Sorry that this is so utterly late. I wanted to give you all an ending I was truly proud of, and last night it suddenly struck me, and I wrote most of this in one sitting. I hope you enjoy!
They continued to travel. Time became a living thing, fluid and cruel; an anaconda that wrapped around the brothers and choked off their circulation. The longer Dean was without his sight, the surlier he became. Fate could only ask so much of a man who'd given everything, and now he'd lost the sight he relied on.
A month and a half of blindness later, and Dean snapped.
Sam wouldn't remember, in the weeks to come, what exactly brought it on. It was raining, he knew that much, and Dean turned the radio off (Sam let it play softly most days, and most drives, because sometimes Dean seemed to like having the opportunity to shut out everything) and they listened in silence to the deluge splattering on the Impala's hardtop. Dean's silence was a forbidding kind, and Sam tried to avoid even breathing too loudly. He'd just finished a case, a simple salt-and-burn two counties from the motel where he'd left Dean.
And returned to find his brother still mostly helpless without him. At some point, Dean had made it to the bathroom on his own, but he'd tripped, hit his head and become disoriented. Sam had found him in the bathtub with a blood-soaked rag pressed to his forehead and his sightless eyes fixed on the far wall, waiting for Sam to come home.
Only to refuse the help that Sam offered him; and when Sam had pushed him, trying to coax Dean from his stubbornness, Dean had pushed back. And now they were in stalemate, and stale silence. And that was, in essence, the beginning of the end.
Sam pulled over earlier than he would've liked, because the rain was falling in torrents and he was exhausted from working back-to-back cases, researching and facing vengeful spirits alone. He stopped at the first motel they came to after crossing the state border, and Dean sat up, head cocked.
"Why're we slowin' down?"
"We're stopping for the night." Sam replied.
Dean groaned. "You gotta be kidding me. We've only been on the road for, like, two hours, Sam!"
"Dean, it's raining so hard I can barely see the road."
It was the wrong thing to say. "Barely? You can barely see the road, Sam? Well, cry me a freaking river, I can't see a damned thing!"
Sam winced as Dean's loud voice filled the cab. "Dean, look, I know you're frustrated—"
"Frustrated doesn't cover it! I'm useless out here, Sam! And now we've gotta stop 'cause you're too much of a wuss to handle a little rain, and I can't take over for you because I'm blind!"
Sam pulled the Impala to a stop in the motel parking lot and turned toward his brother on the bench seat. "Dean. We'll figure this out. Okay? We always do."
Dean crossed his arms and hunched down against the window. "Yeah, sure."
Sam's eyes rolled, almost of their own volition. "Dean, man, c'mon. Don't act like this. It's just gonna take some time, that's all."
Dean chuckled harshly. "Because we've got so much time to spare."
Sam's anger rushed to meet his brother's; he was tired, he was cold and as best he tried to hide it, he was miserable. "Would you quit it with the attitude? It's not helping anything!"
"You…quit with the attitude." Dean grumbled, turning his head toward the cold glass. He seemed so intent on it, Sam could remember counting racing raindrops in the backseat when they were kids.
He tried to soften his temper. "Look. Obviously, we're both tired. Let's just stop, regroup, and work things out."
"We shouldn't have to regroup after two stupid salt-n'-burns, Sam. We should be out there, slogging it." Dean's breath fogged the glass.
"Yeah, well, we're not." Sam pushed the door open, the wind spraying rain onto his jeans. "So, suck it up."
Eventually, he'd come to realize that was the match that had lit the firework.
In the time it took him to circle around the Impala's front bumper and open Dean's door, Dean's irritation had boiled into rage. Sam fisted a hand in the front of Dean's shirt to pull him to his feet, and Dean lashed out, punching Sam's shoulder hard enough to disengage his hold and send him back a step.
"Dean, cut it out!" Sam snapped, tired to the bone and wrung out with frustration.
Dean surged to his feet, grabbing the top of the door to balance himself inside his black, void world. His mouth was curled into a snarl; but what had been meant, probably, to come out as "I don't need your help," burst from Dean as a punch of rage: "I don't need you!"
Sam was glad, for the first time in nearly two months, that Dean couldn't see him; because there was no masking, there was no filtering or repressing, the hurt that he felt contorting its way across his features, wriggling into his eyes.
He hunched his shoulders against the icy assault of the rain. "I'll get a room."
When he came back with key in hand two minutes later, Dean hadn't moved; he was like a tree, steadfast against the wind, bending but never breaking all the way. Once, Sam had hidden under the shelter of his brother's branches, tucked up safe against Dean's warmth. Now he felt exposed, watching Dean shed his own covering until Sam was staring out through skeleton branches into a dark, cruel world, the face of the storm.
Don't need you.
"Here." Sam pressed the key into Dean's hand.
"Sam, look, I—"
"I'm going to get a beer." Sam said, giving Dean a nudge around toward the motel. "Walk straight ahead, ten steps, and that's the door."
"Sam."
"Don't wait up for me." Sam slid into the front seat and drove away, watching Dean disappear in the rearview mirror until he was nothing more than a blur; from the rain or from the heat in Sam's eyes, he wasn't sure.
Some part of him felt vindicated; let Dean stand there, get soaked, be lost.
Another part of him was just too hurt to go back.
[—]
The bar Sam found himself at was two blocks from the motel, but hidden behind a curtain of rain, it felt like another world. Sam perched on the barstool, his lanky tall frame hunched over the counter, nursing a pilsner full of rich brown beer and his troubles rising with the bubbles inside the glass.
The longer he was away, the more his worry superseded his hurt. Dean had said worse to him, and meant it. But to hear that the person he'd come back for, the only thing that really mattered, didn't need him; in some ways it was worse than the nightmares that sent him flailing awake in the middle of the night, worse than the terrifying things that drifted at the corners of his eyes during a case. Because, unlike those, this was real, this was Dean, and there was no denying it.
Sam logged another beer, his fourth of the day, and he'd barely shoved the empty glass aside before another was placed in front of him.
"You look like you could use a friendly ear, sweetie." The bartender was older than Sam looked for, but she wasn't altogether unfortunate-looking, and she seemed friendly enough. "I'm Candice."
He twitched her a smile. "The name's Sam. Am I that obvious?"
"Mmm, well, we don't often get men your age in here, Sam." She tucked a conspiratorial hand around her mouth. "They're not usually as handsome as you, either."
"Yeah?" Sam chuckled. "If you think I'm cute, you'd probably love my brother."
"He'd have to be a real hotshot to outdo you in the looks department." She smiled as Sam tossed back a long swallow of beer. "What's on your mind?"
Sam clunked the pilsner on the counter and spun it with one hand, catching it in the other. "You ever have someone in your life that was really important to you…you just weren't sure you mattered that much to them?"
"Welcome to being the mother of a teenage daughter." She laughed. "If she didn't give me a reason to question that, I'd have to wonder if she wanted something from me."
"Yeah, well," Sam's vision was a little fuzzy at the edges again, and his tongue felt looser than usual. "Let's say you went through something bad…I mean, really bad. Like, let's say you went through Hell."
"Been there, done that."
An ironic smile stretched its way across Sam's mouth. "Right. Well, let's say you got back, and…there was someone who you kind of expected to, y'know, look out for you. Only the tables got turned."
"And you ended up with your own pile of problems, and theirs on top?" Candice asked, and Sam nodded. "Well, I'd say you had a rotten score of luck. But no one can tell the future, Sam. Maybe this person wants to look out for you and I'll bet they feel pretty darn helpless if they can't."
"You don't know this guy," Sam said into another frothy mouthful of beer.
Candice pushed the glass down with one finger, meeting his eyes. "I can see him in your eyes, Sam. The way you talk about him? This fella's awful lucky to have someone who loves him that much."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"Well, take it from someone who's seen a lotta love, a lotta hate-sex, and just about everything you can see under the sun. I work in a bar, sweetie, and I get all kinds coming through those doors. But I've never seen a face like yours. You're too young to look so sad." She patted a flat hand on the countertop and turned toward the door as the bell above it jangled. "Drinks are on me, up past the legal limit. After that, I'll take those flashy keys, and you're on your own."
Sam was left sitting there, struck dumb and feeling a hollow ringing in his gut. Imagining what Dean would've said if he were here: That's Sammy for ya, kid feels like he's gotta carry a whole friggin' galaxy on his shoulders.
Or just his world; and Dean's with it. Trying to shoulder both pains so Dean could recover. He never complained because it never crossed his mind to complain; but it had never crossed his mind either that Dean might be grateful, or that Dean's frustration might stem, not from a place of helplessness to do the job, but from an inability to do The Job. His oldest, most important job: protect Sam.
Thinking back on it, Sam couldn't remember a night since Dean had lost his sight when his brother had had any kind of reaction to Sam waking up drenched in cold sweat and gasping air, surfacing from nightmares of Hell that dogged his heels constantly. But just because Dean had the masterful control to lie still as a dead man didn't mean he wasn't awake; how different was Dean, asleep or awake, these days? How often had Dean laid there, listening to Sam toss and flounder, knowing that if he got up or made a sound Sam would turn the focus from himself and onto Dean? And Sam would, he was just on the right side of drunk to admit that. Dean came first. Always.
Sam's throat suddenly felt dry. He stood up, catching himself as the world tipped dizzily. He nodded to Candice and lurched toward the door, trying to keep his bearings and remembering belatedly that he was a lightweight and now he was without a designated driver.
That was how he found himself face-planting in the lap of a very tall, very angry-man who'd just come inside, soaked with rain.
And it all sort of went downhill from there.
"Man, got offa me!" The guy shoved Sam hard, reeling him into the counter. Sam felt the edge dig into his spine, shooting a spike of pain up into his head. He reached one hand back, steadying himself.
"M'sorry. My bad." The words felt stilted, awkward. By this point, he realized he'd knocked the guy's beer all over what had to be, easily, a five-hundred-dollar leather jacket on a biker the size of a brick wall.
"No, you ain't sorry, you clumsy-ass jackwagon." The guy rose to his considerable six-and-a-half-foot height, which put him two inches above Sam but it felt like more than that, at this point. Candice said something, warning the man off, and there was a name in there, Dylan or Darren, Sam wasn't sure.
"Man, I said I'm sorry. I'll pay for the jacket."
"Damn right you will."
The right hook came out of nowhere, knocking Sam's world into a kaleidoscope of pain. The force spun him around, glancing his cheek off the counter. Luckily, his training kicked in; he followed through with the momentum, rotating out of Dylan-the-Giant's reach. He caught the next punch on his arm, chattering the bones clean into his shoulder but saving his face.
That was when someone grabbed his arms from behind, looping them up and torquing his shoulderblades into a rictus of pain, and a knee to the stomach put him down.
The bar exploded into chaos; Sam thought Candice was yelling, threatening to call the police, before someone cussed and ordered her to shut her mouth. Sam wasn't sure where the conversation went after that, because The Giant hauled his head back by a fistful of hair and punched him so hard Sam's vision blackened for a minute. When his senses, muddled by alcohol, returned, he was outside, the cold wind and rain slapping his face with a thousand prickly tips.
The Giant threw him face-first on the asphalt and jolted him with a kick to the ribs; intoxicated and aching and still dragging heels from the case, it took Sam a minute to get to his hands and knees. And by then another foot, a different foot, found leverage in his shoulder, popping it neatly out of place and dropping him back down, half-curled on his side and grabbing for the epicenter of pain.
"Watch," A boot crunched Sam's ribs hard enough to drag a stunted cry out of him. "Where," A knee to the back shoving him down hard on the concrete. "You're," Vicious fingers tangling in his hair again. "Walking!"
The Giant bashed Sam's head down on the parking lot and for a second Sam was strung between two choices: vomit or pass out.
He did neither; because The Giant hadn't even let go of his head when Sam heard a voice bull-horning above the rain: "Get your hands off of him!"
Face-down in a puddle that tasted coppery, his eye swelling shut, Sam twisted his head to peer up through his sodden bangs.
Dean was standing at the edge of the parking lot, arms spread out slightly from his body in a defensive stance Sam had come to recognize in the last two months. Immediate, viral panic shot through him as Sam realized there were three bikers and one blind brawler here; no contest.
"Dean, just get out of here!" He urged, but the words cut off when The Giant mashed his face back into the asphalt, driving pebbles into his skin.
"This ain't your business, son." The Giant rumbled. "Get on your way."
"Sam's my business." Dean's tone left no question to the statement. "So you get off of him, and I might let you boys walk away with a couple busted limbs instead of broken skulls."
"That's real cute." The Giant dragged Sam's head back up, and Sam got a full view of Dean that confused him; his brother's head was bleeding freely from just beneath the hairline, but contrary to dazed, or the usual vacant expression he wore, Dean seemed alert. Intent on them, body angled forward. "But this worthless sack'a shit ruined my best jacket."
"What, that ugly-ass rug on your back?" Dean quipped.
"Dean?" The word broke around Sam's confusion.
Dean's eyes fluttered toward him. He stretched out one hand and curled his fingers over twice in a challenging gesture. "I see you, Sammy."
The first guy went at Dean like a bull in a china shop and Sam's reaction was pure instinct: a shout of, "On your left!" before Dean was moving, letting the guy trip past him, following around with an uppercut that crushed the man's nose. The second biker came at Dean straight on and got a knee to the groin that put him down for the count.
Dean crossed the parking lot in a few long strides, six feet of furious older brother against a six-foot-six Giant who seemed to be reconsidering his deep devotion to the honor of his jacket. He released Sam and backed away, but not fast enough; Sam rolled over just in time to see Dean pin the guy by his throat to the side of the bar.
"You touch my brother again, I'll kill you."
And then he let The Giant run, tail tucked and jacket smeared with blood from his accomplice's shattered nose.
Sam laid his cheek back on the road with a groan.
Less than a second later, Dean's hands were on him; picking up his head, thumbs stroking blood from Sam's scraped, bruised face. "Sammy? You hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"
"You're not, you've got my head." Sam blinked rain from his eyelashes.
"Good, I got you with me." Dean loosed Sam's head briefly, moving on to his shoulder. "Son of a bitch. Dislocated."
"Yeah, feels like."
Without a warning, Dean grabbed the shoulder and popped it back into place. Sam let out a stuttered shout of pain, his head dipping low before Dean caught it again, bringing it back up. Sam was glad for the rain that hid the few tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes.
"Try not to move around too much, all right? You're blitzed and you've got a goose-egg the size of Mount Everest, here." Dean ran his knuckles experimentally over the side of Sam's head, eliciting a yelp of surprise from him; he hadn't even realized his skull was tender, right above his left ear. "Agh, yep. Might be a concussion."
"Dean." Sam latched onto his brother's wrist. "You can see me?"
"Can always see you, Sammy." Dean replied matter-of-factly.
"Dean."
His brother's gaze lifted, and Sam felt a shock of stomach-turning elation battling out the pain when he realized Dean's green eyes were sparkling, fixed on a single point instead of darting everywhere.
"I don't know, all right? I came lookin' for you, followed the sound of my baby's purr, and I guess I tripped or something. Who the hell knows? Next think I know I'm gushing blood and then I can see. It was like…stepping out of a dark room or something."
"You must've…ow." Sam muttered as Dean settled him gingerly into an upright position. "Bled out the rest of the poison."
"'Bout time." Dean knotted his fingers in the front of Sam's jacket. "Think you can get those huge feet under you?"
"Might need a little help," Sam admitted sheepishly.
With Dean's shoulder under him, boosting him up, it wasn't really hard to stand. For the first time in weeks, he didn't felt like he was carrying a load.
[—]
Dean didn't drive them back to the motel.
He just drove.
Outrunning the storm, maybe, while Sam was hunched and moaning in the passenger seat. His head and shoulder were killing him and then he was feelings hungover by the time they made it past the cloud cover, and Dean pulled the Impala onto the shoulder at Sam's mumbled request. Sam barely made it out the side door before he was throwing up all of the beer that Candice had poured her hard-earned wages into.
Dean's hand on his back was a welcome surprise, his words even moreso: "Right here, Sammy, I gotcha." Words that had once been a promise.
"So, that's it?" Sam asked, spitting the sour taste from his mouth, down on his hands and knees in the mud. "We just act like nothing ever happened? You were blind for two months, Dean."
"Yeah, I was. So if you don't mind, I don't wanna spend another two months talkin' about my feelings." Dean complained. "I was bad, life was bad, now I'm good. So can we keep going?"
Sam's head was throbbing too fitfully for him to protest.
Dean was quiet as they drove, except for random comments, asking Sam if he needed to stop yet. "I just want to put a couple towns between us and those dicks. No telling if Bigfoot back there will get a posse together and come riding after us."
"We don't exactly blend in." Sam agreed.
Finally, almost an hour later, Dean pulled over again, this time in the parking lot of a typical dive motel. He climbed out with leisure, and Sam squinted his eyes against a golden-fuchsia glow rebounding off the Impala's hood. It was late, closing in on twilight, and he felt wrung-out and tired, too tired to feel anything other than saturated relief for Dean's restored vision, and pain in his own damaged skull.
Dean leaned against the driver's side door, staring straight into the sun. "Never thought I'd see another sunset. Gorgeous, ain't it, Sam?"
"Little help here?" Sam said in lieu of a real response, corkscrewing into himself as the light made his headache intensify. Dean swaggered around the car and opened the door, gripping Sam by the forearm and dragging him to his feet. When Sam listed, still dizzy, Dean braced a hand against his chest.
"Easy, there, big guy. Still waiting to get your sea legs back?"
"I hate you." Sam groaned.
"Nah, you love me." Dean reached around Sam and slammed the door shut, then boosted him lightly toward the motel. Not caught entirely unawares of the irony of the situation, Sam didn't comment until Dean had paid for a room for two nights and returned to him.
"Sorry I can't even walk on my own." And that I have nightmares. And that I ruin everything I touch.
"Well, until you figure out how to tie your own shoes, that's what I'm here for, right? Watch out for my brother." Dean pushed the door in and stepped aside, waiting. Sam was passing him when he noticed that the other motel key had slipped out of Dean's pocket and onto the ground.
"On your seven." Sam mumbled, trudging for the bed.
He couldn't see Dean's grin, but he heard it. "Guess I still need your eyes, huh, Sammy?"
Sam sank onto the bed and stretched out, kicking off his boots. "Dude, you can take watch for…ever. I'm gonna get some sleep."
"Yeah, you do that." Dean said, dropping the keys onto the kitchenette's small table. "Hey, Sam."
"Mm?"
"You have another nightmare, you let me know. I need you, one hundred percent, ready to go on the next case. That means no slacking off on sleep or getting tanked again. Got it?"
Sam hid his smile and draped an arm over his eyes. "Got it."
"Good."
Within five minutes, Sam was asleep, all guards down for the first time since he'd come back to that motel in Arizona and found Dean in profound darkness. As for Dean, it felt good, better than good, to take the reins back from Sam, to give his brother some slack. Not that he could see everything; it was all just shades of black and white and gray, at this point. Colorblind, a little hazy. But better than darkness.
The way he'd been able to follow Sam, though, gave him a check in his gut; maybe he'd never stopped seeing totally, just stopped using his eyes.
He pulled a chair from the table, swung it around and dropped down straddling it, rubbing a hand down his unshaven face. Sam was snoring softly, stretched out on his side and using his arm for a pillow, the same way he'd been sleeping all his life.
There was something different about him now; Sam looked older, taller, stronger. Like he'd been carrying a weight for two, and found a way to grow into it. Dean had lost his sight waiting for a broken Hell-shell to come back, and he was opening his eyes and seeing a man that reminded Dean of their dad, in all the right ways.
It was like a different world.
So Dean spent the next few hours just watching Sam sleep.
Memorizing his little brother all over again.