"Jameson"

Mystic25

"I think it got to me, Dean. I think I'm hungry for it..." "That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean…" "My Bloody Valentine" Post Detox. One Shot. Spoilers.

Rating: T for language and imagery.

A/N: "My Bloody Valentine" episode" is an old one, as well as this scenario. But it's what came from watching the episode on Netflix then reading too many post detox fics. So, I wanted to put my own idea out there. And I'm going on the assumption that the whisky Dean was drinking at the end was a bottle of Jameson.


"Steel to my trembling lips,

How did the night ever get like this?

One shot and the whiskey goes down, down, down…"

-Adam Lambert "Runnin'

"

"They look like big, strong hands, don't they?

I always thought that's what they were."

"Rock Biter" The Neverending Story.


A screech of metal.

A glug of liquid.

His muscles were gone to pain that rolls up and down his body like loose marbles lost in a game.

The world was iron, a rotating fan, and missing time.

The abused springs of the sweat dampened mattress squalled. It felt like its parts of his skin peeled off when he pulled himself up into a pathetic, hunched over excuse for sitting up.

He didn't look past his hands, until his shoulder was bumped, and a weather worn "hey" came from beside him, past the hair melted to his forehead with sweat.

He finally lifted his head, pushing past the weight that wanted to force it back down.

Dean's face was grey, cracked like old leather; his green eyes the only contrast to this.

Sam opened his mouth, wanting to say 'hey' back, but detox had stolen his voice. He tried to clear his throat, but it was so painful he almost threw up.

There was another glug of liquid; Dean held out a half full bottle of Jameson whiskey. Against a wall, on a wooden tv tray table brought from somewhere else was water in a clear plastic pitcher and a cup on top. The pitcher was full, and the cup was empty.

The water didn't look like water until just now. Sam hadn't even touched it. He wanted to stand up to drink it now, but he knew it was as useless pathetic as sitting up was. So, Sam took the whisky bottle from Dean and swallowed a burning mouthful, coughing, but it didn't go anywhere except down his throat. He hands off the bottle to Dean, who swallowed a larger mouthful than him.

The bottle glugged again.

"Dean-" Sam's voice was static, but it was there.

Dean held the bottle out to Sam "Sip it," it sounded like he was giving Sam directions to swallow Vick's cough syrup. "Shit's expensive. Bobby's top shelf stash."

"Whose roll are you trying to slow?" Sam's voice is still AM radio static, but his station is finally coming through. He spat something thick out from his mouth, it landed on his jeans, yellow and whitish, not red. He breathed out a heavy, shaking breath, sipping the whiskey with hands rubbed red and raw from pounding on the iron door more times than he could remember. "Dean-" Sam didn't let his older brother interrupt him again. "Look man-I'm…I'm sorry-" the whiskey bottle sat between his knees; he traced the lip of the bottle with his thumb. "I'm so sorry, I didn't want it, I swear."

Dean took the bottle away from Sam. "I know," He drank two mouthfuls in a single swallow. Only Winchester Stubbornness kept Dean from downing the entire bottle that first night. It was the only bottle of whisky in the house that he wanted to numb himself with, so he portioned it out with sips, watered it down in a tumbler with seltzer water, which was disgusting.

"I mean it." Sam's voice didn't sound any better after the sips of whiskey, but it also didn't sound any worse.

"I know Sammy."

For the first time Sam noticed Dean's face was crisscrossed with dried tear tracks; he looked so far beyond exhausted. Dean's bones held him up like a clothes hanger ready to fall off if moved too much in a certain direction.

"I tried to fight it." Sam had to let Dean know this. His brother didn't deserve to pay for his own fuck up.

"He got us both." Dean's voice was hollow. That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there. "We all have our gifts to be exploited man." Dean swallowed again, only a single swallow left in the bottle when he finished. He swung his eyes over to Sam and held the bottle out to him.

Sam took it without hesitation this time but didn't raise the bottle to his lips. "It's not a gift Dean, it's a curse, and it spilled over to you." He laughed, voice stronger, but still cracked. He swirled the last remains of the whiskey in the bottom of the dark amber glass. "This could be filled with holy water and bleach, and it still wouldn't do a damn thing." He threw the bottle against the wall. It wasn't as strong of a throw as it could have been, but it still shattered the bottle into pieces, shards of glass landed in the water filled pitcher.

Dean felt the shattered glass bore into the nothing inside of him, rattling and tumbling inside. He flinched with his next blink, watching his post demon blood detoxed little brother, expectant gaze, waiting. Waiting for Dean to blow up at him, leave him with a slam of the iron door, forgive him.

Dean pulled himself up on his feet, Sam observed him, bracing himself for what came next. Dean walked over to the pitcher of water, picked out a few shards of broken amber glass shards and poured water into the cup. "Do you remember the Never-Ending Story?"

Sam stared at Dean in confusion. Dean walked back over to the cot and handed Sam the water cup. "There was a Nothing that was destroying their world-We already finished off the booze Sammy, drink the water." He was very observant at the way his little brother just held the cup. Dean sank down on the floor next to the cot, one leg extended, the other bent up like a pitched tent.

Sam sipped the water, he wanted to give himself a moment to process where Dean was going with this. After the first sip, he realized how thirsty he was, and gulped it down so fast, it the front of plaid his shirt and he choked.

"Hey-" Dean leant over and slapped Sam's knee. "Vomiting that up won't do you any good." He watched Sam swallow, Adam's apple bobbing like a cork. Once he was certain his brother wasn't going to asphyxiate, Dean poured him another cup of water this time hovering in a squat and watched as Sam drank.

Sam still drank in a hurry but not at a blurring speed like before. He wiped the back of his arm across his mouth, a stain of red now tattooed across his skin. He suddenly remembered what his mouth was coated in.

Dean handed him a blue bandana.

"Thanks." Sam circled the inside of the cup with the bandana to wet it with the last of the water. "What about it?" His mouth was partly hidden behind the bandana as he tried to scrub the traces of demon blood off his mouth wondering if it would ever come off even if he scoured his mouth down to the bone. "The Neverending Story… The Nothing?"

"It was blackness, empty-" Dean found Sam's gaze and held it there.

"I don't have a Nothing Dean, I have an Everything. I'm the one who started the apocalypse, the boy with the demon blood, the junkie boy with the demon blood." Sam stopped wiping his mouth, the bandana hanging still in his left hand.

"Sammy, I didn't mean you." Dean was upset, voice whisper thin.

"Dean you don't have to do this, try to protect me, this is my fuck up-"

"Damnit Sammy, I don't mean you!" Dean sighed, angry, exhausted, and went back to sitting on the floor facing the cot. He stretched one leg stretched out enough that his boots brushed against Sam's. "It wasn't your fault. Famine screwed with you. Look at Cas, Jimmy Novack had a thing for ground beef, and it was strong enough for Famine to affect a fucking angel. You never stop being an addict, Sam, you just learn to handle it."

Sam laughed, his voice stronger, but no less painful. "What I did was everything opposite of handling it."

"Is that what you think?"

"That's what I know Dean. You handled it. Famine couldn't touch you; you were too strong to let him."

"I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already...dead."

Sam felt like he'd been washed in sweat and run through a mangle. Despite his wiping with Dean's bandana, a red ring was still around his mouth. "Dean?" Sam's head was heavy as bowling balls stacked on top of each other, caving in his skull, putting his brain through a meat grinder. Dean didn't answer, Sam blinked and tried again, suddenly understanding what Dean was talking about. "Dean-?" His head moved, his brain squashed, he looked at his brother.

"I," Dean lost his brother's gaze the second after he found it. He swallowed a glob of salvia that was a precursor for vomiting. "I- I just need some air. His words to Cas repeated themselves. He stood up like he'd forgotten how to. Sam's stricken look rung through him like an anvil. He slapped Sam on the shoulder, the same way he'd done right after he handcuffed his brother to the sink pipes in the hotel. "I'll be back, okay?" He stepped out of the room on brown boots hoping that Sam gained some reassurance because it was all Dean was able to offer.

Dean didn't look back at Sam, but he left the iron door open, and that counted for something. Also being handcuffed only for the single seizure Sam remembered having- last night-? Was it last night? –two nights ago? The Jameson bottle was like an hourglass, how full it had been at, and how full it had been left at; he regretted smashing it. His hands sat in his lap; his fingers tapped in one body against his jeans; an after effect of the detox.

"Guys, help!"

"Dean…Cas…Cas if you're there…Help!"

He closed both hands into fists, his fingers drummed inside his grip.

He closed his eyes, hoping to quiet the memories of how desperate he'd sounded when he'd still been alone. He didn't want to remember the weakness he thought he had escaped from.

Steps entered through the doorway and into the room. Sam's eyes had opened before Dean called his name. His fingers buzzed like a swarm of bees in the hive made of his fists.

"Hey-"

This time Sam looked up. Dean was back inside the panic room with a cache- A black labeled bottle in one hand, two glass tumblers in the other, a granola bar in one glass, an orange pill bottle in the other, and a white hand towel that hung over one shoulder.

"You look like a busboy."

"Yeah, well you look like stomped over crap." Dean set everything down on the little table by the cot. His joking tone reached everywhere besides his eyes. He took one step and handed the white towel to Sam.

The towel was wet with hot water, lightly steaming like it had just come out of the oven. It calmed the drumming inside his fists.

"Get cleaned up," Dean distracted himself from Famine's words, uncapping the whisky bottle. "It's last call."

"How much liquor are you going to steal from Bobby?"

"Cas swung this," He spilled out the granola bars and pill bottle onto the table and poured the Jameson in both tumblers to the halfway mark. "I think it was his way of apologizing from eating too many burgers. For a nerdy angel, he's becoming a damn good thief." He doled out two oblong pills from the orange bottle and closed them up in one hand, walking the two whiskey glasses over to Sam.

Sam stopped scrubbing at his mouth when he saw Dean approach with the tumblers of whiskey. His skin was raw from all the scrubbing, and there was more blood on the white towel than he hoped was on his face. He took the tumbler of whiskey Dean held out for him, as well as the pills slid into his other hand.

Sam gave the pills a calculating look. "What are these?" The bottle they came out of was labels-less.

"Efficient."

Sam didn't ask any more questions and swallowed the pills down with the alcohol. "This is starting to become my favorite liquor."

"Welcome to the club man." Dean's voice was flat; his glass was held out to Sam at a tilted angle. Sam clinked his against Dean's; they drank simultaneously. The whiskey burn still came, despite Dean's thoughts that he'd finally become immune from it because he'd drank so much over the all the time Sam had been locked down in detox.

Sam swallowed more Jameson, but it stopped being soothing and only made him thirsty. The pitcher was still halfway full of water, and he set his sights on it. He braced his arms against the cot and started pulling himself up.

"What the hell?"

Dean either set down the tumbler or he dropped it, Sam's ears started pulsating with a headache so he couldn't really tell.

"Sammy, what the hell are you doing?"

"I wanted some water."

"You should've asked for help."

"Dean I can get my own water." Sam was vertical but then tipped backwards like a downward teeter-totter. He ended up right back where he started. He could suck out demons, survive the repercussions, but he couldn't get a damn glass of water on his own.

Dean's face was blunted affect. No anger, no sadness, no rage, no…nothing. He poured the water out of the pitcher with a glug, filling the cup to very near the edge of the fill line.

Sam took the cup when Dean walked it back to him, drinking at a pace that would sate his thirst without any side effects. This time when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, it was light pink. "Dean-"

"Are the pain pills working?" Dean redirected. "Because three more would only succeed twice the recommended dosage."

"Dean, they're fine."

"Are you saying that because it's true, or because you're high?"

"Being high kinda makes it true, man."

"Touche." Dean held up the granola bar he'd brought down. "You think you can eat this? Chocolate chip, your favorite, at least it was when you were seven."

"Maybe later-Dean…

"…."

Dean's empty sigh was a sentence.

"You're not-you're not nothing man-"

"Oh I am. I know I am, a whole stinking deep darkness of nothing."

"Famine got to all of us Dean. Look where I am-" Sam felt the stickiness of sweat and blood all over him. "What I had to get rid of again."

"Because you had something to get rid of! No matter how much it fucking hurt because I heard you scream about it."

"Dean help me….please..ple...ase!"

"Sammy, even with all that hell you had something to purge out of your system. I can't purge out this emptiness, man. This hollow black and empty nothing inside me, it's not gonna go away no matter how many horseman's rings we chop off."

"So, what, you're just gonna give up?"

"I have nothing to give up on."

"Exactly Dean, you have nothing to give up on-" Sam's voice sounded passed through a cheese grater. His head ducked down between his shoulders; he spat out a wet glob of saliva. It became a catalyst, one he tried to stop because his throat was painful enough without throwing up again. But it couldn't be held back. It came up an off-white liquid, tinged dark pink, smelling like whiskey, water-two pristine pain pills floating in the swill.

Some of it had splattered the tips of Dean's shoes, along with speckles of red. He coughed again, and this time it was streaked with blood. Sam's eyes went wide.

"Dean I swear I thought it was over. Sam's voice got even raspier, sounding almost terrified. "You gotta believe me man. Cas said it was done."

"Dean, Sam just has to get it out of his system, then he'll be…"

"I promise, I wasn't trying to escape from all this, I promise." Sam barely had a voice, but he still babbled, afraid he wouldn't be believed. Or even worse, the dragonfly wing thin moment of understanding that was starting to come out would be torn apart.

He talked so rapid fire, nerves becoming alive in fear that when Dean touched his shoulder he jumped and recoiled and almost fell off the cot.

Dean braced an arm across Sam's collar bone so it wouldn't happen. "Easy dude, take a breath." He held another cup of water in his hand. This time when Sam went to drink it Dean kept his hand on the cup. "You screamed for a long time probably threw up for the same amount of time. Your throat is shredded Sammy, its gonna bleed, it's not demon blood."

Sam wiped a speck of blood off the corner of his lip. Had he not been in a state of post demon blood bender detox, he might have remembered that. But he'd been down here for hours, days worth of screaming and hallucinating. Hallucinations of strangling Dean to death in the honeymoon suite, being the demon that Bobby had stabbed himself in the leg to escape from. Dean slicing his throat with a bowie knife, holding a glass up to his escaping blood. Drinking it to see what all the hype was about.

Dean nudged his shoulder again, and Sam tried to refrain himself from jumping. There was another cup of water in his hand, water not blood. But it was opaque, like watered down milk. "What is it?"

"Drink it,"I crushed up two more pain pills and mixed them with water. Not as effective as swallowing them whole, but they won't be effective at all if you hurl again." Dean eyed the cloudy water in the cup "Looks like those Alka-Seltzer tablets that dad use to make us take for everything." He made a face. "You might wanna pinch your nose before you down it."

Dean passed Sam the cup and watched Sam swirl the mixture around before downing it in two large mouthfuls, wishing he had listened to Dean and pinch his nose first because the taste wanted to make him vomit again. But the concoction stayed down.

"So, what now?" Sam asked, his face still puckered a bit from the water. "I think Bobby's got a pack of playing cards down here, we could play Texas Hold'em."

"What would we bet on?"

"How about beating the apocalypse?"

"Yeah, there's that." Dean had sat back down on the floor with the liquor bottle in his hand, boots brushing Sam's again. That is until Sam scooted off the cot and dropped on the concrete floor with an ungraceful clunk across from Dean.

"Dude," Dean pulled forward, legs bent so he had more clearance to lean forward. "What exactly you trying to do?"

"Sit on the floor, what's it look like?" mock annoyance rang through Sam's voice like a struck church bell.

"Trying to kill your already abused muscles. It's not exactly the Ritz Carlton down here."

"It's not exactly the Ritz Carlton up their either." Sam moved a few increments to his left to give Dean some room before he leant his back against the metal clot and stretched his legs fully out loosely crossing one boot over the other.

Dean had scooted over the same time Sam did, only in the opposite direction. This left around a half foot gap between them, legs stretched out, feet crossed. Their posture mirrors of each other. Dean hands rested on his knees, one held up high to hold the still almost halfway full bottle of Jameson on his left one. This time he just looked at the bottle and sat it down on the floor next to his legs.

Sam fiddled at the wristband of his black watch to try and stop his fingers from starting up their shaking again. "Dean you're not nothing," Sam went right for the jugular of what he wanted Dean to know. "The Neverending Story" is just a story Dean. That Nothing, it's not what you are," Sam reached for the liquor bottle by Dean, taking a sip this time instead of a full shot.

"So then what am I Sammy?"

"You." Sam let the bottle drop to his side. "If you were only a deep, dark nothing, you wouldn't be sitting with your demon blood addicted brother despite every valid reason you shouldn't." Sam leant back more against the side of the cot. Waiting for an affirmation- Dean wasn't allowed to think of himself as an empty infrastructure, that was Sam's job to think about himself.

For the first time since Dean had come into the panic room a shrugged laugh came to his lips. "I'm me? Thanks for that reminder."

"I'm serious." Sam raised the liquor bottle to his lips but thought better of it when a sharp pain slammed his brain into the side of his skull and almost made him throw up again. He passed the bottle to Dean.

Dean took the bottle by the neck. He swallowed more liquor, but as small of a sip as Sam. Despite the industrial fan blowing from the ceiling the room was warm. A product of the Jameson Dean had replaced the blood in his veins. Sam stared across from him, sweat trickling down the side of his ears, dripping into the back of his flannel shirt. He pawed at it, fingers skirting over the buttons.

"How long have I been down here?" Sam tried to internally answer his own question, but his brain was melted.

"Two days."

Sam processed this, fiddling again with the buttons of his shirt. The fabric stunk, he wanted to take it off. But his reserves had dissipated at some point during all the time he'd screamed. Being so tired and drained was embarrassing, but he wanted out of this fucking shirt.

"I need your pocketknife."

Dean's attention grew sharp like an abstract painting that suddenly came into focus. "Sam," At a loss for anything else to say, he said his little brother's name.

"I need out of this damn shirt," Sam plucked at the shirt again which was so damp with sweat it barely moved under his fingers. "It's not coming off any other way, and I need it off."

He watched in stunned belief as Dean dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled his knife out and flipped the blade out with a swish.

Sam suddenly wished that he hadn't asked. The memory of Dean getting close to him by that rotting grey wooden dock beside lapping oily skinned water with Ruby's knife. They had rebuilt a lot since that return, but he'd be lying if pinpricks of panic didn't run up his spine whenever Dean pulled out a weapon. A quick hesitated breath that Dean would turn it on him, stab or shoot him because he couldn't hold it back anymore.

Dean scooted closer to him, instead of handing him the knife, he kept it in his hand. "Get up…"

Sam didn't understand. He did his best to comply, scrambling until he was on his feet, wobbly. But it didn't hurt as badly as he thought it would.

Dean now stood beside him, the knife in his hand, the blade down. He raised it a moment later, the blade closing the gap between them. "Don't move-" the blade moved through the fabric of Sam's shirt, cutting it from the gap left by the v neck, moving down.

Sam was baffled to the point of thinking what the hell? He held his breath, kept still, remembering the hallucination-the one where a demon flayed his skin off slowly with a large knife with a pitch-black handle, blood and sinew falling in plops to the floor.

The swift slash sound of the knife ended, and Sam's shirt was now cut completely down the middle exposing the grey undershirt that had been underneath.

"You good?" Dean flicked the knife blade back closed "You want me to turn around?"

"It's fine," Sam pulled apart the fabric created by Dean's cut, struggling with the pulling himself out of the sleeves like he was trying to escape from a straight jacket. Finally, after tugging, and cursing more than he normally ever did; the fabric pulled apart from his skin. He bundled the sticky, sweaty mess onto the floor until he could find a place to burn it. The grey T-shirt he was wearing smelled just as bad as his flannel, but he was cooler with it on. "Thanks."

Dean pocketed the knife. "Like I said, we all have our gifts."

Sam sat down on the cot with a squawk of springs. "You can't have a gift if you're one Deep Dark Nothing, Dean."

"Okay mom."

Sam felt cooler down to his shirt sleeves, but the drying sweat started making it too cold and he couldn't hide the tremble that raised goosebumps up and down his arms.

Dean turned and left the Panic Room so abruptly that Sam had only seconds to process it. Had he pushed Dean too far? Sam was the 'talk about your feelings' part of their duo. Dean shut down when something affected him this deeply. His walls were only rivaled by the Panic Room's. Dean had left the door open, and Sam stared into the half-light above Bobby's shop sink and wondered if his brother would come back at all because Sam pushed him too far.

A handful of minutes later Dean's boots announced his return down the stairs. He stepped back through the doorway with a green army blanket draped across one arm, handing off the bundle to Sam. Sam shook out the non-existent dust from the green wool, wrapping it around himself until he resembled a little brother burrito.

'Thanks."

"So, the Neverending Story? That's now an allegory we can add to our wheelhouse?" Sam said.

"Minus the Rock Biter and the Racing Snail."

Sam laughed with a gravel-road-under-tires noise.

Dean handed him a bottle of water he'd picked up from upstairs along with the blanket.

"The Nothing swallowed everything in Fantasia, Everything except that one grain in the Empress hand." Sam cracked open the water bottle, spilling some on his fingers. Sam swallowed two large mouthfuls of water. It was slightly cooler than room temperature and it stayed down.

Dean rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe off the weariness like it was a smudge of oil from the Impala's engine. He sat down beside Sam in the bed that was too small for either one of them.

"Sammy, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But there's no detox for this man. That first night when you were locked in here. I stood out there and listened to you scream, scream for Cas, scream for me." He found Sam's hazel eyes, glinting off the light in the room. Doing its best to hold off the surrounding grayness.

Dean, please, please still be there..I can't do this again…I can't do this again!"

"And there was nothing I could do. I had nothing inside me to do it with, I even tried praying, and-nothing, god's secretary didn't even pick up the phone."

Sam's expression perked up beside Dean at the mention of him praying. Dean was not religious, even when the Judeo-Christian religion End of Days was currently being shoved down their throats.

"I have to make my peace with it, Sammy. Or I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I-you and I, need to beat this apocalypse, I've fought with nothing before, and I can do it again."

"You're full of crap." Sam cut Dean off.

Dean was silent, waiting to see where Sam would go with that remark.

"Dean, that small grain of Fantasia in the Empress's hand; it was nothing, until it wasn't…"

"I thought you said the Neverending Story was just a story."

"Shut up and let me finish, I'm running out of steam here." Sam's breathing was shallow, pained, his voice was about to completely break down on him. Dean handed another bottle of water and Sam drank it down like a waterspout sucking up the water from an ocean. "You have nothing inside you Dean, except a small grain. It wasn't burgers, or demon blood-" Sam slowly wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, relieved when it didn't come back red. "It was so small Famine thought there was nothing there. And that's why he told you what he did. That and he's a dick on a rascal scooter." Sam's voice finally died from a whisper to a completely reedy noise.

Dean laughed, it was more of a chuckle. But it brought out long packed away laugh lines around his eyes. He didn't want to believe Sam was saying. Not because he thought Sam was lying or trying to manipulate him. Because Sam's eyes were still so damn hopeful, and that's what Dean was most afraid of. For his little brother to be so hopeful and him having nothing to give back. The kid sat beside him with a nonfunctional voice, wrapped in an army blanket, smelling like sweat had sex with a locker room, looking like he would lose a fight with air. But he wouldn't give up on him.

They finished the bottle of Jameson between them. Dean couldn't tell if Sam was drunk or in post demon blood detox hell. But the redness of his cheeks told some of the story. The shivers he saw under the blanket earlier had slowed and his breathing had slowed to a regular level. Jameson seemed to help with Demon Blood detox. It wasn't the hair of the dog, but it was still knowledge to pack away. He never wanted to use this knowledge on Sam again, but sadly he was sure he might have too.

"Don't take this wrong way bro, but you need to shower, and maybe burn those clothes."

Sam mimed a laugh in place of the voice he no longer had. He plucked at his shirt like he wanted to follow through with Dean's request but was too tired to do anything but sit there and be too tired.

"Yeah, you're right. Tomorrow's better." Dean knew what Sam was thinking even without him saying anything.

Sam was grateful that this was one connection that was still there. The blanket fell off him like a wilted flower petal. Sam gripped the edge of the mattress, trying to not white knuckle it, but of course he failed, and of course Dean noticed. Dean pulled Sam's hand that was closest to him, transferring the grip on the mattress to a grip on his lower bicep. Sam reached his grip to hold onto Dean's elbow. He looked deflated just from that one gesture.

"You good?"

"Great," Sam sounded like he ran the Impala over the entire woodwind section of an orchestra.

The warmth of the Jameson he'd drank with Dean traveled up and down his body, as with Dean's help, he laid back down on the cot with only a few reedy sounding swear words. He pulled one leg up over and onto the cot, Dean dumping, gently dumping his other leg onto the cot.

"You good?" Sam repeated, coughing with a rasp.

Luckily, Dean spoke all things Sam because his little brother sounded like a meat grinder being put through another meat grinder.

"Golden." Dean unlaced Sam's brown leather boots without asking and set them on the cement floor by their laces. Sam looked like he didn't believe him. But Dean was talked out for the moment, preferring to leave it at Sam calling Famine a dick on a rascal scooter because he found it funny.

"You need to hit the head before we finish this?" Dean silently cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. Bobby had what equated to a wooden outhouse, only with a functional toilet tucked behind the lower stairs. It wasn't that far, less than 10 feet or so outside the panic room. But the logistics of putting Sam's boots back on and getting his wobbly legs to move enough to reach the little room wasn't a simple thing.

But Dean's words were a catalyst; Sam shook his head in confirmation, so Dean put his plan into action. He didn't bother with Sam's boots and walked with him in his socks in a wobbly shuffle to the toilet. Once they got there Sam managed the rest of the operation on his own and he was in there for quite a while, bracing his arms onto the sides of the cedar plywood that made up the room. Liquor went through Sam like water; Dean tick off making Sam a batch of patented Winchester Hang-Over cure all: An alcohol-free Bloody Mary with cayenne, tabasco sauce, seltzer water for hydration and Chinese Kudzu root powder. Defiantly going in a Styrofoam cup because of its viscosity and red color. With one of those fat plastic smoothie straws Sam had stolen from somewhere where they had burgers and Sam Food.

Dean was cut off mid thought by Sam zipping back up, glad Sam didn't need his help. Dean would've helped him if it came to that, but he really would rather not.

'"You turn off the sprinkler before you put the hose away?"

"Dude," Sam reached for the shop rag on top of the toilet tank, wiping it across his hands. It wasn't wet, but was better than nothing, especially because he didn't think he could make it the few feet to the aluminum shop sink. He folded the white rag and placed it back on the toilet lid.

With the help of the four-inch plywood wood walls surrounding the toilet, Sam stepped backwards like a car in reverse. One of his socked covered feet bumped against the toe of Dean's boot.

Dean held the back of Sam's grey shirt in one hand between Sam's shoulder blades. Between the two of them Sam successfully came out of the enclosure, even spared Sam's head from whacking against the back end of the stairs.

"Ready for the return trip?" Dean still had his hand on Sam but moved it from the back of his shirt to a tight grip over his shoulder.

"Guess I'm about to find out." Sam managed in a rough whisper, laughing it off as best he could. He leant into Dean's weight and walked with a slow shuffle towards the panic room. Sam never thought he'd be glad to come back inside it, but here this scenario was.

Sam made it back towards the cot, the bottom of his socks damp from things he'd rather not think about. The sweat on his body had dried to a caramel-like coating and he visibly trembled, sitting down on the mattress. He felt like his body had met the back of nine different walls. He pulled the blanket back over himself. Even with the blanket, he still trembled. The lights in the room swirled in a kaleidoscope of red and white and he was dizzy enough to drop his head and try and shut it out, hoping that a second round of detox was about to happen.

Sam's heartbeat thumped like a tight drum through both his ears, so he missed what happened next.

Dean took his leather jacket from off the back of a chair and draped it over Sam like a cape. Sam opened his eyes and didn't look any worse, so points to Dean for being a semi-functioning big brother. "You sweat on it, you're dead." Dean didn't like the way Sam flinched after he said this, but he couldn't ignore it. He'd forgiven Sam, but he wasn't going to ignore why they were both in this room in the first place. Sam fingered the worn cracked leather that used to be their dad's, but Dean had lay claim to it a long time ago.

"Thanks," Sam said.

"Yeah," Dean dropped back to where he'd been originally sitting, bending one knee up beside his other leg resting his arm across it. There were some struggling noises, Sam was trying to pull his legs up on the cot to sit cross legged, struggling like a butterfly getting out of its cocoon. Eventually his struggling changed course and landed him with a thud onto the iron floor. But he didn't look like it bothered or pissed him off at all. On the contrary, he looked rather proud of himself. Sam folded out Dean's coat like leathery wings and freed his legs enough to cross his socked feet underneath him.

"What?" He caught Dean looking at him.

"A dick on a rascal scooter?" Dean looked at Sam in dry amusement, handing off a bottle of water. "We should put that on a t-shirt." He didn't voice why Sam wanted to fall onto the floor, and Sam didn't volunteer.

Sam laughed a dry echo. His fingers shook on the bottle cap as he cracked it open, trickles of water spilled out onto his fingers. He had already drunk half of the bottle; but he still sniffed it to make sure that's all it was. In his hallucinations, the demons Famine had sent him in the hotel poured a full tumbler of water, and Sam was so thirsty that he snatched the glass like a greedy child and gulped. The water started tasting metallic; the liquid in the cup was now pure red. He spat the blood from his mouth spraying it everywhere. The demon in the female meat suit smiled. "Sammy needs to drink his Kool-Aid before he can go out and play."

The water didn't taste like anything; Sam drank nearly the rest of it in one swallow. He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand and looked up and the whirring metal blades of the Devil's Trap ceiling. It suddenly felt like months ago when he had gone through his first detox, where Dean was a hallucination and not real. Where Sam didn't deserve either version of his brother there.

"You don't deserve it Sam. You were clean man, you didn't fall of the wagon, that bastard shoved you off at two hundred miles an hour. And there was nothing I could do to help because I don't have nothing-"

"Dean shut up." Sam's surprised that he was even able to talk at all, even if each word didn't feel like choking out dry straw. "I didn't tell you all that about the Neverending Story for you to throw all my words away. Famine knew you for what, an hour? Dean, I've known you for 26 years, that's my entire life. You're not nothing man, you're not a nothing, you've never been that to me. Even now, with all the shit I've done with Ruby… with starting the apocalypse-You're still hanging around The Boy With the Demon Blood; Michael's Vessel and Lucifer's Meatsuit. So, stow your crap, I mean it. And it's 'I don't have anything.'"

Dean rolled his eyes, but not hard, or angry. "You've always been a perceptive little shit."

"Where did you think I learned it from?" Sam wiggled himself back until he was leaning against the head of the bedframe of the cot from the mid-shoulders down.

"You plan on sleeping like that?"

"I was considering it." Sam closed his eyes.

"At least go horizontal, you look like Gumby melted."

Sam opened his eyes again. He was crammed on the floor and against the side of the bed like modeling clay. "Give me a minute to work out the logistics of that and I'll get right on it."

Dean gave a brief eye roll and pulled up slightly into a squat. He snatched the leather jacket off where it had landed in the tangle that was Sam's knees and legs.

"Dude-?" Sam's voice was back down to almost nothing, but he still managed to sound indignant. "What the hell?"

"You're not the only one in this family who can logic things."

The word family stuck in Sam's mind like peanut butter. He didn't know if it was unconscious or deliberate, but Dean still said it. How long ago had either of them said it? He didn't realize how much weight a single word could carry. Maybe that's why Dean believed Famine in the first place. Because if he were nothing, then things like family, betrayal couldn't touch him. Basically, Dean was acting like a fucking idiot.

Dean tossed his jacket on the floor by Sam's left side. "Head here, you need help?" Dean helping Sam was his default setting, even after Sam had to be locked down again.

Sam shook his head, which felt like it was weighed down with iron pellets. Lying down wouldn't be an issue if he managed his descent and landing. Thankfully he could because his head hurt enough already without whacking it against the floor.

"You drunk?" Dean asked, completely direct.

Sam stopped midway through closing his eyes. The Jameson burned warmly in his stomach, and his face felt warm and flushed. But it was hard to untangle if it was the whiskey or the demon bender withdrawal causing it. Maybe it was both.

"Yeah, yeah, stupid question," Dean was somehow untangling Sam's tightly wound legs and got them laying down into a much more comfortable position. He unfurled out the army blanket like the skirt of a wedding dress, and it landed on Sam with a quick flutter of air. "But I still had to ask. Big Brother Code and all."

They were both surprised at Dean's admittance.

"I wasn't sure if you still needed that." Sam's voice was a graveled whisper. He coughed like a frog with phlegm in its throat. He set a bent arm over his eyes, acting like he did it because the light hurt. them "I mean, it's not like I've given you many chances to use it lately."

Dean hadn't felt like a brother in two years, plus forty more, and defiantly not a big brother. All last year he felt like the albatross around Sam's neck, stopping his plan to avenge Dean's death, to fix things. Even after sleeping with a demon scank who hooked him on something even stronger than the purest form of cocaine, Sam insisted he was helping to save lives. To make sure Dean's sacrifice meant something. Dean was the means for Sam to get what he wanted even if Sam was willing to sacrifice it all in the process.

Then it all went to shit. Killing Lillith broke the final seal, Lucifer walked the earth because of Sam and his goddamn self-righteous attitude that sacrificed it all like Sam wanted. But that six billion people sure as hell didn't want. Sam fucked up major, was now an actual albatross around Dean's neck crushing Dean with weight he couldn't hold up. Wanting to have Dean back as a brother when he had no right; when all Dean wanted was to break Sam's nose because he had every right.

"That goes both ways, Sammy."

Sam looked oddly puzzled. "You wanted me to be your big brother?"

"Okay, you're definitely drunk." Dean rolled his eyes in frustration, but not anger "I want to be your big brother again dumbass. But you gotta meet me halfway man. Prove to me that this Nothing Famine claims about me is just part of a cheesy 80's flick."

"It's also a book Dean."

"Sam-"

"Sorry." Sam said with sheepish guilt. "I think you're right, I'm probably drunk. But I'm going to prove it to you Dean, all of it. I promise."

Dean took a long breath, and the next thing he said he really, meant: "I know." He wiped a hand around the outside perimeter of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. He watched as Sam fell asleep, tucking in a stray piece of green cotton blanket that had flapped open by Sam's right bicep. Satisfied, Dean leant back against the wall behind him. He carefully unfolded his legs out behind Sam, boots behind Sam's head. He fell asleep a few minutes later, arms across his chest.


End.

A/N: I've been gone a very long time from this site, so I know some of the people who used to regularly read my fics and offer reviews have deleted their accounts. Not gonna lie, it kinda hurt my feelings a tad bit. But I've started coming back to writing again because I remember how much I love it. And I hope that new readers will find their way to my stuff. I would love reviews, but I' not going to jump up and down on my bed and throw a tantrum if I don't get any.

And finally, the Never-Ending Story was a very intriguing movie to watch as a kid and felt appropriate. This was never meant to be a neatly wrapped up fic, just something I felt would happen between them.