It was another two days before Dean saw his brother again, and this time it was Sam who initiated contact. He opened the door and like a terrified animal peered out. Dean scrambled to turn and on all fours, with his most non-threatening look on his face he greeted Sam's terrified eyes.
"Sammy?"
"Hungry." Sam's voice was small and tired. Dean licked his lips and turned back to the little nest he had made for himself and took the candy bar that he had laying on floor beside the cushion his had been sitting on and thrust it towards his brother.
"Here, it's not the kind you like, well, not your favorite anyway, but it's all I got." Sam snatched the candy from Dean's hand and he was about to slam the door when Dean stuck is hand out and tried to catch the door before it slammed, but he was too late and the door slammed on two of his fingers and Dean let out a blood curdling scream.
"God!" he screamed and jerked his hand back. Blood was dripping from where he once had had fingernails. The door opened again just a little.
"Dean?" he asked quietly. Dean was too busy ripping his shirt and putting the ends around his bleeding fingers to see that his brother had opened the door. "Dean?" Sam asked again. Dean was in such pain that all he could hear was the blood rushing in his own ears. He was shredding his shirt and wrapping it around the fingers that pulsed painfully with every beat of his heart.
"Dean?" Sam asked again, and when Dean seemingly didn't hear him, he opened the door a little further, and then he reached out, shakily and touched Dean on the shoulder. Dean turned quickly, startled, he stopped wrapping part of his shirt around his hand and looked at his brother.
"Sam?" he asked. Sam crawled out of the room enough to take Dean's hand, and he took the bandage from him and began to wind it around his brother's hand gingerly.
"This is new. Lucifer never lets you get hurt. He always makes sure I get hurt, he never lets me comfort you."
"Because it is me Sammy. I'm not something Lucifer made."
"Usually he has you torture me, he gets me to trust you, gets me comfortable, and then he has you torture me. This is new. I didn't know that his phantoms could bleed. You're bleeding pretty good."
"People bleed Sammy."
"People bleed a lot in Hell, a whole lot. But never you. Always me, always the other souls, but you never bleed. And no one ever says…" Sam swallowed thickly. "God." He finally whispered. "No one ever says that."
"It's really me Sammy. I promise."
"You say that every single time. And I believe you and then you rip me apart, and then Lucifer laughs."
"No one is going to laugh here Sammy. This is real blood. It's really my blood, because it is me."
Sam looked at him as a child looks at an adult trying to figure out if the adult is telling the truth or giving them an answer that is nothing but platitudes and lies. Sam licked his lips and looked back down at the fingers he was wrapping in shredded shirt.
"Dad trained us to do this for each other." Sam said absently.
"He did. He taught us that we were each other's best back up." Dean added cautiously.
"We used to be." Sam licked his lips.
"Yeah, we did." Dean nodded and watched as Sam tied the bandage off. Sam's hands hesitated for a minute before he released Dean's hand.
"I'm worried that you're real."
"Why?"
"Because if you are….I haven't been good to you in the last year, I remember things, I've said things….I wasn't there, but they are my memories."
"Sam, we'll figure that out later." Sam nodded and tears came to his eyes.
"Dean, am I really here? Am I really not in hell anymore?"
Dean swallowed hard, and when he spoke his voice cracked, "You aren't in hell anymore Sammy. You're here, safe with me, and Bobby and Cass." Sam nodded and tears fell in a free flow down his long face, and Dean resisted the urge to pull him close, and hug him more fiercely then he ever had before.
