A/N: Because this chapter is so short, I decided to post it a little early. It was such a perfect time to cut it off that I couldn't resist.
Thank you again to everyone who left comments, story alerted, story favorited, etc.! All responses to reviews will be at the end of the chapter this time. It makes more sense that way, doesn't it?
Disclaimer: If this were mine, the show would consist of nothing but chick-flick moments and brotherly schmoop. Therefore, Supernatural does not belong to me.
AU after episode 7x04
Dean barreled down the streets, vaguely noting Bobby pulling up and following after him. Alleyway. Sam had said he was in an alleyway. Alleyway, alleyway, alleyway, alleyway... There. Right there. Only one. One with Sammy in it. Only one and Sam had better be in it because Dean knew that there was no time for mistakes. Not when Sam wasn't answering him anymore.
Dean ran, faster than he probably ever had before, hardly allowing himself to breathe. Sam may not be breathing, so why was he? It shouldn't work that way. If Sam wasn't breathing, Dean shouldn't be either. But Sam had to be breathing. He had to be breathing because Dean was breathing and as long as Dean was breathing, Sam was going to be too. It was that simple.
He had screwed up. He had screwed up big time. And Sam was hurt. And Sam wasn't answering him.
"Sam!" he shouted, running down the passage. "Sammy!?"
"Sammy!?" he called once more but then froze when he heard a struggled breath. It was so quiet that over his own panting and the ringing that seemed to echo in his ears, he shouldn't have been able to hear it. But then, Dean had always been able to hear Sam. He was hardwired to hear Sam. He could hear him sneeze in the middle of an explosion. Then the strong coppery tang of blood assaulted his senses. And it was too strong for it to be any normal, safe, fixable amount of blood. His gaze darted around until it landed on a person. Until it landed on Sam. He was lying, curled in on himself on the dirty ground, half-hidden behind a dumpster. Unconscious. The cell phone that Dean's panicking voice had come through moments before was lying open next to his head.
"Oh god,Sam," he breathed, dropping to his knees next to his brother. His hands hovered over Sam's body, not quite willing to touch for fear contact would make it real. It was a hallucination, a dream, it was something that would mean this wasn't Sam, wasn't Dean's Sam. Because it couldn't be. The world couldn't hate him that much... could it?
"Oh shit—" Bobby breathed as his eyes landed on Sam and Dean felt the crushing weight of reality fall on him. Because Bobby was there. And Bobby just unwittingly yanked him out of his momentary denial.
"Sam—Sammy—" Dean breathed, words as broken sounding as he felt, as broken as Sam was. Sam was shaking violently, air not filling his shredded lungs and Dean found himself morbidly wondering if it was a lack of air reaching his lungs, or a lack of air staying in his lungs. Neither was good. Neither was going to keep his brother alive.
He reached out, throat closing up as he rested his hand on his brother's shoulder. He instantly snatched it away though, staring at the blood that now covered it. Biting his lip, both to keep from vomiting and to keep from sobbing, he forced himself to look, to assess the damage completely. Sam's chest and arms were filleted, entire segments of skin missing, like they were ripped off. Slashes littered Sam's stomach and there was so much blood. It was pooled around Sam and splattered across the wall and dumpster. So much blood. Too much blood.
Dean had seen a lot of death. He had seen a lot of violent deaths. But this was one of the worst things he had ever seen. Though, that may have simply been because it was Sam.
"Sammy," he whimpered, hand landing on his brother's cheek, sliding down to his neck, desperately searching for a pulse. It took seconds. It took seconds too long, seconds they didn't have, seconds Sam didn't have but he found one. Weak and thready, but it was there. If it was there, Dean could deal with it. He always did; he always would. Sam would be fine. He wouldn't find his brother after days of searching only to have him die right next to him. A tear slid down his cheek but he made no move to wipe it away, didn't even acknowledge its existence.
"Okay… okay… C'mon sasquatch…" There was too much blood. Way too much. There was no way they'd be able to fix this on their own. That left only one option. "Bobby, call for an ambulance," he ordered. He heard Bobby's mutter of acquiescence but his attention was once again fixed solely on his brother. The brother that was way too still, way too unresponsive.
"Sammy…" he whispered, tapping his brother's cheek. "Sammy! Wake up!" There was no response but that didn't stop Dean. Sam was supposed to wake up. Sam wasn't supposed to be lying, bloody and broken, hidden behind a dumpster in a dirty alley. It wasn't supposed to be like this. "C'mon, Sam!" he growled, shaking him. It couldn't have felt good, not with all the injuries he had. Moving at all couldn't feel good. And in response, Sam's face twisted up in confusion and pain. "That's it! Wake up, kid…"
And of course, Dean's relief was small and short-lived because that was when a harsh choked sob tore its way out from Sam's already worn out vocal chords. "N-no… please… can't… hurts… Dean!Dean, don't…! Please…?" And again, Dean had no idea what Sam was talking about. He should though because he should have been with Sam the last few days. If they had been together, this never would have happened. Because Dean wouldn't have let it. That didn't make anything better though, did it? Because Dean did let it.
"Sam—" He was cut off as Sam's back bowed up off the ground. He started seizing, silently screaming in fear? in agony? Dean had no idea and it didn't make any difference, not when it came down to it. "Bobby! Where's the ambulance!" he barked, pressing down on his brother's shoulders, trying to keep him from hurting himself. Well, hurting himself any worse than he already was. Sam started thrashing as if trying to buck off an imaginary attacker, gasping Dean's name every now and then with a broken plea, all while Dean tried to ignore the blood that covered his hands, tried to ignore the fact that nothing he was doing, nothing he ever did was enough.
And then it all stopped.
Dean froze, hardly processing that Sam wasn't moving anymore. And when he did, his heart might as well have stopped beating because as he scrabbled at Sam's neck, searching numbly for a pulse, Sam's heart had stopped beating. Sam's heart had stopped beating. And the entire world came to a crashing halt. "No!" Dean shouted, forgetting to hold back the tears that had been building behind his eyes since Sam disappeared. "You don't get to do this to me!" After that, he was barely aware of what he was doing. He had vague memories of himself employing every life-saving, resuscitating measure that he had ever learned. But it all ended with him simply shoving and pounding at Sam's chest, demanding that he come back. And then arms were wrapping around his arms and chest, dragging him back away from his brother's prone body. He was vaguely aware he was screaming Sam's name but everything else had just faded away in the wake of his unnaturally still little brother.
"Sammy!" he screamed, lunging forwards because Sam was dead. Dean had just found him and he had died right there, underneath Dean's hands.
Whoever was holding him – later he'd realize that it was Bobby – was surprised by the force that resulted when he threw himself, all of his weight, all of his grief, against their arms. Their surprise allowed him to slip out of the restraining grasp and he found himself scrabbling with numb hands at the ground so that he didn't crash against it. On his hands and knees in the dirty alleyway, he crawled to his brother's side, tears streaming down his face. "Sammy?" he whimpered, throat raw from the number of times he had screamed. Gently, he placed his hand on Sam's chest, begging an absent God for it to rise and fall. But God never listened to him, did he? After all the times he'd asked, all the times he'd begged and pleaded and sobbed and prayed for Sam to be okay over the years, never once was he answered. Never once was he given a sign that anything in the horrible, screwed-up, selfish world they lived in gave a damn about Sam and Dean Winchester. Not once.
And for one moment it was completely quiet, nothing but him and his dead little brother.
A/N 2: Again, thank you to everyone who reads this story and I'll see you... soon. :-)