Author Note: I usually try to steer clear of using sizeable chunks of show dialogue in my tags. But for this one...there just wasn't really a way around it.
Blame all of these old-school tags on Nova42-she's the one I'm rewatching the series with. :P
When the Dust Settles
Even as they hover over the man's body—the demon's body—he can't stop thinking about that look in Jake's eyes.
I killed you.
You can't be alive. You can't be.
That look had gone beyond shock. It was disbelieving. Haunting. And it was the exact same look Bobby had worn when he opened his door and saw Sam standing on his porch. Like he knew for sure that Sam couldn't be standing on his porch.
Sam knows he was in bad shape. He remembers the white-hot pain that engulfed him as Jake's knife sunk into his back, drowning out everything else. He remembers Dean shouting, running through the rain toward him. Then a massive, jet-black gap in his memory before waking with a jolt, alone, in that crumbling house.
Dean, you can't patch up a wound that bad.
No, Bobby could.
At the time, he nodded, because he was unsteady, starving, and thirsty. Because Bobby has experience and training, and it didn't matter that Dean shot off the answer like Sam had pressed a button. It didn't matter that Sam had woken still wearing the clothes he was stabbed in, his shirt stuck to the wound on his back, a generous patch of dried blood. It didn't matter that there had been no bandage, no evidence of stitches. No Dean sitting at his bedside. What mattered was Jake was out there, and the yellow-eyed demon was out there, and they both needed to be stopped.
Now, Sam looks across the body at his brother and thinks, What did you do, Dean?
It takes him by surprise—the assumption. The accusation. But Sam has been on both sides of his fair share of post-hunt patch jobs, and he knows what they look like. Warm motels rooms, piles of extra blankets and pillows, a lingering scent of antiseptic, plenty of takeout options. Not a derelict building in the middle of nowhere with rotting wood and no electricity, stretched out on a dirty, ripped mattress without so much as a glass of water within reach.
He shouldn't have woken up without Dean there. Between taking off on his brother in River Grove and the demon possession, Dean has hardly let Sam out of his sight long enough to take a leak at a gas station. He'd just disappeared on Dean again. Lying unconscious with a wound like that…there's no way in hell his brother would have left him.
Not if Dean expected him to wake up.
It makes sense they couldn't call for help. There were bodies all over—Lily, Ava, and poor Andy.
It makes sense they would have done what they needed to do.
But still, Sam knows it in his gut.
Bobby didn't patch him up.
No one patched him up.
Yet he woke, aching and starving but with a surprising full use of his limbs. With a sealed, but stomach-wrenching mark on his back that screamed of serious damage done deep within.
I cut clean through your spinal cord, man.
Jake had military training compounded by superhuman strength, which he proved when he cracked Sam's jaw with a fist, knocked his shoulder out of its socket with another. It's not a mistake someone like him would make. Not a job he would leave unfinished. Only one of them was supposed to make it out of Cold Oak, and Jake had done all he could to be that one.
Yet Sam is here.
You can't be.
Adrenalin and anger have been pushing him to this point. Now, Jake is dead, and the yellow-eyed demon is dead, and he's beginning to see things for what they are, all the pieces of this puzzle that aren't quite fitting together.
Only one piece makes sense.
What did you do, Dean?
Like he can sense Sam's attention on him, Dean jerkily lifts his chin. His eyes are a bit too bright, his face a bit too pale beneath the dark blood creasing his forehead. But as soon as Sam's face folds in concern, his brother braces his hands on his knees and moves to stand. Dean gets about halfway there before he staggers sideways and collides with Bobby, who has just stepped up.
"Whoa." Sam and Bobby both fumble for Dean's sleeves, working in tandem to keep him from faceplanting in the dirt. Once his brother is more or less standing, Sam steadies him with a hand on each shoulder and narrows his eyes appraisingly.
Dean looks like hammered shit. He can't straighten fully and he's squinting around an obvious, and understandable, headache. Seeing the gash bisecting his forehead up close turns Sam's stomach, but it's the look in Dean's eyes that give away the real wounds. The hell his brother has been through, the sheer level of hit-the-goddamn-wall exhaustion dragging at his heels.
This is not the look of a man who sat a patient vigil, waiting for his wounded brother to wake.
This is the look of a man who has been pushed not only to his breaking point, but right over the fucking edge of it.
"Shit, Dean," Sam breathes, his fingers tightening in the fabric of his brother's coat. What the hell did you do? He barely bites it back, a plea this time, needing to know what Dean has put himself through to earn a look like this.
Dean averts his gaze, raises a shaky hand to press a palm to the bloody wound on his head. "M'okay," he says, but it's more reflex than anything, and not at all convincing as he grimaces, and even more color drops out of his face.
Sam looks to Bobby for help, for guidance. But Bobby is staring at Dean with a knowing, sorrowful look that doesn't just terrify Sam. It devastates him.
He knows then for sure: Dean is not okay. And he's not going to be okay.
Sam is no longer wondering what Dean might have done.
He's pretty sure he knows.
You son of a bitch.
Sam's hands squeeze his brother's shoulders until Dean hisses and tries to pull away. Sam doesn't let him.
"There's no way that ruckus doesn't bring someone this way," Ellen speaks up.
Sam knows she's right. They need to get the hell out of here. There are demons in the wind, a whole hell of a lot of them.
But right now, he doesn't care.
Bobby finally tears his gaze away from Dean's face, finds Sam's eyes. He exhales roughly, gives a small nod. Sam swallows with difficulty and returns the gestures.
"We should do something about those bodies," Ellen persists, seemingly oblivious to the wordless exchange taking place in front of her.
Dean nods automatically, then closes his eyes, swallowing convulsively from the motion, and leans into the support of Sam's grip on his jacket.
Bobby reaches out to pat him on the shoulder, a heavy gesture. "Why don't you wait in the car, kid? Let us old folks see some of the action?"
Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Sam doesn't give him the chance. "He's right, man. I'll go with you. You look like hell." He doesn't miss his brother's flinch, and winces at his choice of words.
"Whatever," Dean mumbles, but in that patented Dean way that means, Thanks.
Sam stares at his brother's bowed back as he turns away, weaving an unsteady path toward the cars. A numbness is spreading through his limbs, one not so different from what he experienced in Cold Oak.
"Sam?"
Sam turns to Ellen, offers a pale smile. "Give us a minute?" he asks, looking at Bobby, hoping the strangled sound of his voice communicates, I know. Communicates, We're in this together now.
He turns and follows the hunched, stumbling form of his brother. Dean won't look at him on the walk to the car but that's not saying much, because Sam would be shocked if the man isn't seeing double right now.
When Dean opens the driver's side door, Sam knows it's now or never. If he allows his brother to drop into the car, to turn up the volume on some Metallica or Zeppelin, then he will be left searching for an opportunity to bring this up again. And once Dean gets some sleep, some food, and shakes off the results of his incredibly obvious concussion, there's no way in hell he will allow it.
"You know," he says quickly, drawing Dean's attention, "when Jake saw me…it was like he saw a ghost. I mean, hell, you heard him, Dean. He said he killed me."
Dean leans against the car, lifts a shoulder. "Glad he was wrong."
"I don't think he was, Dean." This is it. Sam's heart is thrumming dangerously fast, climbing his throat. "What happened? After I was stabbed?" He doesn't want to know, not really, but he has to.
"I already told you," Dean says, in a pointed way meant to say drop it, Sam.
But Sam won't drop it. "Not everything," he pushes.
"Sam, we just killed the demon. Can we celebrate for a minute?"
The desperation in his brother's voice is obvious. It's the same hand he played in Cold Oak—Let's get you something to eat. Huh? You want something to eat? The same attempt at sleight of hand. Hey, look over there! Don't ask questions about why you're not dead.
Sam won't be distracted this time. He's pretty sure he knows exactly what has gone down, and there's nothing about that he wants to celebrate.
"Did I die?" he asks, the words choking him.
Dean jerks his head. "Oh, come on."
It doesn't escape Sam that this is not an answer, and he presses on, knowing he has his brother cornered. Also knowing this is when Dean is his most unpredictable. "Did you sell your soul for me, like Dad did for you?"
It hangs between them for only a fraction of moment.
"Oh, come on," Dean repeats, face screwed up. "No!"
"Tell me the truth. Dean, tell me the truth."
He won't. He can't. Sam has seen Dean scrape the muck off the bottom of his reserves and push through, charming, lying, scheming his way through a difficult situation. But he can see from here that his brother has nothing left in the tank. Dean just shakes his head, gaze pointed away from Sam.
"Sam…"
Sam drops his chin, nods to himself. "How long did you get?"
"One year." It settles over Dean like a storm cloud, and he says it again, more to himself than Sam. "I got one year."
Anger flares hot and acidic in his chest. Sam grits his teeth, shakes his head. "You shouldn't have done that." Because Dean knows better. He's been on the other side of this. The side he's now damned Sam to. "How could you do that?"
Dean rolls against the car, facing Sam. His weariness is like a third presence between them. "Don't get mad at me. Don't you do that. I had to," he persists. "I had to look out for you. That's my job."
He blamed himself for Meg Masters' death, like it was that one backhand that did her in. Not having her body badly broken in the fall in Chicago. Not the festering bullet wound in her abdomen. Hell, Dean said it himself.
Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn't hesitate. I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just, uh…it scares me sometimes.
It scares Same too. It terrifies him. Not because Dean might hurt someone else, but because of the amount of self-worth his brother invests in Sam's wellbeing. Dad gave him a job to do, after giving him his own life back, and Dean has sunk all he has into getting that job done. This job. Saving Sam.
He wants to shake some sense into his numbskull brother, but that's the absolute last thing the guy needs right now. Instead, he explodes, "And what do you think my job is?"
"What?" Dean asks, blinking, genuinely not knowing what the hell Sam is talking about.
"You've saved my life over and over. I mean, you sacrifice everything for me. Don't you think I'd do the same for you?" He doesn't, and that's a truth that stabs at Sam's heart. A wrong he's going to do everything he can to set right. To make this sacrifice worthwhile.
"You're my big brother," he tells Dean. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you." He draws a breath, squares his shoulders. "And I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna get you out of this. Guess I gotta save your ass for a change."
Dean smiles, something tight and sad. "Yeah."
But there's something grateful there too. Enough so that Sam thinks, with a pitiful level of confidence, This will be okay. I will make sure this is okay.