I come back awake into quiet deep darkness and I wonder where I am and what happened and where Dean is, and then I feel his hands on my back and on my head and that's all I care about and I relax.
The lights are off in the room and there's no light coming in through the Plexiglas in the ceiling. The only light is the red safety light near the door, and as my eyes adjust, everything is black tinged with red.
I suddenly wonder if this is what hell looks like. Maybe the lights aren't off. Maybe this is hell.
Maybe Dean is in hell and maybe I'm there with him.
The thought drills back into my brain – Dean is dead. I can feel his hands on me but still the thought won't go away.
He's dead. Dean is dead.
"Dean?"
I feel his hand start rubbing across my shoulders as he comes awake.
"Sam? Y'okay?"
The sound of his voice and feel of his hands should calm me, but it doesn't.
"Where are we?" I ask, a little desperately. I'm still not sure this isn't hell.
"Hmm? Panic room. Remember?" He sounds half asleep. "Only been a couple of hours since we put the IV in. Remember?"
"D-d-dark. It's dark." I say. I'm afraid to ask about hell outright.
"Yeah. Lights." He yawns. "Thought you'd be easier, no lights."
"Oh. Yeah. Okay."
"You want 'em back on?"
I do, but I don't want to bother Dean. I don't want him to have to get up and cross over to the switch. I don't want him to leave me, even for that long.
"No. S'okay."
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Go back to sleep." He says. His hand keeps soothing across my back. "It'll be morning in another couple of hours. We'll see about getting you upstairs."
I know I should tell him to go up and get some sleep of his own in a real bed and come back for me in the morning. He can't be comfortable sitting on this hard floor for however long he's been sitting here. Two hours, with at least another two hours to go. I should tell him to go get some real rest himself. But I don't want to. I don't think he'd do it, but I don't even want to suggest it.
Instead, I huddle closer to him, and close my eyes against the black and red and darkness and disappear back into sleep.
When I wake up again, it's into warm, calming, quiet brightness; natural light coming through the Plexiglas in the roof. My hands aren't sparking anymore, and my feet have been liberated from my boots and socks.
Best of all, Dean is still next to me. Or I'm still next to him. I can feel his hand on my shoulder and my head is still on the pillow on his thigh. I'm covered with a blanket, or two blankets maybe since there's a blanket over my shoulders and tucked completely under my feet and in all my adult life I've never known a single blanket long enough to manage that.
The bad news is that the road kill in my mouth has shed its decaying fur all over my tongue and teeth and if I don't get water soon I may just gag here and die.
I try to say Dean's name but it comes out sounding more like 'blwah' than 'Dean', but it's enough to rouse him.
"Hey, Sammy. Back among the living?"
To answer him, I try to say, 'wish I wasn't' but those words come out more like, 'zzzzthhhhhhhhhhwwwww' and I feel as much as hear Dean chuckle.
"Okay, we'll get you taken care of. Here. Here. Can you sit up? I had Cas get you some grape Pedialyte."
It takes a few seconds for my brain to register what he said, and another few seconds that I consider snarking at him and then in the last few seconds I figure it's not worth it.
Sitting up is a whole other ball of wax, though. Melted wax. Because I can't move. I can barely lift my hand and I end up dragging it over Dean's leg instead of just setting it there, and it feels like it weighs eight hundred pounds.
"That's a 'no', then, hunh?" Dean figures it out. "All right, we can handle it. Here."
There's movement, Dean moves, and I'm lifted up a little, enough that when the bottle of Pedialyte appears in front of me, I can sip it without wearing it. After the first couple of tiny sips, I can tell that it's going to stay down and I take a few more stronger sips.
Above me, so quiet I think probably I'm not supposed to hear it, above me I hear Dean whisper, "That's my boy," and it's all I can do to not break down crying at his side for the relief and pride I hear in his voice.
Even after all this, after everything I've put him through, in our whole lives as well as just this past week, even though all I've done all this week is let him save me, Dean can be proud of me for being able to sip some grape Pedialyte without hurling it back all over his boots.
"Okay, let's not tempt fate." He says then, and sets the bottle aside. "Better a little that you keep in, instead of a little more I have to mop up."
I try to pull back but I end up sagging awkwardly against Dean's arm for a few seconds until he straightens us out and I'm back on my pillow. On the floor this time as he groans himself to his feet and twists the kinks of out his back and yawns himself at least a little more awake.
"Okay, let's check this out. I think you can take one more IV bag. Aaaand…"
He draws that word out and when I look up at him to see what's going on, he's giving me a 'how stoned are you?' look.
"Aaaand – I think one more go-round at least of the good stuff. That'll get us through getting you upstairs and cleaned up."
Clean. I feel like I could never be clean again. I'm week-old road kill inside and out and Bobby's gonna have to burn the mattress from the cot and have this room washed down with boiled vinegar to ever get the smell out of it.
But it's not the external that's the problem. I could be as pristine as possible on the outside, and it just wouldn't matter.
"Never be clean." I mutter to myself, but Dean hears me and his answer is fast and clear.
"Don't talk like that." For a few seconds, he looks like he's going to say something else, something more, but what can he say? He knows what I'm talking about, and he knows there's no cleaning that out of me, ever. So he just says again, "Don't talk like that."
I close my eyes and turn so I'm lying on my back on the sleeping bag and pillow, while Dean gives me a new IV bag and a new dose of painkillers and in a few minutes I'm floating in warm waves of drugged disinterest and relaxation.
Dean sits cross-legged near me. Near enough that when I open my eyes I can see how tired and ragged and dragging he is. And still I know he's going to start talking about getting me off this floor and out of this room and up those stairs and into a shower and clean clothes and a real bed.
"Can I just stay here forever?" I ask. I think I ask. It's what I mean to ask, no matter what actually comes out of my mouth. The longer I can rest here, the longer Dean can rest, too.
But whatever I mean, whatever I say, Dean smiles a tired smile.
"You already have been here forever, Sammy." He scrubs his hand over his face. "It sure feels like it, anyway. We'll get you upstairs. Cas can wing you up there, or I'll carry you, but we'll get you there."
"I just want to sleep." I tell him. I think I tell him. It's what I mean to tell him. "Just let me sleep here."
He looks me over, in his 'dissect, measure, decide' look. He's deciding for me what my next move is going to be. If I wasn't so drugged up, I might care.
"Okay. You stay put for a few more hours. We'll get you upstairs while there's still time left on your morphine meter. For now you get some more rest."
"You. You need. To rest. Too. Dean." I slur out over the painkillers.
"You still remember my name. I think I need to up the joy juice."
"Rest, too, please, Dean. I can't – I can't –"
My adamant plea that I will not sleep if Dean doesn't is cut short - by my falling asleep.
That's going in Dean's tally of wins, I just know it.
The chagrin isn't enough to keep me in the here and now. Sleep is so nice and safe and welcoming, and it's made even more so by Dean's warm, soft, sure, "There you go, Sammy. There you go," as he pulls the blanket up and tucks it under the sleeping bag and the last thing I feel is his hand resting warm and sure over my heart and I belong to sleep again.
tbc