Chapter 8.
Sam dashes cold tears from his cheeks in frustration as he paces in front of Dean's door agitatedly. He doesn't get to cry, this was all his fault...god, Dean was bleeding, he'd made Dean bleed. And here he thought they were getting closer. He should have known, should have been able see that Dean was hiding because he was hurting, wasn't hiding from Sam.
And now he was the bad guy, Dean was in there alone and bleeding and wouldn't listen to him. His chest tightens even more as he remembers the wild panicked look in Dean's eyes, something was really wrong with Dean. And it just adds to Sam's desperation...because he needed his brother, he needed Dean and he wanted Dean to need him too.
He makes himself stop and breathe because he feels there's a pacing beast inside him about to bust Dean's door down, and that definitely wasn't the approach. His eyes are burning, his heartbeat pulsing in his ears...too long since he ate, too long since he slept...and then Dean.
Sam lays his forehead against the door, his hand on the door knob, squeezes his eyes shut.
"Dean...please lemme in." He manages out through his scratchy throat. "Please, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you...I just, I was worried and..." he breaks off hearing himself from the kitchen chewing Dean out. Knows Dean is no where near ready to listen to his excuses, if he can hear him at all.
His brother had looked stuck in his own head, looked trapped and in pain. Sam pulls his hair in anger at himself as he slides down the wall and sits with his back against it, holds his head in his hands after propping his elbows on his bent knees. He turns his head towards Dean's door.
"I can't help you if you don't let me in." He pleads softly.
And if he listens carefully he can hear Dean breathing heavily just a few feet away. Can hear the wet slurring in it, something Dean only does when he's hurting so bad he isn't aware of anything else. Can hear the hitch in those breaths that is Dean shivering with the pain or the shock or actual cold Sam doesn't really care...Dean is hurting, bad.
This is real. This isn't a dream, isn't something Sam is trying to forget. His brother is alive, is himself, and is hurting. And Sam knows Dean is in no place to accept help right now. He's scared and in pain alone in the darkness of his room. And Sam knows the telltale signs of fever, knows Dean is probably a little disoriented right now...but knows bottom line sooner or later he will want Sam enough to come and find him.
Will need Sam, like Sam needs him...and Sam can wait. Can wait until the fear and the fever wear off, until Dean can recognize that Sam isn't a threat and let Sam take care of everything. As Sam accepts all these things he feels a certain amount of peace wash over him...and maybe they really are both going crazy...
But Dean's blood is coating Sam's skin...
Dean's blood. Dean was still alive, he was alive and right on the other side of that door and as Sam rubs the drying reddish substance off his skin, he relaxes against the wall, lets his head fall back against it. He can wait. No matter what's going on he can wait for Dean to come back to him.
He lets himself fall into a false sense of safe, right for the first time in two days, here listening to Dean breathe. Assures himself all will be well when Dean opens the door and they are together again. Knows he can make it better, whatever is wrong with Dean he can make it better...because Dean was alive, and he wasn't a demon, and he wasn't trying to kill Sam...and that stupid dream couldn't have a hold on him anymore because Dean is right here, Dean is right here...Dean is right here...
"I'm gonna stay right here," he tells Dean gently, here whenever Dean is ready to come out, "I'm right here." you are right here, you're real... ?
His mind is lazy and slow at best, Dean is safe and whatever is going on...this isn't how the dream goes so their safe right? Right. All his energy has gone into thinking and studying this nightmare...knowing it detail by detail, knows every second, every feeling...this isn't it...he and Dean are secure and alive.
The lights are soft and glowing through his burning eyes, small details swimming and merging together, his limbs are growing warm and heavy, his exhausted instincts betraying him lending him a false sense of security with his brother so close. Forgets there is so much still between them...Dean's wide, frightened eyes...his brother's blood on his skin.
But Sam's mind is tired, tiptoeing along the fine line into the realm of insanity...and Dean's blood is nothing but reassuring to him right now...Dean's heart is still beating, Dean is still breathing, Dean is alive...Dean is still with him.
Listening to his brother's slowly calming breaths through the thin piece of wood separating them Sam falls asleep for the first time in more than forty eight hours.
...
It's a severe chill that brings Dean back a bit. His entire body is wracked with shivers, but his skin is hot and tight stretching over his bones, he can feel it, like it may spilt and unfurl from him every time he moves. Every time he moves the change in the air makes him shudder but he knows he has to get up...knows he can't go on like this.
He can't hide forever.
Using the wall to help him gain his feet Dean sways a little once he's standing. It's dark in his room, though he's not sure he could see much through the dizziness anyways. He can still feel Sam through the door. Like a thunderstorm of emotions hovering over his mind and Dean is already shaking, but he's that scared of that onslaught, scared of the pain that fills his head every time.
But it's not Sam inside his head now. It's strange and dark and god, to not going away this time.
He manages to get to the get to the bathroom and turns on the light. Grimaces at the way it shoots even more barbs of pain in his mind, listens to his heavy breaths as he leans against the wall making his way towards the mirror. Wondering what he will find there...
I can't go back down that road, I can't be that thing again...
He gasps in a sobbing breath of horror, frozen, can't run anymore from the thing in the mirror...himself.
Fathomless, expressionless black eyes gaze back at him.
He wasn't a demon though he, he felt like himself. But would he know, really? How could he be certain? And Sam was just outside the door. Sam was sitting there waiting for him, worrying about him, trusting him. Dean wraps his arms around himself trying to maintain some warmth, trying to get his thoughts in line through the pain that is muddling everything.
As he walks back into his room he presses a hand to the left side of his head in hopes of somehow staunching the flow of power, or pain. He can feel it inside him a constant feed of energy ripping through his mind, digging into the recesses of his conscience, digging out fears and thoughts he had buried long ago.
He sees himself as hell's master torture and sees himself with a hammer stalking his brother down in their own home and he knows. He knows he has to get out of there. For Sam's sake.
He won't kill his brother, he simply won't. Even if he is a demon he WON'T kill his brother. Sam has to be safe...Sam has to be saved at all costs. He leans to grab his boots and manages to slip his socked feet into them, wrestles into a coat ramming his shoulder into his chest of drawers and hissing with the way it burns his wound.
He takes nothing else, no keys, no wallet, no phone...won't be tracked...won't infect Sam with this disease he can't shake. He sighs deep standing in his room. Saying goodbye to the one place he's called home, saying goodbye to all the good, safe, warm memories he and Sam have made here, swears someday he'll come back, someday when he and Sam are safe...someday.
Dean cracks open his door, winces at the light from the hallway, holds one of his palms up in his line of sight to block it. Sam is like a sweet sleeping dragon there at the door, smacks his lips when Dean disturbs him by stepping out into the hallway. And Dean would laugh at him if his heart wasn't breaking. Shattering into a million pieces.
He smiles softly, blinks rapidly to clear his swimming vision, licks the wet salt tears off his top lip. Spreads out a hand to run his fingers over that beloved chestnut head in a phantom farewell one more time, catches himself just in time, jerks his hand back to contain himself and to keep from waking his little brother up.
"Love you, Sammy." He manages in a hoarse whisper before turning on his heel and leaving, turning his back on his whole world in order to save it. Knows even though Sam may never give up looking for him...at least he would still be alive. It was a sacrifice he judged worth taking, a burden he would happily bear.
Goodbye Sammy.
...
He can't say what wakes him up. He'd been dreaming again. He'd woken just as he lies Dean's corpse on his bed, just as he had turned his back, as soon as Dean was out of his line of sight...but he never wakes up in the middle of a nightmare. His body forces him to live through the complete torture. He jumps, his neck protesting from sleeping sitting up against the wall.
His hands are shaking with adrenaline and from the cold of sitting on the floor. He runs his them down his face to ground himself in the here and now. It's dark, some light bleeding from down the hall and from within Dean's room, the bathroom light was on. Dean's room...
Dean's door was open.
Sam is on his feet in a breath, his heart soaring with hope and worry. He steps into the room slowly, looking around for his brother. "Dean?" He asks gently, steps to the bed and can see from the light from the bathroom that it's empty, sheets left haphazardly tossed away. Finds the bathroom empty too.
Suddenly he's there in his dream, turning away from Dean's bed, can't see him, can't hear him, can't feel him...because he's already gone. Gone to this world; gone to Sam. No more smiles, no more jokes, no more loving looks. His best friend, his partner, his brother...his reason to live and to fight and to be. Simply gone.
And suddenly he's back to just a year and a half ago when he'd carried his brother's body home, laid it in his bed, washed it...wasn't ready to say goodbye just yet so he'd turned away. Taken his eyes off Dean, left him alone and vulnerable and he'd lost Dean for the second time that night. And now there's that same hollowness in his chest. That same silence ringing in his ears, that instinct and pain aching away so deep inside him letting him know something is very, very wrong. Then he's racing down the hall towards the library, the map room, and the door there, hands fisted, his heart in his throat while he screams;
"Dean?!"
...tbc
Ooohhh it's getting so good. :);) Hope u enjoy! More coming soon, REVIEW!
