As Mary proved on her little excursion, it's been hard for Team Free Will to do anything but catch a nap and worry.
Here we find an unrested Sam on watch once again. Only this time, someone unexpected is here for a visit.
Dean had no idea how long he'd been staring at the ceiling, but at some point he became aware of it.
He woke up. And for a while, that was it. Nothing else.
Eventually though, his mind started to... move. Started to pick up on things. Things that shouldn't have been. Things that should have been. And things that simply were.
Like the fact that he was lying in a bed. A thick sheet pulled up to his chin, almost as if protecting him from the cold.
Except that his head didn't feel cold. It felt... wrong. But not in a cold way. More like, in a 'is this mine?' way.
After a little more staring at the ceiling, Dean realized that it wasn't a normal ceiling. There was a big, sloppy, redder-than-red painting on it. One that almost felt like it was pressing down on him. Pinning him right where he was and making it... not be easier to breathe?
Nope. He didn't like it. So instead, he closed his eye and- Hm. And noticed something else: The fact that there had been a weight on his shoulder for some time. And that it was about the size and shape of a hand.
If said hand belonged to a giant. Which it did. Always did.
Dean would never need to check to know that it was the hand of his baby brother, warm and gentle, grabbing onto him when something had him worried. And Sammy was always worried.
Except... Sammy, the little kid who'd needed his big brother to reach things off the shelf for him, wasn't around anymore. Hadn't been for a while. So... why was big Sam holding onto his not so big brother? And why was his hand shaking? And why was he saying his big bro's name again and again and again and again and-
"Dean?"
Hm. Didn't sound right with that pleading bite to it. Wasn't how they talked to each other. Especially not without good-
"Dean, can you here me? It's Sam."
Well. Maybe the guy had good reason after all, thought Dean as he peeled his eye back open. After all, he could hear him, but figuring out what to do with that wasn't coming along very well.
"Dean, blink once if you can hear me," begged the guy whose throat sounded like he'd just downed an oversized bowl of nails. And forgot the milk.
"Oh my God, Dean, you can hear me?"
Weird, Dean thought as his eye slowly opened back up, he'd blinked because Sam'd asked him to. Twice even. Without meaning to. Huh.
"Uh, okay, uh, can you see me?"
Slower than slow, Dean felt his head tip to one side, toward the voice belonging to the hand that was still touching him. Stopping when the unexpected image of a deeply lined mask of pure worry scrunched in his direction.
"You can see me?"
When Dean's eye reopened yet again, the face had unscrunched by half.
"You remember me?" His brother asked. As if the alternative was even possible.
For that, under normal circumstances, Sam would have gotten his punk ass told off. But, no matter what was actually going on, it was obvious that circumstances weren't 'normal'. Not by a long shot.
"What was that?" Asked the Sam whose face rescrunched harder than it had before as he leaned his head almost too close for focus. All in response to some weird grumble Dean'd-
"hey... sammy," mumbled the smallest voice Dean had ever heard.
"Hey, Dean," said the wettest, least groomed face Dean'd ever seen. "How're you feeling?"
A period of blankness, punctuated by more of that 'wrong head' feeling passed and Dean remembered what he'd wanted to say.
"hey... sammy."
"Hey, Dean," his baby brother replied, trying and failing to hide a sob behind his off hand. Dean wondered vaguely what the kid could possibly be that sad about, but he lost the train of thought before he could put his finger on it.
In fact, the harder Dean tried to order his jumble of slippery thoughts, the farther away they floated. Scattering in a way that made the face staring into his lose all its significance.
It was about then that he felt a familiar presence sidle up close. Where it reached out and sort of... grabbed him. Wrapping him up in a light, almost feather soft embrace before pulling him down somewhere dark and safe and quiet. Somewhere he could rest easy and not have to wonder why there were water drops falling on his sheet covered arm.
Soon, Dean was comfortable down to his core. So, with a quick, sloppily constructed thought of thanks, he slipped off back to the deep, restful sleep he hadn't realized he'd been interrupted from.
"Apologies, Samuel."
"Michael?" Asked the hunter with the desperation painted all over his pitiable face.
"I told you you wouldn't like what you saw," Michael reminded, not able to dredge more than a flimsy veneer of the smugness he was due. Not when he was as sickeningly tired as he was.
"He- That wasn't-" The hunter cut himself off and started again. Both of them ignoring the fat drop of saltwater that fell from the end of his nose. Even when the angel could feel it soak into his bed cover. "Is he... suffering?"
"No more than I." Michael went on when the answer somehow did nothing to ease the intensity of his visitor's misery. "He's gone back to sleep."
With a nod of relief, Samuel sat back in his chair and wiped his face once with both hands, then with one, and then again with the other. Buying time to get his emotions back under some semblance of control.
When he looked back up, his eyes were at least no longer leaking.
"You were right: He's not ready." The man's voice broke on the last syllable and another drop leaked from his strikingly human eyes. This time getting itself lost in a forest of overgrown facial hair.
"You are not the one to blame for your brother's misfortunes," Michael found himself saying. Only not stopping halfway through because he realized it was purely a statement of fact.
"He's my brother; I'm his keeper. Literally," the man said as he averted his gaze to wipe the trail of moisture from his face. "I'm pretty sure this has my name written all over it."
"Are you your brother's keeper?" Michael challenged, watching in vague interest as his 'visitor' rubbed his entire face in both gargantuan hands for a second time. "Because, having examined as many of his simplistic memories as I have, I seem to recall Dean being the elder."
"Doesn't make any difference," the oversized human said with a rough clearing of his throat. "I put you in that Room- in that prison, and look where it got us. You're a mess, Cas's a mess, Mo- Mary's a mess, I'm a mess, and Dean's..."
The way that titanic jaw clamped itself shut, almost as if in fear of speaking the words that might have followed, stirred something in Michael. Something that felt dangerously close to understanding. Or perhaps even that accursed thing he'd heard tell of, back on his rightful earth: sympathy.
'Twas an uncomfortable feeling indeed, but the archangel found himself unable to dispel it through force of will alone. Not while that horse sized hunter continued to droop and self-flagellate not feet from his side.
"If you must blame someone for your brother's misfortunes, the guilty party lies before you."
"I'm not blaming Dean for trying to save the world," the human insisted, expression darkening along with his voice.
"He made his choices," Michael reprimanded, at the risk of inspiring ire. "But he is not the one to whom I refer."
"Choices? What choices did you give him in all- Wait. What?"
Michael nearly smirked at the speed with which the dullard's percolating anger was doused, confusion suddenly the only sign of intelligence on his simple face.
"A-are you saying that you take responsibility for this?" The mammoth of a man said with a gesture at the occupied medical bed before him.
"Look who has two brain cells to rub together after all," Michael confirmed. Lips tugging up ever so minutely at one corner.
"Heh," huffed the hunter as his confusion made way for incredulity. "I never thought I'd see the day," he stated, plainly.
"Yes, well, you are the only soul on this earth who has championed for my continued existence. Therefore, you are the last one I would consider shouldering with such blame."
The following silence indicated the suddenly rather dazed Samuel's need for quiet cogitation. Which suited Michael just fine. Seeing as he'd had quite enough of that most tiresome of conversations as it was. And that his vessel was 'in the mood' for some quiet of its own. Autonomic functions slowing in a way that made him feel sluggish yet at ease. Calming his nerves well enough that he let his eyelid fall shut, something he'd only then realized it had been wanting to do for some time, and blocked out everything but the feeling of his breath coming in and going back out. A rhythm that he'd gotten rather used to by then. Constant as it was.
"Thanks, Michael. Enjoy the rest," the last words his bothersome sitter dared interrupt his peace with.
Wow, Cas was right about the soul coma thing. And Sam's right about everyone being a mess.
Next chapter will feature both of our very right heroes once again trying their very best.