brother."
Sam jumped to his feet, "How is he? Is he…"
"He's alive," the doctor said. Sam took a shuddering breath. "But only just. He has lost an extraordinary amount of blood. You should probably prepare yourself for the worst."
"But you said he's alive," Sam whispered, holding on to that beautiful word alive.
"Yes, but he's critical, and has dropped into a coma he will most likely not wake from. We rarely see recovery in a case like this, he's just too far gone," the doctor said, compassion in her eyes. "I am sorry."
"Can I see him? Sit with him?" Sam asked.
"Of course, I'll have a nurse show you to his room." She turned and walked away.
Sam stood in the hallway waiting for the nurse. People moved around him, talking--even laughing. Sam waited in silence. Alone. The nurse came and touched his arm, he followed her to a room. She left him outside the door, somehow sensing he needed to go in alone. Sam leaned his head against the doorframe for a moment, dreading what he would find behind the door. He opened the door and stepped in, the door swung shut behind him.
"Oh, god, Dean." He sank down into the chair by the bed. He took his brother's hand in his and squeezed. "I'm here. I won't leave you. I'm here." He wondered if Dean could hear him, if Dean would call him a liar for that statement, because he had left, twice in fact. He had told Dean he planned to leave again, after they killed the thing that had taken their mother and Jess. "I won't leave you," he repeated.
He sat quietly for awhile, listening to the beep beep of the heart monitor and the sucking noise as the machine pulled air in and out of Dean's lungs. He occasionally would reach up and lay his hand against his brother's forehead, hoping the contact would generate some response. But nothing.
"Can you hear me? What am I supposed to do? I killed it, and it means nothing. Nothing." Sam said, "We weren't really together these last few days were we? You've been someplace else, all this time. Why didn't I see it? How could I miss it? Why didn't you trust me enough to help?" He leaned back in the chair, still keeping Dean's hand in his. "I never knew you had so much trapped inside you, why won't you just talk to me, man? It doesn't always have to end up in a chick-flick, but don't you think even that is preferable to this?"
"Mr. Bernstein?" The nurse said as she came into the room. "The police would like to speak with you for a moment."
"Yeah, ok." Sam stood and walked out of the room. He glanced up at the clock. It had only been an hour. It seemed like a lifetime. Dean's life, slipping away to nothing.
"We just need a statement from you," one of the uniformed officers said. Sam did his best to tell of the attack, leaving out the most important bits, of course. He said it was a wild animal. He said his brother had tried to stop it from attacking him. He said he had shot it twice.
"You shot it twice?" The cop asked.
"Yes," Sam said, wondering what caused the raise of eyebrows and significant look the two police officers exchanged.
"Are you sure? We know the EMTs reported seeing the body of an animal when they arrived, but by the time we got there, whatever it was had gone."
"Gone?" Sam asked. "How could it be gone?"
"We did find a trail of blood, but it disappeared outside of town." The cop shrugged. "Thanks for your statement." They turned and walked away.
"What? No, it can't be," Sam said to their backs. The thing was still alive? It was still out there? It would be enraged. It would come again. Dean! He ran back to the room and threw the door open. He wasn't sure what he expected to find. It looked the same as when he had left.
He sat back by the bed. "I didn't kill it after all, Dean. I didn't stop it. Sloppy, I know. I should have checked to make sure, but I couldn't leave you. I couldn't." He ran a shaking hand through his hair, at a complete loss. What to do? He didn't want to leave Dean alone, he couldn't leave that thing out there to hurt someone else, or more importantly, come back for Dean. "What can I do? I need you here, man. I can't do this without you."
He put his head down on the bed, as close to complete despair as he had ever come. Not even after Jess, not when the doctor had told him Dean's heart would fail, never had he been this devastated. Dean had always been there, even sick, even dying, Dean had been there, his rock, his anchor in the storm. Now Sam was adrift, not knowing where to turn.
Dad. He should call their father, maybe just this once he would leave the hunt to come to his sons. There was a hunt for him here, maybe he would come for that. Sam pulled out his phone and dialed his father. He was not surprised when voicemail answered. "Dad, it's Sam. Dean's been hurt, the thing that did it is still out there. I need your help."
He ended the call and sat staring at his phone. He nearly dropped it when it rang a few minutes later. He looked at the caller ID in surprise, "Dad? You called back! Thank god. Dean's hurt. I need help hunting the thing that did it."
"Sorry Sammy, I can't leave my hunt right now."
"He's dying. The doctor told me he isn't going to wake up. I need your help."
"What could I do there Sam? We would all just be in danger and I am getting close to the demon. I need to stay on this."
"Your son is dying. You could hold his hand. You could help me kill the thing that did this to Dean. You could be here." Sam was angry. It was always this way. He and his father could not communicate without Dean between them. Dean was the peacemaker in the family. The glue that held two volatile personalities together.
"I'm sorry. I can't. Let me know…"
"What? When he dies? Of course Dad, I'll let you know when to come and burn his bones." He hung up the phone. He looked at his brother. "I fucked that up royally didn't I?"
He smiled sadly. "Do you think Dad and I will ever have a conversation that doesn't end in anger? I know, I know. You think I am unfair to him, and maybe I am. But Dean we need him, I need him. Here, now. He still only cares about the hunt. Not our hunt, his. And we are left alone. Just like when we were kids. Only this time I am all alone, you were always there."
Sam sighed and put his head in his hands. He needed Dean to wake up, to help him deal with the fact that Dean wasn't going to wake up. He needed Dean to help him kill the thing that did this. He needed Dean.
That train of thought was not getting him any closer to killing the Eater of Souls. He had been so sure he had it right and he had obviously wounded it. What had he missed? There must be more. There had to be more. An unbidden thought curled itself through his brain--What if no one has ever killed one before? What if it can't be killed?
Bullshit, a voice in his head that sounded remarkably like his brother said. Everything has a weakness. Anything can be killed.
"Alright Dean, you're right. I need to do more research. I am going to get my computer. I will be back in less than an hour. Don't leave. Do you hear me, you can't leave." He laid his hand gently on his brother's head, "I will be right back."
Five hours later and Sam was splitting his time between the cafeteria where they had Wi-Fi and Dean's room. Every time he left Dean he would tell him where he was going, how long he would be gone and that Dean was not to leave. Sam said it every time, even though there was no response. Nothing.
He finally found something. He felt like he had been surfing aimlessly for hours, but finally he found something. A little known text, thousands of years old, from Egypt's Old Kingdom. A priest recorded the rampage of a creature that forced people to relive their sins, slowly devoured their soul through their dreams and then came for them in the flesh, opened their chest and while the victim was bleeding to death, it consumed their bodies. Gross, dude, the voice that sounded like Dean said.
He wandered back to the room. He was exhausted. He knew he wasn't really up to the hunt, but if the ancient priest had it right (and of course the translator of the text) the thing was still with Dean, still in his unconscious, still feeding off Dean's soul, causing him to relive his "sins" and slowly taking his life from the inside out. If Sam didn't kill it soon, there would be nothing left of Dean in his body. Nothing.
He sat back by his brother's bed. He took Dean's hand. On a sudden inspiration he got up and sat on the bed. Sam pressed his brother's hand flat against his chest, his own hand covering Dean's holding it right over Sam's heart and the steady beat. During the course of his research Sam had discovered the ancient Egyptian's believed the heart was the seat of the soul, the seat of intelligence. Sam hoped that maybe some little bit of his heart would reach Dean, wherever he was trapped.
"I am going to go after it Dean. I think I've I found a way to kill it. I know, you would say I shouldn't go, but I have to try. It is killing you. I know. You probably have some idea that you are not worth it--but you are Dean. I need you to know that before I go. I need you to know that I will be back. I need you here when I get back, Dean. You can't leave me. I told you once I would die for you, and that is true. I know you would gladly die for me--I mean here you are--but can you live for me?"
Sam stopped, tears running freely down his face. He looked at his brother, and pressed Dean's hand harder to his chest. Trying to pour everything into that touch. His heart was beating fast. "Please be here when I get back, Dean. I will be back, I promise. Maybe I can help you find your way back. I don't know. I don't seem to know a lot when you aren't around. But Dean, I know one thing, one thing completely and utterly, big brother, I love you." Sam stopped, the breath catching in his throat. Had he said that since they left childhood behind? Had he? In those words?
He pressed the hand against his chest a little harder then set it gently back on the bed. He leaned over the bed and kissed Dean on the forehead, the way Dean had tucked him in a million times. "I love you, Dean." And he walked out of the room without looking back.
