Title: Fields of Gray

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: Tag to "Breakdown". Sam struggles after the events of recent weeks.

NOTE: One of my all time favorites songs is Bruce Hornsby's "Fields of Gray". I was listening to it the day after the wonderful episode that was "Breakdown" and thought Sam's story in this episode fit this song perfectly.

"When I was younger I saw things in black and white

Now all I see is a sad, hazy gray

Sometimes I see a narrow flash of light

Sometimes I look and you show me the way

No matter what else happens

What the future will be

In a world so uncertain

Through the clouds it's hard to see

I will grab you and lift you

Calm your fears if you're afraid

We'll go walking

Oh, Across the fields of gray."

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Another morning. Another struggle to rise. Almost impossible after this last week. This last week and every moment since they'd returned from the Bad Place had been difficult. Losing Jack to places unknown. Mom, alive or dead, tortured in another dimension. Then the innocent dream-walker, Kaia; hunted down after being part two woman rescue team that found the brothers and returned them home from that same bad place.

It had all become too much. The losses piled up. The pressure along with it.

Lying in bed, a sound diverted Sam's attention from the struggle. The brash knock of recent days had mutated into a soft tap at his door. Dean. Back after Sam had pushed him away on the drive home after the job to save Donna's niece.

The brothers hadn't spoken after Sam's admission of surrender in the car. Surrender of hope. Surrender to there being nothing left. Surrender to the knowledge that his and Dean's end would come bad and bloody.

Not that his older brother had ever doubted that their lives wouldn't end in a pool of blood and death; he'd said the same to Sam over the years. More than a few times. But he'd always counted on Sam to be that slim beacon of light; holding on when the world slammed against them again and again. That beacon was that one thing they had both clung to when year after year, family and friends fell from their grasp. Bad and bloody.

Sam though...Sam had always believed there was something better for them. At least a chance at something better. But now, after this latest round of loss...this latest punch in the gut, even that smallest sliver of hope had been ripped away. Mom still gone. Fate unknown. Jack. Missing and powerful and vulnerable. Cas was hit and miss since he'd returned from the dead – and there was still no real explanation as to why or how he'd been brought back. Kaia was the latest loss. She wasn't a friend, but they'd forced her into something that terrified her, something from which she was determined to stay hidden. Despite that, she volunteered to help save them and in the end, she too had paid the ultimate price.

Her death along with the just-happened seconds-from-death escape from the monster-butcher seemingly had become Sam's final trigger. Those final pieces that pushed him past the point of any hope at all.

Hopeful Sam was lost. Beaten down by years of relentless pain and blood and death.

But Dean. Dean needed that version of his brother back; that one that held onto optimism. The one that wanted so much to find that light at the end of the dark and nightmarish tunnel that was their lives. Dean needed it. Depended on it. Thrived on it.

Without it...

Sam didn't want anything to do with his brother this morning. The glares. The questions. The trying to force him to feel better when he just wanted to lose himself in the warmth of the bed sheets. He only wanted to be left to himself.

But then that same brother surprised him. The softer side of Dean took steps into his room and pulled the chair bedside.

Quiet. Calm. Comforting.

"Sammy."

Sammy. He'd hated the nickname when he was younger, especially as he'd ventured into high school and eventually college. How many times had he tried to stop Dean from using the name only to have his brother toss it back at him repeatedly?

Now though…and for the last few years, there was that growing piece of him that knew all he and Dean had was each other. And that piece of him latched onto the name. Clung to it. Waited for it. Sam would never admit it, but more than a few times, hearing that name brought a hidden smile to his face. And this morning...he'd so much needed to hear it this morning. Dean probably knew that too. After all, they knew every damn thing there was to know about each other. Their codependency, so unnatural in the real world yet so very natural in their own.

"Sammy." Dean said his name again when Sam didn't respond and kept his head turned on the pillow. Stomach down, he couldn't see his brother, but he could feel the presence though the softness. Always the same. Tough. Brave. In your face. And then all things opposite when it was someone Dean cared about.

"Don't give up on me now, Sammy. Not after all this. Not after all we've been through. I can't do this crap alone, man. And I need that annoying glimmer of hope you always have, no matter the hell around us. There's always a way, there's always light at the end of the freakin' thousand mile tunnel. That's you, Sam. It's always been you. It drives me crazy, you know that too. But when it's gone…when it's really gone? I get lost. I just...I can't... So look, I'm not askin' you to stop feelin' pain and misery at what we've lost and what we keep losin' or whatever the hell our future is…I'm just askin' that you not give up on us. I need us. You need us. We're all we've got, man. I need that. I need you. So, please, Sammy. For me."

When Dean finished, he set his hand on Sam's shoulder for several long seconds before returning the chair to the wall and leaving the room.

Sam didn't immediately respond. He stayed stomach down on the bed for a minute, then turned over to lay on his back and stare at the shadowed ceiling. His head hurt. His heart hurt. The aches of a thousand different scars seemed to flare, along with those suffered yesterday at the hands of a madman and his monster-butcher. Those scars, barely hours old coming seconds before Dean saved his life. Again.

Releasing a heavy breath, Sam reached up to run his hands over his tired face, letting them sit there concealing the threats of spilling emotion. No, he didn't feel any better. He still knew that others close to them would suffer because of nothing more than being associated with the Winchesters. There was still that stabbing in his heart that he and Dean's end would be bad. Bloody. But...Dean. Dean was right. About what they had. What they needed. The simple fact that Dean had bared a part of his tightly hidden soul to him just now, was proof of how much his big brother was hurting in his own right. Each of them without the other...

Unthinkable.

So, he forced himself out of bed, shook the sleep from his hair and doused his face in cold water at the sink. There was no snapping out of what he knew and felt, but he could snap back into being the little brother that his big brother needed.

"Hey, Dean." Sam said as he rounded the door into the kitchen, the fresh smell of pancakes and maple syrup engulfing the entire room. And the scene before him making him smile, despite his efforts to the contrary. There was Dean, sitting at the table with a huge stack of pancakes literally swimming in buttery-drenched syrup. Across from him, a smaller plate of the same pancakes, but with individual cups of butter and syrup setting in their assigned locations just to the left of the plate.

Dean didn't look up, but gestured to the empty chair across from him.

"Thought you'd be hungry."

"Yeah, I guess I am." Sam sat and smiled again. This time at that exact preciseness of the placing of each of the condiments. Even the pancakes were perfectly stacked. So, while Dean enjoyed a wonderfully sloppy heaping mess of sugar and fat-laden rings of pan-fried flour, Sam was, as his brother would say, a bit more anal about this particular breakfast food. It was something Dean had lovingly mocked him for since they were kids.

And that part of Sam hoped that his big brother would, maybe one more time...

"You know, I halfway thought duplicating my display of awesomeness on your plate, but then I remembered how anal you are about freakin' pancakes and your weirdo thing about the butter and syrup and symmetrical stacks and well, I figured I'd give you a break. Eat up."

The pancakes were good, Sam thought. No. More than good. They may have been the best he'd ever had.

"These are good, Dean. Really good."

"Only the best for my little brother." Dean looked over and caught Sam's eyes. With a wink and smirky grin, he reached out carefully. "You doing okay?"

Sam thought long and hard about the question. Not long ago, their fall back answer to each other was always the usual lie - "I'm fine". But these last couple of years, things had changed to the point where neither of them could make themselves believe the lie anymore, much less get the other to accept it. The truth was hard, but in a way, bit less painful without the lies behind it now.

Sam finally responded with, "No. I'm not okay. Not really. But when have we ever really been okay, right?"

"Well, speak for yourself, but this guy here had a full three and a half years of okay. Then this little bundle of jerk came along - yes, that being you - always needing his big brother. Dean, I can't tie my shoes. Dean I can't reach the milk. Dean, I can't see out the window. Always needy needy needy. Damn kid. Pain in the ass is what he was. Still is." Dean stuffed an extra large helping of flapjack goodness into his mouth, chewing sloppily and staring at Sam. "Huh? Am I right? I'm right. You know I'm right."

Another effort to not smile proved fruitless as Sam lost control of that portion of his face again and even puffed out a laugh. "You're such a bitch."

"Yup, I am. But you know it's true. You were a needy little thing back then. Just needing anything and everything. You remember that time when that you came crying home from school when that little redhead girl beat the crap out of you after you..."

"Okay, okay. Yeah, I get it. Don't...rehash that story again, please."

They both took a bite in unison, Dean raising his eyebrow at the symmetry of the moment.

"You were right though, Dean." Sam said after taking a taste of the ice cold chocolate milk that his brother had also set out for him.

"Yeah?"

"We need each other. More than ever right now. And no matter how things end or how I see them ending, that doesn't change. But, you have to know...I can't promise to find that hope again, Dean. I can't and I'm sorry."

"S'okay, Sammy. As long as it's you and me, together. That's all that matters. It's all that's ever mattered. We will figure it out, little brother. Just like we always do."

"Just like we always do." Sam agreed.

"Good. Now that our chick flick cells have been exposed and expelled yet again, let's finish breakfast and get to work on figuring our how to crack another rip in time. Mom's out there somewhere. Jack too. We'll find 'em. We will. You and me, Sammy."

Ending on the Sammy, Dean didn't say another word as he finished stuffing himself full of sugar and fat. After slurping up the excess syrup from the plate and putting it in the sink, he returned to the table and reached for Sam's empty plate. Then in an impulsive change of mind, he instead tossed an arm around his brother's neck and pulled him close for several long seconds.

"You and me, brother. Always."

"Always." Sam echoed, closing his eyes and focusing on the warmth of his family.

Together. As always.

The end