2.2 Loss
With Dean, 2013
"What are you doing?" Dean asked as he found Sam sitting at the laptop at strange hours in the middle of the night and stared at the screen by hugging him from behind. "Is that..." he drawled incredulously, "an essay on griffins?"
Smiling softly in welcome, Sam tilted his head to lean it gently against Dean's chest. "We got rid of the demonic part, but there's still lots of evil creeping around the world," he explained, "Considering we're not taking that many cases anymore, I thought it would be a good idea to properly catalogue our experiences so other hunters can make use of them."
Dean arched an eyebrow. "How noble of you," he commented as he rested his chin on the top of his brother's head.
He didn't see it, but he knew Sam was rolling his eyes at this point. "I get it, I get it," rhe younger hunter sighed, "You found another case to tackle?"
Dean grinned. "Just a small one, nothing big," he explained as he pulled over a newspaper he had dropped on the table the night before, "Wanted to ask you out on this tomorrow, but as we're already at it..."
Sam took a moment to read the article in question and finished with a shrug. "Yeah, looks like our kind of case," he agreed, "We can go in the morning."
"Atta boy," Dean grinned and moved slightly to whisper in his brother's ear, "Anyway, you coming to bed now?"
Sam sighed. "Let me just finish the paragraph, Dean," he spoke in slight impatience, "I know you think this is a waste of time, but then again, we are legacies to the men of letters."
Dean opened his mouth to protest, but it took a moment for any words to come out of it. "I never said it was a waste of time," he pointed out with a frown and chuckled softly, "Actually, it's a great idea." His voice dropped to a raspy whisper. "As long as we get some action, too."
Again, Sam rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. "One more paragraph, Dean."
Later
"Looks like your average vampire to me," Dean summarized with a final glance at the three victims in the morgue before looking at his brother, "You think there's a nest nearby?"
"Probably." Shrugging, Sam checked his notes. "All three victims were tourists," he explained, "last seen in a roadhouse just outside town."
Nodding, Dean set off towards the door. "Then let's start looking there," he announced, but he was startled to find Sam not following right after him.
"Hey," the younger brother warned carefully, "Don't you think this is a bit too...straightforward?"
Blinking, Dean furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"
"Most vamps we met lately were more careful than that," Sam explained uneasily, hesitated and dismissed his objection by shaking his head, "Let's just...not enter their hunting ground carelessly."
Dean's frown deepened, but he did not ask Sam to elaborate, either.
It was obvious the vamps had set out a trap of some kind around that roadhouse, but that was just it. That trap was set to catch them new food, not a couple of well-trained hunters.
After all, that was how the family business worked in the first place. Once they entered the scene, the predator would become the prey, and it would be no different this time around.
So why did Sam worry?
Since his brother had dismissed the matter before he had, Dean gave it no further thought.
In retrospective, though...
Mere hours later, he wished he had bothered listening.
In tracking down those vampires, they hadn't just run into a nest.
It was a damn beehive.
Sure enough, they had managed ganking about ten vamps or so without even getting noticed, but then all hell broke loose.
Before they knew it, they were cornered in a room with two entries, which left Sam defending the northern door while Dean chopped off heads down south.
Dean couldn't even deny ganking vamps with such a high frequency didn't get his blood boiling. But then, his luck ran out on him.
For the first time that night, he missed a vamp's throat by inches. That, in turn, got him flung against the fireplace at the far end of the room.
His head hit the stone hard, and as he crashed down on the ground, he was seeing nothing but black and white for a couple of seconds.
Or was it a couple of minutes?
"Dean!"
Sure enough, he heard yells soon after, accompanied by multiple sounds of metal cutting through flesh. Forcing his eyes open, he tried struggling back to his feet.
But it was only when he felt a familiar weight on top of him that his eyes registered the sight of Sam up close – gorgeous, breathless, worried.
"Dean," his brother urged quietly, "Dean, are you okay?"
Dean tried concentrating, but found it rather hard to do so. Sam's voice was great to hear, but he was even more confused by the fact that the yells he had heard a moment ago had just died down like that.
"The battle's over," Sam informed him quietly as if he could read his thoughts, "they're all dead." He grimaced slightly and the fear returned to his voice, "What about you? Dean, are you hurt?"
Blinking, the older hunter finally considered the question. He still felt dizzy and slightly sore, but altogether, it was only Sam's body on his own holding him down. "I hit my head," he reported simply, "It's not that bad."
A genuine smile spread on Sam's face, and as he kept hovering above Dean by propping himself up with his elbow, he affectionately leant down to rest his forehead against his brother's. "Good," he whispered breathlessly, "that's great."
"What about you?" Dean asked and tried shifting, but as he was still lying on top of him in a rather awkward position, Sam did not budge.
It was enough to get Dean worried, too, but from his rather limited point of view, he could not see much at all.
At long last, still enjoying the closeness rather obviously, Sam bothered replying, "Please don't get mad."
Dean's breath hitched, and his horrified gaze travelled from his brother's pleading eyes to whatever awful truth he would see once he craned his neck enough.
But Sam grabbed his chin, gently directing it back for his brother to keep eye contact. "Don't look down," was all he said before he caught his brother's lips with his own.
So slow, so weak, yet so incredibly longing, it was a kiss unlike any they had shared before.
It screamed of despair, and it tasted like blood.
Dean's mind went blank when he finally understood it for what it was.
A goodbye kiss.
"You'd think vampires aren't that skilful with machetes," Sam offered weakly as he finally rested his entire weight on Dean, "but 'm pretty sure they hit some vital organs." His voice broke just as his brother's heart did, but he spoke on nonetheless. "Cas isn't answering, and I don't feel much anymore, so I have no idea how much longer – " He trailed off, unable to phrase what he feared to be true.
"Sammy."
Breathing heavily, Dean finally found it in him to wrap his arms around his brother's head and torso, but it only made him tremble in pain.
"Sammy," he croaked and let the tears run freely as he pulled his brother close out of sheer despair, "don't."
Sam inhaled sharply, but he barely found the strength to shift into a more comfortable position. "I'm so sorry, Dean," he whispered as he shakily buried his face in the crane of his brother's neck, "I love you so much."
Suddenly, Dean found himself unable to even breathe, but he had no other choice but to somehow make his voice work in spite of it. "I love you too."
He felt Sam smiling against his neck, and terrifyingly, he felt him fading, too.
"Thank you, Dean," his brother whispered hoarsely, "For everything."
"Don't thank me, man," Dean all but pleaded, stroking his brother's hair desperately, "Just don't die on me." He released a sob, but Sam no longer reacted to his words or actions.
He no longer could.
He no longer was.
And from one moment to the other, Dean's world lost all its colours.
Some days later
A used coffee mug.
A small notebook.
A pencil that needed sharpening.
A few pages of the first draft of a monster encyclopedia.
A crossroads box that could no longer be used.
A bowl filled with burnt ingredients that had failed to do as they should.
A single golden ring.
Dean stared at them for what felt like an eternity. He wasn't in pain, he wasn't in denial, he was as numb as he could get.
He had tried everything.
Everything.
No spell worked, no angel ever answered.
No matter how much he tried, he had no way to return the life to the unmoving body lying in the bed they had shared so many beautiful days in.
Burying his face in his hands, he sunk onto the chair his brother had last occupied less than two weeks ago.
But...it couldn't end there, could it?
Had he arrived at the end of the lane at last?
If so – if Sam would never return to his side – then Dean was left with no other option but to seek him out personally, did he?
After all, to him his own life had already ended when his brother had taken his last breath.
But that was just it – Sam had died to protect Dean, and as such, his life was the most precious thing he still held.
Worse yet, Sammy would be angry once he found his brother joining him in the afterlife out of his own will rather than a natural death.
Altogether, Dean was left with no other choice but to keep fighting – to honour his brother's sacrifice by using the time that was still left to him by doing what he was best at anyway.
The demons had gone, the angels were minding their own business, and yet there were still large amounts of supernatural abominations left to be hunted down.
And Dean was awfully bad at dying anyway.
A week later
He kept seeing ghosts of the past.
Cursing under his breath, Dean tossed another shovel's worth of earth out of the grave. "Damn it, this is way beyond six feet already," he grumbled and thrust the shovel into the ground. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he looked up at the ground above, "You mind taking over?"
As he kept staring at the rim of earth that surrounded the hole he was digging, he fully expected to find a familiar head peeking over the edge any moment, or at least to hear a comment like, "You're either getting incredibly lazy or incredibly old, dude."
But neither happened, and it took a full minute for Dean to realize that he would not get the reaction he was waiting for ever again.
Not in this lifetime.
Inhaling shakily, Dean buried his face in his dirtied hands.
He had forgotten it – again.
Sammy was gone, and he was alone.
What was he trying to accomplish again?
He might be saving an entire village by taking out that ghost, but fighting the good fight had never felt as futile.
Doing the right thing was far from right without Sammy at his side.
2.2 Loss: End
