Mad World

Chapter Eight: I find it hard to tell you

Dean had known something was up.

Partly because he'd known Sam his whole life, because his brother had always been his responsibility, because he'd been trained to, told to, constantly reminded to and automatically always, looked after Sammy; paid him more mind than anyone else in the whole fucking world.

But mostly because Sam hadn't even been trying to hide his abnormal behavior; not really. He'd been taking risks he'd never take normally, making off-putting comments about life in general. Dean would catch his brother staring at him, when Sam didn't think he was paying attention, like he was trying to memorize every one of his features, down to the last detail.

That in itself would have been creepy, had the look in his eyes not been so primal, so faraway. He looked at Dean like he would never see the older man again, and that had started to scare him.

At first he'd thought it was just a reaction to dad's death, so he'd ignored it, because Dean thought that his little brother wanted to deal with his grief on his own. Which wasn't at all true -Dean knew Sam had wanted to talk about it. Only he hadn't, so he'd ignored it.

It wasn't about dad though, because had it been, Sam would be pushing it. He'd be trying to get Dean to talk to him; and be it by force or manipulation, Dean knew they would have had a chick flick moment by now, had that been his intention.

Yet they hadn't.

Then there were the nightmares.

Sam hadn't had nightmares…in a long time.

That's when the fear had started to grow.

Plus the comments. Random little comments he'd make about Stanford and his life at college. Even about Jessica. Things he'd always kept tightly under wraps were suddenly thrown randomly into conversations.

So yeah…Dean had known something was up.

He told himself he would confront it, and hell, had their lives not been so hectic, had new forms of grief and loss not popped up at every turn, maybe he would have by now. Maybe he wouldn't be sitting in the Impala with undeniable tears in his eyes and a shattered window. Wouldn't be fisting his brother's T-shirt like it was the only thing left anchoring them to reality. Maybe Sam wouldn't be staring somewhere over his shoulder with hollow eyes and that pain laced through his every movement.

But maybes were bullshit - and no one knew that better than Dean Winchester.

"What?" He gasped, so not wanting to believe what he knew he'd just heard.

"You should have made the deal." Sam repeated, voice as hollow as his eyes, still not looking at him. "It would have worked out great. You would've had dad. You wouldn't have been alone."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Dean bit, because now it was his anger that was dangerously close to overflowing and drowning them both.

"You should have made the deal." That's when Dean let go of Sam, unclenched his fist fast and pulled his arm back, pushing himself away.

"You're possessed." He accused. "You're the demon."

"Yeah," Sam snorted, and it seemed all his anger was gone. "That would explain everything, wouldn't it?"

"Cristo," Dean whispered desperately, but Sam just looked at him, meeting his eyes for the first time in too long.

They were the same brown eyes that Dean had grown up with, looked into nearly every day of his life for the past twenty-three years. A little harder, deeper than they should be, holding too much - but they were Sam's. They were his little brother's.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" He snapped then, because anger he could deal with; whatever this was, whatever emo shit Sam had on his mind- he believed it could be dealt with like this. "Seriously. You've been acting different for weeks, all messed up. Trigger happy, saying crap you think I don't notice you say," Dean tilted his head, trying to catch his brother's gaze again. "I noticed, Sam. Okay? I noticed. So what is it? What are you hiding?"

Sam just shook his head; he'd gone back to not looking at him.

"You say I should have made the deal," the words cut Dean to the quick, but he forced them out. "You said what? That I wouldn't be alone?" He shook his head and set his jaw, his next words probably the most painful he would ever utter. "Are you planning on offing yourself?"

"What?" Sam's eyes met his fast, and he looked honestly taken aback.

Dean prayed his brother wasn't that good of an actor.

"Are you?" Somehow there was even more anger there. "You gonna shoot yourself? Slice your wrists? Pop one too many painkillers? Maybe just piss off the wrong spirit, huh? Not move quick enough? Maybe that'll be easier, pretend you didn't want it to happen?"

"Dean-"

"Or maybe you'll get really fucking creative and go in a fire," he'd never spoken words so harsh, never gotten so close to the core of their worst fears. Never been so terrified. But never before had he questioned Sam's mental stability. Slicing away at the flesh and bones of them, it seemed the only way to reach him. "Crappy motel room one night while I'm out? Haunted house?" He couldn't see his brother through the tears. "C'mon, Sam!" He shouted. "What was your plan?"

"You really think I'd do that to you?" It sounded like Sam was crying now too.

"Sure as fuck sounds like it, doesn't it?"

Dean's heart broke - a feat he didn't think it could manage anymore - when Sam just sniffled and said, "Yeah, I guess it does."

"I can't fucking believe you-" Dean started but he didn't get too far.

"I'm dying."

A beat of silence passed. Then another. Then the elder man dared let himself be almost, a little less terrified. "What?" There was hope in the word - beautiful, inspiring, relieving, life-altering hope.

"Dean," Sam said hoarsely, swallowing thickly. "I'm dying."

"What the hell are you talking about, little brother?" Confusion was better than anger. Doubt was a goldmine compared to hopelessness.

Sam took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and whispered in that pained way he had, "You remember Hallie Morgan?"

It took Sam nearly half an hour to tell the whole story - everything Hallie had told him, everything he'd been hiding - but it felt longer than that. A lifetime passed since Dean accused him of being suicidal. Empires could have fallen in the time it took Sam to get all the words out. An eternity or two could have started and stopped again.

When he was finally done, he held his breath, not knowing how Dean would respond. Given his outburst earlier, he figured anger was a definite possibility. Fear, shock, tears maybe, even. God knows they'd gone there tonight already.

"A brain tumor?" Dean finally echoed the words - the fate. He said it disbelievingly, though, and Sam treaded lightly.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Look, man, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Just… with dad and everything you've been dealing with… I thought it'd be too much."

"You've been lying to me-" Dean sounded calm, which was more frightening than anger. "About… I mean, you've been walking around thinking you have a brain tumor?"

"I do have a brain tumor," Sam repeated. Something about saying that so many times in the last thirty minutes - it had made him sort of immune to the reality of it.

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I'm sorry." He repeated, meaning it with all his heart. "I was going to."

"You should have told me that night," Dean snapped. "Shit, Sammy, I thought you outgrew sneaking out of motel rooms when you were fifteen."

The younger sibling let a smile ghost over his features for a brief moment, taking him away from what was really going on. He'd been doing that a lot lately - escaping actuality. "I just thought-"

"What?" His brother was angry. Incredibly angry. Sam couldn't help but think that Dean was using that emotion to deter the inevitable. "What were you thinking? 'Cause it sounds to me like you weren't thinking. At all."

"I thought I was protecting you," Sam finished, emotion filling his words to their breaking point.

"Sammy," Dean sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and running a hand over them. "That's my job."

Silence echoed in the space between them. Sam bit his lip and looked out the window.

After enough time had gone by, and the realization that Dean would say nothing more until he responded struck, Sam breathed deep and whispered, "I know." A beat. "I'm sorry."

"Good." Dean seemed at peace. "Good."

"So," Sam knew he shouldn't push it, and he also knew he had to. "You wanna talk about it?"

"About what?" His brother's voice was back to normal, and Sam guessed they'd taken off from anger and were now on a crash course for denial.

"I'm dying."

Dean actually snorted. "No you're not."

"Look," Sam sighed, "I didn't want to believe it either. Hell, I'm not sure I completely do believe it yet. But I am dying, and we-"

"Stop it, Sam." Dean was shaking his head.

The younger man knew he should be sensitive to his brother, knew he should placate Dean in whatever method he wanted to adopt for dealing with this; but acting on knowledge like that had never been Sam's strong suit, and quite frankly, he'd been waiting almost a month to let this secret spill. Now that he had, all he really wanted, was for Dean to step up and act the part of his big brother, just as he always had.

So he snapped, "Why? Why should I stop? It's the truth."

"Sammy," Dean huffed. "You're sitting there talking about having a fucking brain tumor."

"Because I do have a brain tumor," he said slowly, "Because I'm dying."

"No you're not."

His brother's voice was so firm, so sure, that Sam almost actually believed him.

"Yeah, Dean," he hated having to say this. Really fucking hated having to defend the fact that he was going to die. "I am."

"Hallie Morgan was a nut," Dean waved a hand and dismissed the girl's claims. "C'mon, only you would fall for that, geek boy."

"It fits."

"It's crap." Dean bit back. "We shouldn't have listened to Ash in the first place. The mullet creates a false sense of security where his reliability is concerned."

"Maybe," Sam had to give, "But I went to a hospital, man. I had the test done, the doctor told me."

"They did the test wrong," the elder man said simply, shrugging. Sam was starting to worry that there was nothing he could say to get Dean to accept this. The worry increased tenfold when his brother started ranting. "You know how many false-positive tests get pawned off as the truth every year?" He shook his head. "It's a borderline conspiracy."

"They did the test twice."

"Exactly," the word was fused with triumph. "And I bet they charged you for it, huh?"

"Well, not me," Sam mumbled, not at all sure how to deal with his brother at this point.

"You know what I mean," he dismissed, "I bet, if you'd a hung around, they woulda tried to convince you to spend thousands of dollars on diffrent medicines, charged you more to stay in the hospital when their meds started to make you sick. And then, after months, or even years, when nothing was working, they'd decide to re-test you, and bam-" he clapped his hands together, making Sam jump slightly, "You're all better, and their pushing you out the door with a lollipop and a million dollar bill."

Sam's face remained set, Dean's rant, far from making him feel better, had simply lodged a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was sad.

"What if the test wasn't wrong?"

"It was," Dean scoffed, but didn't quite sound like he meant it all the way.

"What if I am dying?" He forced the words, not sure if he really wanted to.

"We're all dying, Sammy." Dean pointed out.

"Yeah," he shook his head, agreeing, "But I-"

"You're gonna live until I say otherwise," His big brother cut off.

Sam reeled back, astonished disbelief falling over his face and invading his tone. "You're ordering me to stay alive? To not have a brain tumor?"

"I'm ordering you," Dean poked at his chest, "To stop talking about this shit."

Sam's eyebrows shot to his forehead and he couldn't help the small, disbelieving chuckle that escaped him.

"Now shut up," his brother straightened himself, and started the engine of the Impala, that familiar purr taking over the silence of the deserted road. "And start looking for a twenty-four hour repair place. 'Cause you're so paying for that window."

TBC...