Skinned Knees and Slashed Throats
K Hanna Korossy
"Finally found a giant in camp I could borrow some clothes from."
Sam looked up from where he was trying to sponge off his chest with a piece of cloth he'd torn from his t-shirt. There was a camo-print pile in Dean's hands, and Sam started to say thank you before he realized Dean was staring at him.
There had been a lot of blood.
"You, uh, missed a few spots," Dean finally mumbled.
"Yeah, well, a mirror would help." Sam stumbled over the words in return, still caught in Dean's stricken gaze.
"Not exactly a priority in a survivors camp." The words were automatic; he doubted Dean even really knew what he was saying. Sam watched his brother warily as Dean stepped forward and eased the cloth from his fingers. "I got it."
Dean's hand shook. Sam saw it, knew Dean saw him see it, but neither of them mentioned it. But as Dean sponged the blood off, his motions were firm, steady. He wanted the visible reminder gone.
Sam had seen his brother's throat ripped out once. It had been one of Dean's many deaths in the Mystery Spot, casualty of a previously friendly dog. It had been appalling, but it had been over in seconds, Dean's eyes barely glazing over before Sam was waking up in their motel room again.
Yesterday, Dean had watched him get torn apart by vamps and dragged off to die. Sam's last memory was his brother screaming his name. Dean hadn't been able to help him, even had to leave him behind, and then had gone for most of a day thinking Sam was dead. It wasn't the same. Dean had confessed in a tattered voice that he thought he'd lost Sam, they'd hugged each other hard, but Dean still looked shell-shocked.
Kind of like Sam felt.
"Tell me what happened," Dean said quietly as he worked.
Sam did, all of it. The brief terror and agony of his death. The confusion and horror of waking up to Lucifer. The rage and shame as Lucifer followed him to the camp.
Dean's free hand cupped the back of Sam's head at one point, sorrowful eyes meeting Sam's, but he kept going in silence, clearly determined to wipe every last drop of dried blood off his brother. It reminded Sam of their childhood, a young Dean cleaning his even younger brother's skinned knees just as seriously and carefully.
They'd gone through so very much since then. Sam would've thought repeatedly losing each other would make it easier, but if anything it got worse, like a cumulative effect. Grief on top of grief. And Dean was already carrying so much.
They had no time now. Michael was out there, Lucifer was doing God knew what in the camp, and the rift wouldn't stay open much longer. But Sam was claiming two minutes just for them.
"Thank you," he said softly.
Dean's brow furrowed, his eyes darting up before returning to his task. "For what? Leaving you to get butchered?"
"Yes."
Dean's hand stilled.
"I was already gone, Dean. I'm glad you didn't throw your life away, Maggie and Cas's lives, just to try to get my body back. You were there when I died—I wasn't alone. That's what mattered. What happened after, that didn't."
Dean was staring at Sam's throat, his fingertips grazing the spot where Sam had been ravaged. There was nothing there now but smooth skin; Sam had checked already. But he knew what he'd felt for only a second would replay forever in Dean's nightmares, so he didn't move, barely even breathed as Dean confirmed and then again that he was okay, pulse beating strong under the skin.
"I know it was bad for you," Sam whispered. "But you made it okay for me."
Dean didn't have to tug very hard for Sam's head to tilt forward so their foreheads touched.
A decade ago, he probably would've made some kind of half-joking remark about Sam never doing this again. But they'd gone through too much, lost each other too many times, in all kinds of ways, for either of them to waste time on bravado. Sam had died terribly, and Dean had been gutted, and the only way to ease any of that was this: leaning on each other, ragged breaths shared, letting proof of life, of being there, sink in.
Dean finally cleared his throat, stepped back, and Sam readied himself for the quip that would dispel the heaviness. But Dean didn't let him go, and his eyes when they caught Sam's were solemn.
"I told you, you got nothing to be sorry for." Dean's voice would've sounded steady to anyone other than Sam. "Anything you need to do to stay breathing is okay by me. I'm just so damn glad you're alive."
It wasn't an accidental choice of words. Their need for each other was a sort of damnation; Sam knew what a shell Dean would have been that last day, how he would have been the rest of his life if Sam had stayed dead. But it was also what made their lives possible, what got them through the nightmares and tortures and crushing weight so far beyond what other people dealt with.
"Me, too," Sam said quietly and just as weightily.
He saw Dean get it and swallow, but he didn't reject the absolution. That would have to be enough for now.
Dean squeezed the nape of his neck, then dropped his arm and tossed the cloth he'd been using toward the pile of Sam's ruined clothes. "You're good. Try these on."
Sam nodded, already reaching for the clean shirt. "Yeah. We've got work to do."
The End
Just want to mention that alerts seem to be down for the site for several weeks now, which means I don't receive copies of your reviews that I can respond to. I apologize, but there's nothing I can do about it, but I am reading and appreciating the reviews. -KHK