A Double Edged Sword

-Dean-

The bars were cold as Dean leaned against them waiting for Sam to wake up. Dean's eyes shot around the confines of their prison looking at the weak walls and wondering vaguely if he could knock the bricks out and barge through. He had half a mind to try when Sam came to consciousness violently and suddenly. Dean leapt to his feet mirroring his brother.

"Sam! Sam, you okay?" Dean called out because Sam was racing around the cell, frantically scanning the walls for a weakness. He had blood dripping down the side of his face. "Sam!" Dean tried desperately to get his brother's attention. Dean banged on the bars and Sam suddenly turned his way.

"What do you want? Wait... how do you know my name?" Sam's eyes were clouded.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "It's me Sammy, it's Dean."

Sam pointed directly at Dean, snarling. "Don't call me that. You're not Dean."

As Dean's fear began to grow, his exterior calm hardened. "Yes I am." He was irritated. Stupid demon that did this got Sam all confused. And that head wound wasn't helping any either, thought Dean suddenly angry at himself. He couldn't keep letting these things happen. "Come over here, let me see your gaping head wound."

Sam hesitated and then walked over to the bars, smiling sadly. "You sound like him though."

Dean growled under his breath. "There could be a reason for that Sam. You were always the logical one. What's the obvious answer?"

The younger Winchester leaned up against the bars as Dean checked his head. "The obvious answer. Doesn't that strike you as too obvious though?" Sam laughed dryly and without humor. It was a horrible sound.

Dean noted with growing apprehension Sam's wound seemed deep and the blood was flowing quite freely. Dean looked back over at his brother and saw with a rush of fresh fear how one pupil was dilated and the other wasn't. "You should sit down."

Sam pulled away, out of his brother's grasp. "I don't want to."

Dean rolled his eyes, this was not the time to be argumentative. "Sammy, you have a concussion."

"I told you NOT to call me that!" Sam yelled across the room from him. "No one calls me that. Only him and YOUR NOT HIM!" The energy of his anger gone, Sam took a breath and staggered down to his knees. He began coughing now, his body shaking as he vomited up blood onto the floor.

Dean felt a spike of panic rocket through his veins and he all but threw himself at the bars, rocking the prison. "Sam, you have to let me help you here! Come over here!"

Sam stayed where he was. The coughing subsiding slightly. He looked up at his brother, wiping the blood from the side of his mouth with his hand. "No. I don't have to do what you say. You're not my brother."

"Since when has that little fact ever mean you DID listen to me?" Dean was ready for a fight, at least it was something he could do. To stand here helplessly watching his little brother bleed to death in front of him was quite beyond his ability. Sam stayed silent and Dean pressed on. "This is your grand idea, to just sit there and puke your guts out. Come on Sammy! Sammy get up, come over here Sammy!" Dean could see the anger cloud up Sam's face at the nickname but Sam choose that moment to lurch over on to his side. His eyes closed and his face pinched up tightly with pain, he started breathing rapidly. A large pool of blood was forming where he lay on the floor. Dean started yelling his name when Sam went into convulsions and then lay still.

Dean stared at the body of his brother and focused intently on the blood flowing from his head. Every so slightly the blood stopped trickling through Sam's hair until the bloodflow stopped entirely. Dean felt a deep cold fill him. If Sam had stopped bleeding then he was certainly dead. Died here in this place. All emotions left him except for one profound and crushing one that was pounding on his heart, willing it to stop beating. Grief. Horrible, vicious grief. Sammy was dead. Sam, his charge, his responsibility, his brother, was dead.

He almost couldn't believe it. He didn't know how long he stood there, alternating between refusing to accept this and screaming his brother's name. Sam couldn't be dead. Oh God, Sammy was gone. No. Oh God. What would Dad say?

Absently Dean begin wandering his cell, his hands running over the bricks that made up the walls. The pieces that came off in his hands were sharp shards of rich red. Fitting as they looked like fragments of frozen blood. He held himself against the wall quietly and really thought about cutting his wrists right then and there. To hell with their father. He hadn't been here. Sam needed him and he hadn't come. Sam needed Dean to protect him and he had failed. A wave of cold agony burned through him. Sam didn't need anything anymore. It was too late. Without Sam, Dean's life felt meaningless. Pointless.

Dean looked down at his hands, a small smear of Sam's blood trickled down the side of his hand and Dean felt the emotions drain out of him as he watched the blood drip from his hand onto the floor. Dripping and splattering on the floor. Sam's blood on his hands.

There was a noise building from the place. It was familiar. Dean tried to focus on the noise and realized with abrupt certainly that it was Sam screaming. He spun around fast to look at Sam lying on the floor but the cell opposite him was empty. The pool of blood gone. He looked down at his hands and found them clean. No specs of blood on the floor. Sam's screaming was coming from the other direction. Anger hit him hard and fast. No one fucked with his family.

Dean plunged aggressively through the brick wall, mortar and bricks exploding around him in a great turret of dust and stone. He was in another cell separated by thick bars. Across the way he saw his brother smiling broadly. "Dean!" Later he would remember it as one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

Dean walked quickly across the cell to the bars. Strangely sure this was the real Sam now. It felt like waking up from a dream. "Sam? Come here, are you hurt?" He demanded, gesturing for Sam to come to him. This time Sam came quickly, no complaints. No mistrust. Then Dean noticed the deep slash makes on his arm "What did it do to your arm?"

"It's fine. The cuts are small." Sam said and Dean scoffed internally. Yeah sure. Sam continued, "you okay, man?"

Dean had started to dab at the cuts with the end of his shirt. He paused for a moment to look up at his brother and give him what he hoped was a good 'give me a break will ya?' look. Being okay didn't even start to cover it. When the joy threatened to turn embarrassing he decided to bring the subject back to what he knew Sam would deny. "Sammy, what made these? Claws? I didn't see any claws. Are you hurt anywhere else?" What had happened to Sam when they were separated? What was his fear? He had just seen his brother die. What horrors had Sam had to survive that would have pushed him to this?

Sam ducked his head trying to make eye contact with his brother. "No, no I'm not hurt. What's wrong with you?" Dean met his eyes. Sure Sam, you're not hurt. Just like I'm not scared out of my mind.

But Dean would never say that. "Nothing's wrong with me. Jesus Sam, I hear you-" Dean paused for a moment. Fine. If Sam didn't want to share that was okay for now. Dean didn't particularly want to tell him what had happened to him either. "I heard someone screaming, I plunge through a wall here to save your sorry ass and here you are bleeding to death and all you can say is what's wrong with me?"

"I'm not bleeding to death!"

"Not now." Dean smirked, letting his terror wash through him. No, thank God, not this time.

Sam rolled his eyes and Dean knew suddenly that everything was okay. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"How are we going to do that? You going to smash through another wall?"

Dean smirked again. "Or we could just go through the door."

Sam followed Dean's glance over to the open door in his cell. "That doesn't strike you as way to easy?"

Dean shrugged, pushing down a rush of fear at the similar conversation he'd just had. "You could knock down your wall if you'd rather. I'm going through the door." With that he walked through the open door finding himself in a hallway and quickly located the other side of Sam's door. He could hear his brother whining through the door but this lock was easy.

"You know I was always better at picking the locks and you were only good for brute-" Dean swung the door open causing Sam to duck back "-force."

"Let's get out of here."

They raced through the hallway, finding a staircase out of the basement and up into the outside. The house they had been in was a small suburban home and they found themselves walking quickly down a sidewalk in this freaky place.

"So what happened to us? I mean, we were caught up in its delusions, right?" Sam's voice was shaky.

Dean spared a glance as his younger brother. Sam looked badly shaken. Time to spin some light damage control. "Yeah, Dad's journal said it could trap you right after you kill it. Some type of retaliation thing."

Sam stopped walked and as Dean stopped beside him he could see that his arm was hurting him. I'm sorry kiddo. I'm sorry. "Dean, why did it... what's the purpose to it's delusions?"

Dean looked at him Sam. You don't want to do this. "I don't know Sam, to punish you for killing it I guess."

"What did you see?" Sam was staring at Dean.

Dean's eyes hardened for a second. You really wanna share? Then you first. "Why'd you cut up your arm?"

Sam didn't answer, instead he nodded slightly and followed Dean to his car. Dean slide into the driver's seat watching concerned as Sam eased himself into the passenger's side. Dean pealed out of the spot towards the relative safety of their current hotel. This was not going to happen again. He couldn't let it happen again. He shouldn't have even let it happen this time. Dean berated himself. When Sam had been little it had been much easier to protect him. Beat up the bully's that tried to knock him down, make sure the fridge always had food. Now Sam was an adult and a hunter but still the same fragile kid underneath. The same reactions to things and the same frustrating ability to get himself into trouble.

Dean was aware of Sam looking at him, thinking. Dean just stared ahead, tracing the lines of the road with his eyes and swearing to himself for the millionth time that this would be the last time Sammy got hurt. He sighed lightly knowing it was a pretty stupid thing to pledge. The only real way to assure that Sam would stay safe would be to keep him in his normal life. To bring him back to Stanford and leave him there and never look back. Dean also knew it was the one thing he couldn't bring himself to do. He'd been right before, his life without Sam was pointless. Sam gave his life meaning by staying with him and Dean would continue to protect him as best he could.

Not good enough. The wayward thought flew through his head and he started humming to the song in the car. The Metallica soothed him as he drove on. Dean could weld the sword with all the skill of a master and yet no matter how many demons he killed and how much good he did with it, he also always managed to cut Sam too.