Work Text:
Their boots leave heavy footprints in the snow as they trek down the sidewalk, dark wool coats and bureaucratic ties flapping in the wind. The air is crisp and dry, and the cheap, moth-eaten gloves on their hands aren’t keeping the skin on their knuckles from cracking.
Dean notices it first.
“Dude, your nose.”
“What?”
The two brothers stop in their tracks.
“Your nose, it’s bleeding.”
Sam reaches up to touch it, stares dumbly at his fingertips when they come away bloody, matting the thread in his gloves. Crimson dribbles into his palm, seeping into the fabric, and the ground rushes up at him as his legs buckle.
“Woah, woah—“ Dean catches him around the armpits, guides him slowly to his knees. “Easy, buddy, take it easy.“
Sam’s vision blurs and everything blends in with the snow. It's a stark, blinding white, punctuated by the fat drops of blood that are beginning to decorate the ground beneath him. Images of pulling demons from their hosts and the strain it had put on his body flicker through his thoughts. The pulsing in his head, the ringing in his ears, the dark and tainted red that leaked down to his lips, the smoke, and Ruby.
He hates remembering her.
She used to put ice to his nose and cheeks if the bleeding didn’t stop right away.
Lean forward, she said, and pinch your nose together. And don’t pass out on me.
She’d smooth his hair back and kiss him, gentle and reassuring. She’d been the greatest source of comfort when his brother was gone, and it had all turned out to be one big lie.
The blood running down his chin is hot and sticky, and the overpowering smell of copper makes his stomach turn over. He doesn’t want to vomit, but he really thinks he might, and he struggles to breathe through his mouth as he holds his wrist to his nose. He struggles to fight back the crushing panic.
“Jesus, Sam, your blood is freakin’ everywhere,” Dean says. There’s worry in his tone and it only increases Sam’s own anxiety. “Here, use this, okay?”
Dean presses a black bandana into Sam’s hand, and Sam wonders vaguely if Dean carries one around at all times for situations such as these. He wonders if he’s that predictable, that Dean knows to always be prepared, because his little brother could shatter at any given moment—and he wonders if it’s not that at all. Maybe it’s part of Dean’s internal wiring, the same way a mother can translate her child’s cries. Maybe this is just something Dean knows how to do.
Sam presses the bandana to his nose and pinches hard. Dizziness is washing over him, wave after wave, and a cold sweat has broken over his skin. Some of the blood slides down his throat, leaving a thick, slimy feeling on his tongue, and he chokes on it.
“You’re fine, Sammy,” Dean tells him, and there’s no gruffness in his tone to suggest that he’s frustrated. If anything, his words are meant to stabilize and support. “We’ll sit here a minute ‘till you get the bleeding under control.”
His chest tightens, and tightens, and tightens. Sweat blooms at his temples, the nape of his neck, and he sways.
“Dean,” he forces out, slurred and muffled from the bandana. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. C’mon, deep breaths through your mouth. You can do it.”
He's all too aware of how nuts he must look right now, knows Dean must have a million questions, and he’s grateful that Dean isn’t making him answer any of them. His eyes dart around the scenery, pupils dilating and constricting. He’s searching for a sign-- another body lying prone in the pillowy white snow. He doesn’t trust himself to remember whether he’d hurt someone or not.
“Did I—“ He swallows and it's like molasses, tastes like copper. He’s reminded of the way Ruby’s blood had gone down his throat so smooth, and he almost gags. “I didn’t—didn’t exorcise anyone, did I?”
Dean’s brows knit together. “What? Why would you think that?”
Sam only shakes his head and reaches for his brother’s shoulder to keep him from pitching to one side or the other.
“It’s the middle of January, Sam, and it’s cold as balls outside. That’s why you’re bleeding—not ‘cause you kicked some demon’s ass back to Hell with that weird sixth sense of yours, or whatever.”
He realizes he’s not making sense, and that he probably couldn’t exorcise a rat given his current state, but fear is never based on logic. The brain, as complex and powerful as it is, falls victim to far too many tricks. He’s been wired to think it happened again, I fucked up and I’m a monster and I’m dying when his nose starts to bleed, and he can’t pull himself out of that train of thought. He’s stuck in that despairing, horrific loop.
“C’mon, let me take a peak, see how much you’re still bleeding.” Dean tugs a little at Sam’s hand, which is clenching the bandana tight around his nose, and looks at the fabric. “See? Look at that, it’s already slowing down.”
Still, moisture buds in the corners of his eyes and slips down his face, and he can’t do anything to stop it. His fear has manifested into something tangible within him, something sharp and solid in his throat, forcing it to close up and choke him.
“Hey, no, none of that.” Dean’s thumbs are cold as they wipe across Sam’s cheeks in one fluid motion. “If you start crying, you’ll get all juiced up, and you won’t be able to calm down.”
“I already can’t calm down,” Sam bites back with as much force as he can muster. His grip on his nose loosens slightly in the process, sending a soft spatter of blood across his thighs. Nausea clenches his stomach as he watches red seep into his pants. “I’m—I’m gonna be sick, I gonna—“
“Sam, look at me.” Dean takes his little brother by the chin, startling green meeting quivering hazel. “Nothing’s wrong with you. We’re freezing our asses out here, and you’re getting your blood all over creation, but you’re fine. You’ll be fine. This’ll pass, and until then, I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”
It shouldn’t be this big of a deal, he thinks. Normal people don’t have a psychological breakdown in the middle of the sidewalk just because of a nosebleed. But then again, he’s kidding himself if he’s trying to aim for ‘normal.’
Sam says “I’m sorry” on an exhale, with the unspoken words I’m such a freak hanging between the two of them, a dangling connotation that looms and puts a weight on his shoulders. He’s sweating through his bottom two layers and he’s too afraid to check if the bleeding has stopped—like if he moves, all his sins will come pouring out of him in a rush of blood. Nobody wants that, least of all him; he hates the idea of his mistakes painted across the ground for anyone to see, strange crimson flowers with graceless petals that creep and shift through the snow.
“C’mon,” Dean barges into Sam’s derailing thoughts and has them coming to a screeching halt. “Let’s get you someplace warm and you can get cleaned up.”
“N-no.” He grabs Dean by the arm when he tries to stand. “Not—not here, not with everyone watching.” He’s wobbly and weepy and sick to his stomach, and it’s humiliating enough to break down like this in front of Dean. If he starts crying again, or if he vomits, and other people are around to see it, he could drop dead from the sheer measure of shame.
Dean stays quiet for a second. He might not want to deal with him on his own, Sam thinks, only to have the situation worsen once they're away from the scrutiny of strangers.
“Okay,” he yields, “okay, I’ll pull the car around.”
Sam only remains alert for the familiar squeal of car tires as he sits by the curb with his head resting on his knees, feeling well and truly alone.
He keeps touching his nose to the back of his wrist even hours after the bleeding has stopped.
“You wanna tell me what that was about back there, or am I supposed to think that it was normal?”
Nothing about me is normal.
His gaze narrows on the beer bottle in Dean’s hand, that perpetual beer bottle, always half-empty and cold, and the part of him that knows exactly how to piss off his brother switches on, takes control. “Unless you feel like sitting down and talking about your alcohol problem, I don’t think I owe you an explanation.”
Shock and hurt flicker through Dean’s eyes, but then that fraction of a second is over, and it changes to exasperation. “It’s not a problem, and you know what? Screw you. You wanna lie through your teeth to me, that’s fine. I’m done trying to figure you out.”
“You’re talking about me lying through my teeth? That’s bullshit and you know it,” Sam calls out as Dean storms out, slamming the motel door behind him. His face is hot with anger, and the bridge of his nose burns with dull irritation from the sharp air. He brushes his fingers against the bottom of his nose again and draws away, looking for blood.
He dreams of drowning in it, sinking in lakes of it, and the devil slithers through his ears and makes a home in his mind, whispers and hisses. He can’t breathe and there’s blood at the back of his throat and he’s forced to swallow it.
The scene changes.
He’s curled up on a bed and Ruby holds him as he drinks. Her fingers are in his hair, tugging gently on the curls at the nape of his neck. She tells him she loves him, that she’ll never leave him, that he’s beautiful, and another dozen lies that are painted so pretty on her rose-colored lips.
He sits back, blood smeared over his mouth, dark and slick, but she takes his face in her hands and kisses him anyways. She lays him down and spreads him out wide, leaving long red marks down his body from her nails. He arches up into her touch, whimpers and pleas wrenching from him. He needs it, he begs, he needs her. He's not supposed to beg, he's not allowed to, and Ruby's palm connects with his jaw; he bucks at the contact. She grins against his collarbones and pins his wrists above his head, trapping him. A thumbtack through butterfly wings.
The scene changes.
He’s shackled to a bed again, but this time it’s with handcuffs, and he’s watching the dizzying orbit of the ceiling fan. The mattress is thin and the springs dig into his back. His detox, he thinks. Had there been a point? He could never be clean, not really. Maybe it was all for the sake of appearances, just to fade the stains as best he could so he could keep pretending. He’s not different, he fits in here, he’s not like the monsters he murders.
A spasm jars his body and pain races up his spine. He’d scream, but he can’t find his voice, and no one would come even if he did.
He bites the inside of his cheek, tastes blood and regret, and the devil roars in his ears.
Sam startles out of sleep, soaked in sweat and dripping in something disconcertingly warm and sticky. It covers the sheets in thin streaks and splotches, with one large spot blooming on the pillowcase.
He yells for his brother before he even knows what he’s doing. There’s barely a gap between the end of his cry and Dean's hands coming down on his shoulders. He takes a moment to scan over the mess of blood, and then he's snapping into action with the same efficiency and furious movements of a soldier.
Sam flinches when Dean strips the bed in one violent motion and exposes his shuddering body.
“’S nothing serious, Sammy,” Dean promises, moving one of his hands to Sam’s knees to stifle the tremors. “You could lose twice this much blood and you’d still be fine.”
Sam shakes his head.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? This isn’t up for debate, man. You’re gonna be alright.”
Sam’s blood leaks through his fingers onto the carpet as he lets Dean guide him to the bathroom. He plops down on the closed toilet seat before he can pass out and staunches the bleeding with a hastily crumpled wad of toilet paper. He watches, dazed, as Dean hangs his bloodied hand over the sink and washes it. It’s also on his face and the upper third of his torso, so Dean takes a wet cloth and wipes Sam down until he's clean-- as clean as he can be.
“How you holding up?” Dean asks, wringing out the cloth in the sink and leaving it there.
Sam forgets to keep his head forward, ends up swallowing a mouthful of blood, and his stomach lurches. He unclenches his jaw to tell Dean, quiet and panicked, that he thinks he’s going to puke.
“Good news.” Dean moves him to sit on the floor in front of the toilet and flips up the seat. “I thought ahead.”
Sam keeps the blood flow in his nose blocked with one hand and grips the rim of the bowl with the other, retching and choking on fear-induced nausea. Dean's got his hair pulled back and is holding him up by his forehead. It's scary to puke up blood, even if he knows it's not from a life-threatening internal injury. Acid and iron spill off his tongue, falling through the water in ribbons, and it doesn't feel like it's going to stop. Another hitch in his breath, another violent heave, another spurt of blood.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Dean repeats when Sam gags hard enough to warrant tears. “I’ve got you, everything’s okay.” It’s all spoken under his breath because this is just for Sam to hear, not for any of the ghosts of loved ones that trail at their heels or the demons that take up housing in their heads. It’s half-past three and their apocalyptic world hangs in a suspicious, fragile tranquility. It’s just the two of them huddled in a dimly lit motel bathroom, somewhere in the rolling hills and fields of middle America, and it's quiet. For once it's quiet.
Sam whimpers and leans further into Dean’s hand, clamping down on the persisting urge to vomit. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t pull that crap.” Dean’s hold on him shifts to his chest, catching him by the sternum, and Sam wonders if his heartbeat is strong enough to be felt. "You got nothing to be sorry for."
Sam drops the blood-dampened tissue into the water, rests his head against the porcelain. "How can you say that? How can you-- how do you believe that? I've got seven billion people to apologize to."
He succeeds in silencing Dean with that, but he isn't sure if he should be happy about it. The absence of a response means he's right, and he doesn't want to be right about this.
"I don't know what to do," he confesses, the words catching in his throat. "I really screwed up this time, I mean, really, really screwed up." His brows come together and his nose scrunches as he tries not to cry. He can't be upset, not when this is his fault, not when he could have stopped this. "I don't know how to fix it, I don't know if I can. And I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry."
The blood is beginning to slow, and he's so wound up, so distracted by the thoughts scattered around in his head, that he isn't even bothered by it. He reaches for more toilet paper to wipe his nose with and fumbles with the lever to flush away the mess. If only it was that easy with the rest of the messes he's made.
He spares a glance upwards and is a little caught off guard by the level of concern in his brother's face. His eyes are dark and grief-stricken, distraught.
"You don't have to know how to fix it." Dean's hand rests at the back of his neck, steadying and reassuring. "We'll figure it out together, okay? Apocalypse or no, it's nothing we can't handle."
"But it's my--"
"Not your fault," Dean insists. "You didn't know, you didn't mean to. You trusted the wrong people and you fucked up, but it's not your fault."
It feels like nothing more than a well-crafted, intricate deception. The only reason Dean sounds genuine is because that's how tangled the web is, how thorough it is in warping one's vision.
Because Sam knows this is all on him. No more than a year has passed since Dean pulled a Lazarus and clawed his way out of the pit, and Sam has already managed to ruin everything. For the life of him, he can't understand why Dean sticks around other than the fact that they're family. If it weren't for that, if it weren't for Dean viewing brotherhood as something sacred and impenetrable, Sam is sure he'd be on his own by now.
"Don't make that face. I'm not lying to you."
He's not having this argument tonight. "Okay, I'm sorry."
"And quit saying sorry." Dean tips Sam's head, looks at him. "Bleeding's stopped-- but I can still get some ice from the machine outside if you want."
He'd been doing so well not thinking about her, but now she's an outline in his retinas, and when he closes his eyes, phosphenes swirl together to create a painful and familiar image. Her voice, sharp as a whip and sweet as honey, resonates in him, and it hurts to breathe when he gets like this.
He's crazy, he's got to be. That's as good an excuse as any to miss her this much, even after everything she'd done. After all he'd done.
"Sam? Hey, come on, you're not even bleeding anymore, just stay with me--"
"You wanted to know," he says finally, taking Dean by the wrist, like if he didn't then Dean would up and leave. "Why I'm-- you know."
"Losing your shit over nosebleeds?"
"If I tell you..." He's shaking hard enough to land a score on the Richter Scale, and that's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to be this afraid of talking about his mistakes, but he can't go through his senior year of high school again. He won't be able to handle being thrown out of the family a second time, especially not when he's so broken and so desperate for help.
"Dean, you gotta promise me you won't hate me."
"I'd never--"
"Promise me."
"...Okay, I promise."
Dean gets him some ice to hold up to his nose, and Sam talks. And for all the different expressions that cross Dean's face during those painful fifteen minutes, he doesn't say a word. He listens, and listens, and even when Sam is no longer saying anything of substance-- just apologies and self-deprecation and guilt-ridden divulgences-- he still listens.
The thin paper towel holding the ice doesn't come away red or pink, and Sam's hands are cold. His whole body is cold.
"Say something." It sounds pleading and he wishes he could reel the words back in.
Dean looks like he needs a drink, but it's still long before sunrise, and Dean has some standards. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, Sam. You screwed up. You let her get in your head, you-- you basically showed her your Achilles heel and let her stab it. She strung you up and hung you out to dry. And don't get me wrong, I'm pissed you let your guard down like that, but..." Dean hesitates. "I dunno, I guess I also kinda get it."
It's the one of the most ambiguous responses Sam has ever heard, and yet relief is flooding through his chest, alleviating some of the anxiety. "You mean that?"
"Look, I'm not gonna pretend that this isn't a disaster, or that you're not fucked up, because those are facts. They just happen to be facts we know how to handle. And yeah, I'm pissed off, but I don't blame you. Not for any of it."
In the dull light from the lamp on the bedside table, long shadows creep along the edges of Dean's features. But they're warm, and the devil isn't in them.
"You good to sleep? We still have a few hours before we gotta hit the road."
And just like that it's over.
"Yeah," Sam says, albeit a little unsteady, but he says it. "I'm-- I'm good."
The blood that paints Sam's sheets is still wet, still reeks, and it's almost strong enough to nauseate him again.
"Dean... Can I--"
"You think I'd make you sleep there? Give me some credit."
At first they stay on their respective ends of the bed, careful not to touch. Then Sam shivers from the lingering aftershocks of panic, and Dean is rolling over to pull him close. The smell of old leather and whiskey overrides the metallic scent that refuses to leave him alone, and he relaxes.
"It'll all be okay in the end, Sammy, I swear."
Sam isn't sure if he agrees, but fatigue is blanketing his senses, and his brother's body is warm. It's just the two of them, bound by tangled limbs and bedsheets, caught somewhere between the rolling thunder and lightning of apocalyptic middle America. And for once, even if it's just for a moment, Sam believes him.
For once it's quiet.