Lyrics from "Always Gold" by Radical Face
We were tight knit boys
Brothers in more then name
You would kill for me
And knew that I'd do the same
And it cut me sharp
Hearing you'd gone away
But everything goes away
Yeah everything goes away
Sam lost something inside when Dean died. At first, Bobby thought it was the blood. The body, covered in claw marks.
At first he thought it was the screams.
Those memories had to have snagged on something in Sam, had to have gotten caught on the way down, and now they were in between who knew where and they were pulling away at him. Those were things no one would forget in a jiffy.
And certainly not forgive.
But Sam had lived through this before, or something like it. Something just as cruel, just as morbid.
Watched his fiancé burn above him in fierce innocence burned red. This was an old revenge, bubbling back up to the surface, he'd thought.
But as the days wore on, and Sam didn't speak, refused to burn Dean, never visited, Bobby began to understand.
Something got lost in Sam Winchester.
And Bobby realized something in the tight, sharp way you realize something subtle that snuck up behind you and pulled the rug out from under. It manifested as a small blank and sad observation, that quickly wasted away into a horrified comprehension that would not make itself un-known, that sprang up bright and black and tucked itself into his mind whenever he saw the boy in his peripheral vision.
That's how John was.
And even when Sam was clothed in hate as thick as blood that rushed from open wounds, even if he couldn't see past the rage to moving on, he was trying to earn his own redemption, to gain forgiveness for failing his brother by washing it off in Lilith's blood.
But John had had two children who had needed him to let go of just a little of that hatred for some gruff care taking that at least resembled affection. Sam had nothing to keep him from turning the entirety of his focus on the single task of killing Lilith.
He'd lost something.
But I'm going to be here until I'm nothing
But bones in the ground
And I was there, when you grew restless
Left in the dead of night
And I was there, when three months later
You were standing in the door all beat and tired
And I stepped aside
Everything goes away
Yeah everything goes away
But I'm gonna be here until I'm nothing
But bones in the ground
So quiet down
Dean remembered when Sammy was younger, and they were staying at a motel that had a lawn, and dad was out, they'd play ball.
Nothing specific, just catch, usually, or some variation thereupon, and sometimes it wasn't even with a ball.
If it was a rock, you had to be extra careful, and he was glad to say Sammy never got injured. If it was a rock, it could at least count as training in some obscure way. Even if there had been no way to justify it as a meaningful activity, Dean would have done it.
Because Sammy loved it.
One day, they were playing - Dean had found some wood and he'd carved it up with one of the knives into the semblance of something round without splinters - when a ball bounced across the street.
Sammy picked it up and looked across.
A little group of rug rats about Sammy's age stared back.
Dean was about to say no, but it was too late. Via the telepathic link of all tiny children, Sam turned on his heel with a pleading look before Dean had actually managed to get out the single syllable word. They shared a short look. Sam didn't know about all the monsters and hunters yet, but he knew that he had to ask.
Dean hoped that they didn't all turn out to be demons or something. He took a sharp breathe before he gave a short, forced smile, and said, "Okay, Sammy."
It was fun. More fun that Dean would have liked to admit, but it was. Sam, Sam thrived. He gushed with all the other small children and they played catch and hide and seek (once, because even though Dean never said anything, he nearly had a heart attack when he couldn't find Sam, and after that Sam shared another one of the mind conversations with the leader of the group, a small brunette with pigtails called Sarah, who proceeded to declare it time for catch.) and Sarah's mother brought out lemonaid and wafers.
When it was done, they retreated back to the motel, waving at Sarah as she returned inside with her mother for dinner and as the other children walked with their parents or were picked up.
Sam only stopped talking about it when Dad got back.
And then Dad said they had to go, had to leave now, come on, get packed, we're going. Sam was too young, then, too young to have argued, to have pleaded, thankfully, but Dean saw that short moment of pause, where Sam didn't want to accept it. But it was there, the look in a child's face that should never be seen. Where they would give for anything in the world to not have heard what they just did.
They piled into the car and drove away in silence except for the music, but no one was really listening to it. Dean saw Sam looking into his lap so that he wouldn't see Sarah's house disappear behind them, lit up from inside in the cool evening.
They drove for miles before they came to somewhere John decided was acceptably far enough, and they unpacked quietly and ate quietly and he left to go check out the bar down the road.
Sam didn't say anything until they were in bed and it was dark and quiet, and apparently safe enough to cry silently. Or what passed for silently when your older brother has been training to be a hunter. And he knows.
And Dean had never regretted anything more then when he quietly called, "Sammy?"
And it paused just long enough for Sam to snuffle and whisper heartbrokenly, "Why can't we be normal, Dean?"
Because he would not have an answer for a long time, yet.
And when Sam had known the truth and got into his sporadic fights with Dad and left in the middle of the night and Dean begged him to stay but he wouldn't, couldn't, Dean would remember that night.
He'd think about it every day until Sam finally came back, each absence having been gone longer than the last time, because the truth was, that had been the first time.
The first time Sam asked that question and so the first time he'd been unable to answer of many.
We were opposites at birth
I was steady as a hammer
No one worried 'cause they knew just where I'd be
And they said you were the crooked kind
And that you'd never have no worth
But you were always gold to me
When Sam left for good, he cut his ties to the Winchester family and company the same night, because every time before he'd waited, and he had to do it while he was still angry or he wouldn't be able to do it at all.
And something inside always hurt because he missed Dean and he wanted Dean to be there with him and it wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair that Dean wouldn't have any opportunities because "Dad said".
And Dean didn't deserve the life he had been given and Sam wished desperately that he'd start over, and not wear the assumptions people would have of him, because no one truly saw Dean as Dean was, and that was the kind of person he needed.
Strangers didn't know Dean. The police had no idea who Dean was. Dad never really took the time to know them as they knew each other. Even Bobby didn't get to see the real Dean.
Sam knew he was almost always seeing a mask Dean wore, and he knew Dean had slipped into the role of big brother without thought, and it was not something he considered a burden, but he was made up of what Sam needed and what Dad wanted at any given point and he never thought about himself and he'd never really been given the chance to be himself, and it wasn't fair.
But if anything, Sam knew better than anyone that Dean was more than they would ever know or have the chance to know in their lifetime.
And he deserved so much more than what he thought.
And back when we were kids
We swore we knew the future
And our words would take us half way 'round the world
But I never left this town
And you never saw New York
And we ain't ever cross the sea
But I am fine with where I am now
This home is home, and all that I need
But for you, this place is shame
But you can blame me when there's no one left to blame
oh I don't mind
Dean remembered back when Sam had been more complacent and less reserved about living a hunter's life, when they would sneak Dad's journal out and a map they'd stolen from some gas station, and try to mark all the places on the map where he'd been - where they'd been. They'd spend forever talking about where they wanted to go, and now.
Now all Sam wanted was just to go. To be gone.
Anywhere. Anywhere that wasn't hunting.
And Dean knew their life was shitty, but it still hurt. It took him a long time to reconcile that. And even longer still to realize it was his fault for not doing better.
He should have done better.
He was okay now. He understood. And it was okay.
The only one to blame was himself.
All my life
I've never known where you've been
There were holes in you
The kind that I could not mend
And I heard you say
Right when you left that day
Does everything go away?
Yeah, everything goes away.
And by the time Sam learned everything, it was too late to fix any of it.
To mend anything.
Dean had carried too much and left it all behind for family, and he had no interest in digging it back up or talking.
And now Sam was like that, he didn't need to speak about it because he only needed to do one thing.
He needed to kill Lilith.
He laughed, for the first time in two months, when Bobby called him - one of the last calls - again, to tell him killing Lilith wouldn't fix anything. Wouldn't make it better.
"You won't get any peace outta this, boy." Bobby said in that tough yet anxious way only he could truly master.
Sam laughed then, though it was a poor mimicry of laughter, because he didn't try emulating joy, only the sound it should leave behind, and even then, it was ugly.
"I was never going to have peace." Sam whispered and hung up.
And maybe he understood that then as best as he could, but as worst he could, too.
Because the demon blood had started weaving into his dreams and making them nightmares, and by then, he thought they would never end.
But I'm going to be here 'til forever
So just call when you're around.
Dean didn't know how to say it, and he likely wouldn't, but he would always be there.
Always.
He hadn't realized it until he'd seen his brother's face again after decades in Hell.
He hadn't realized it until there was an exhale from Sammy and a hug, two big arms wrapping around him, strong as iron, strong as gold.
Always.
Always gold.