Chapter Text
The Wall doesn’t work.
For a few days, it seems like it does. Sam emerges from the panic room and walks into the room in his socks, interrupting Dean begging Bobby to give him something to do, without a hint of awareness of what a monumental feat that was in itself. Dean had been worried, so unbelievably worried that Sam wouldn’t wake at all, or that if he did, he would be too broken by Hell to even stand, but he’s alright. He’s upright, talking, and mostly just… confused. He’s a bit freaked out by how long he was gone and how little he remembers, and he’s damn hungry, but he’s alright.
They sit him down at the kitchen table, and he eats, and they try to talk about normal things for a while. Sam needs to talk about what happened while he was gone, but Dean and Bobby need to avoid it, so they do. Sam’s worried, that’s clear, but Dean does what he can to dispel that concern, promises (falsely) that they will, eventually, catch him up on what he missed, and so he acquiesces to leave it for now. He mostly just shovels the pair of shitty, half-stale peanut butter sandwiches they made for him into his mouth, and makes relevant comments as Dean, and more reluctantly Bobby, ply him with stories and tales from various other times. Sam laughs, jabs, and smirks, rolls his eyes exactly like he’d never left them, as if he’d never been gone at all.
It’s the most beautiful thing Dean has ever seen.
After a few minutes, when Sam finishes eating, Bobby mumbles something about getting back to work and leaves the room. Sam gazes worriedly at his retreating back.
‘... Are you sure everything’s OK?’ He asks Dean. ‘I know you don’t want to tell me, but the sooner we deal with whatever happened—’ (whatever you did—)
‘It’s not like that Sam,’ Dean interrupts, ‘I mean it. I know we’ve done bad things before, but this time it really is done. You’re back, we’re all here, and no one’s going anywhere. Capice?’
Sam nods, but his face is still set in that regretful, tiny-glimmer-of-hope-type sadness he gets sometimes (often, before). ‘OK, but, if there’s anything I should know, you promise you’ll tell me?’
‘Of course. Promise.’ Dean slides the empty plate away from Sam. ‘You still hungry?’
Sam grows a sheepish smile. ‘Little bit.’
‘You better not start growing again.’ Dean mumbles loud enough for Sam to hear as he gets up to raid the fridge. It makes Sam laugh, and as long as nothing happens to that Wall, Dean hasn’t even told any lies.
Out by the cars later that afternoon, Bobby disagrees; he does agree to go along with the facade anyway, though. United front and all that.
Bobby’s house has never really been ‘loud’, not really, but it’s louder for the next few days than it has been in years — not since the impromptu party Sam threw for Dean’s 30th birthday, way back when they were still hunting Lilith, when they still had a few friends to celebrate with.
Sam is glad to be alive. Dean has spent his life avoiding confronting the truth that this hasn’t always been the case for his brother, even if it’s been the same for himself. Right now, the knowledge that it’s not true for either of them is lifting a burden from his shoulders.
Sam is so glad to be alive. He doesn’t remember being “dead”, but he remembers resolving to be. He touches everything like it’s the most precious thing in the world, wakes up early and listens to birds, watches as the world wakes up around him. He helps wash dishes and commentates on crap TV and talks with them as much as he can.
‘How long you been up?’ Dean asks, approaching his brother one morning, worried Sam’s not sleeping again. Messed up combinations of insomnia and avoidance have been his response to every traumatic thing that’s ever happened to him, and he didn’t sleep at all when he was soulless, which can’t be good for the kid’s body.
‘Few hours.’ Sam mumbles. He doesn’t look at Dean.
Dean wanders around to see Sam’s face — he’s looking out the window, and he’s smiling.
‘I just— I didn’t think I’d get to see any of this stuff again. I can’t believe how close we came to losing it.’ He says, and he’s got that stupid glimmer in his eye as he speaks.
Dean just nods. How can he send his brother to bed after that? He did save the world, after all, he doesn’t need a fucking curfew.
Dean’s probably more glad Sam’s alive than Sam is. He spends a lot of time watching him, just existing in the same space as him, joking and teasing and testing what Sam remembers from before, checking The Wall hasn’t cut off anything else he should learn to avoid.
Sam gives him weird looks every time he starts with ‘How much do you remember about…’ instead of ‘Remember when…’
Eventually they get too loud and annoying, so Bobby kicks them out till they quiet down. They kick a ball around behind the house for a little while, passing it back and forth, occasionally trying to show off with old and rusty skills. Sam was the one who actually played, back in school, but he used to drag Dean out the back of wherever they were staying every day just to practice, so Dean practically had to learn some tricks to impress his baby brother— as if Sam didn’t worship him enough already. Sam’s considerably shocked by how well Dean can still do them; Dean doesn’t confess that he’d already brushed off the skills so that he could teach Ben not twelve months earlier.
At some point they progress to using the gap between two ancient fence posts down by the dead quiet road for a penalty shoot-out.
‘You kick like a girl.’ Dean jokes as they switch over.
He’s blocked only most of Sam’s so far, the kid’s not kicking with that much power, whereas Sam’s blocked all of his. Having legs that long has got to be some kind of unfair advantage, for which Dean, frankly, should be compensated.
He’s still mad about the day he realised he wasn’t taller than Sam anymore.
‘You kick like a five-year-old with arthritis, must be your old-man-knees.’ Sam replies.
Dean kicks a goal just inside the far-right goalpost that Sam only barely doesn’t save. Dean whoops and cheers obnoxiously while his brother fetches the ball, then gives him a mockingly commiserating pat on the shoulder when he’s back.
‘Shoulda dived for it.’ Dean taunts.
Sam scoffs, shoving off Dean’s hand. ‘It’s a long way to the ground for some of us. Oh, but of course, I forgot!’ He slaps his forehead dramatically. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about that.’
Dean shoves Sam, who makes to shove him back, but misses as Dean ducks out of the way. He starts running a little to get out of Sam’s reach, not particularly wanting to get roughed up in the gravel of the yard, so Sam backs up and pegs the ball at his head, laughs himself almost into stitches when Dean yelps and rubs at the back of his scalp.
When Dean is finally done glaring at him and Sam’s regained his breath, he returns to his spot in the goal and claps his hands together, scuffing his feet in the dirt.
‘Worried I’ll beat you?’ He goads.
Dean smirks at him. ‘Not a chance.’
The next kick turns out to be the last goal Dean scores against Sam. He doesn’t particularly care about the (quite significant) loss, no matter how much he pretends to, because Sam won, and he smiles as he teases Dean about it for the rest of the afternoon.
They walk around beyond the far edges of Sioux Falls, and Dean tells him a little about his time with Ben and Lisa. It makes Sam seem genuinely happy. It was important to him that Dean tried, that he got to experience that, to have a life of his own for a little while. Dean just wishes Sam could have been around for it, could have been a part of it while it lasted.
Sam tries to ask, gently, always gentle, about why he’s not with them now. Dean can’t answer. Sam pushes a little, only a little, until he recalls Dean’s extreme need to take things slow at the moment, and backs off.
Still, he smiles, and he gives Dean a fierce hug in the shade of the treeline, holding him close in gratitude and apology all at once, as if he could backlog all the comfort he should have been around to give Dean when he was gone.
‘Thank you, for trying. I’m sorry it didn’t work.’
So Dean talks about Ben, and Sam listens with a sense of awe about the kind of family man his brother could become. Sam doesn’t exactly have comparable tales from his childhood or experience of family to trade, only second-hand stories, so he fills his turns with ‘I always imagined you’d…’ and ‘That’s a bit like when we…’ and ‘I had a friend who used to tell me how…’
Dean knows Sam could talk about college, about the only time he was “out”. Sam doesn’t.
The treeline is giving them too much shade for an early winter day, and even beneath all his layers Sam is starting to shiver a little, so when they get close Dean decides to race him to the riverbank. He thinks about pushing Sam in, just to see the bitchface he’ll get if he does, but they’re being too nice to each other today, and if Sam gets wet then they’ll have to go home (which will only annoy Bobby more, but that’s besides the point).
So they race, and Dean wins because he cheats by a mile so wide that Sam barely even bothers trying to close it. Dean plops down and goes spread-eagled in the grass, smiling at the feel of the sun on his face. Sam comes up and stands between his legs with a smirk, just to block the shadow from his brother’s face, until Dean practically wrestles him to the ground for the offense.
They lie like that for some time, drumming rhythms on their chests for the other one to guess. Sam guesses almost every one, swears Dean is fucking with him by doing five Zeppelin songs in a row, but Dean groans loudly and gives up because he cannot decipher Sam’s sense of rhythm, no matter how hard he tries. Sam pretends to be offended, until he lets it slip that music was always his worst class in school.
‘Yeah, explains why you’re such a heathen.’
‘I didn’t get to listen to music more modern than the Bee Gees until I was twelve.’
‘You didn’t need to.’
Eventually they sit up again, Sam with his legs crossed haphazardly, Dean stretched all the way out and leaning on his hands, and watch the river rumble past. It gurgles and giggles loudly, leaping off the stones at its base and jumping to spread its spray in the long grass on either side. It’s not a warm day, but the sun is on them, and the air is still.
Eventually, Sam asks.
‘... Adam?’
Dean has to take a second to steel himself.
‘Still down there.’
Sam sinks slowly forward until his face is almost in the ground, a hitch in his breath.
‘But you tried?’ He says, pleads.
‘Of course I tried, I promise.’
Sam nods. They leave it there.
That night, Sam’s quiet at dinner. He helps Dean do the dishes (does most of the work while Dean chats in his direction, occasionally drying something) when they’re all finished, then goes straight to bed.
Dean joins Bobby in the loungeroom. Bobby doesn’t look up.
‘How is he?’ He asks in that gruff, supposedly-uncaring way of his.
Dean smiles, a very soft, very real smile, and sits down on the couch. ‘He’s good. He’s really, really good.’
‘He was a bit out of it this evening.’ Bobby comments.
‘Yeah, probably just tired him out. Walked all the way to the river and back.’ Dean replies, though Bobby’s acknowledgement stirs a slowly curdling worry deep in his gut.
Bobby grunts in response. They leave it there.
Dean stays up for a while, minding his own business while Bobby minds his, sharing the space with each other in that easy way of theirs. The hours trickle down and Bobby goes to bed, Dean some time after.
Dean wakes up before Sam the next day. He starts catching on after that.
Sam doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to — there’s a little pinch in his brow he’s always gotten, ever since he was a little kid, that gives his new recurring headache away. It’s only there for a period of a few minutes the next morning before Sam smooths it out, and again early that afternoon, and again that evening. He’s still behaving normally, like he has been the past few days, like he did before, but that night, Dean catches him rubbing at his brow.
‘Musn’ta drunk enough water.’ Sam says by way of explanation, though it’s far too cold and quiet in Sioux Falls for most anyone to worry about dehydration. He’s groggy the next morning when he gets up, and one afternoon he goes to lie down because ‘It’s too loud in here.’ Of course, he doesn’t say he’s going to lie down, but Dean checks on him straight away, so he knows.
Things go on this way for only a couple of days before he starts losing focus, losing sleep. Dean hears his footsteps going back and forth from the bathroom to the guest room in the night, hears the old bed creaking as Sam turns over on the mattress.
One afternoon, Dean’s on the couch, making a record for Bobby of one of the last hunts they did together. He’s trying to describe the way the thing looked, kinda long and… weird, bad looking.
‘Heya, Sam?’ He calls from his spot on the couch, resting the book on his knees. He knows, tangentially, that Sam is in the room with him, though they’ve been pretty quiet for the last little while.
‘Sam?’
Sam doesn’t respond, so Dean looks up from where he was writing and fixes his gaze on Sam’s back, who’s sitting at the kitchen table doing… something.
‘Saaaaaammmmmmmyyyy?’ Dean calls. It doesn’t even seem to register.
Bobby’s in the room with them too, standing, looking for something in the bookshelf nearer to the wall behind Sam. He looks up then, and at Dean’s concerned gaze, wanders over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.
Sam used to flinch like mad whenever anyone but Dean snuck up on him, but instead Dean watches the seconds pass as Sam registers what’s going on, then drags his sluggish gaze up toward Bobby.
‘Mh—’ He clears his throat, then tries again. ‘You— uh, you need something?’
Bobby looks at him, long and worried, before he responds. ‘... Your brother was callin’ for ya.’
Sam looks back at Dean, who doesn’t even bother trying to hide the concern in his gaze.
‘Dean?’
Dean blinks a few times. ‘Yeah, uh, just tryna figure out a word. Thought you’d know.’
Sam shakes his head as if to clear it, then clenches his eyes shut and puts a hand to his furrowed brow.
‘Your head alright?’ Bobby asks.
‘Um, yeah, yeah, it’s fine. What’s the word for?’
‘You sure you don’t want an aspirin or something?’ Dean prods.
‘No, I’m fine, I’ve put up with worse.’
They exchange a glance before Sam looks up.
‘So? The word?’
Dean takes a breath. ‘Yeah, Bobby and I hunted this monster that was all, y’know, long limbs and ugly-like, moved kinda stilted.’
‘Gangly?’
‘That’s the one.’
Dean pens it in quickly, when he looks back up, Sam is staring appraisingly at him with a smirk on his face.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Just uh, yeah, nothing.’
Dean raises his eyebrows and nods. ‘Uh-huh, nothing.’ He repeats sceptically. ‘Get back to your crossword or whatever you were doin’ over there.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Sam says, almost laughs.
Dean slips him a glass of water and a couple of pills when, not twenty minutes later, Sam pillows his head in his arms on the kitchen table.
‘You wanna lie down?’
‘’M fnh.’ Sam mumbles through his sleeves.
Dean rolls his eyes and knocks twice on the table. ‘Meds are right next to you. Consider.’
He’s back on the couch when, five minutes later, Sam does exactly that.
He and Bobby exchange a lot of glances Sam doesn’t notice when they start having to prod him, once, twice, more, just to keep his attention in a conversation they were all already in. Even after what Sam did when he was soulless, Bobby stops being afraid of him, can’t find it in him anymore. The kid is just so zonked out, and his moments of being awake and aware dwindle more and more with every day that passes; he really couldn’t mount an attack against them if he tried.
Sam keeps zoning out on them, losing touch with reality as moves on around him. When he comes to, he’s always more tired than he was, always rubs at that little grove between his eyes, skulls a glass of water and tells them that he’s fine.
Dean’s always been a little too wary where Sam’s concerned, especially this time where Castiel, Crowley, and Death all warned him not to do this, where if it goes wrong it will be his fault, so he spends all his time hovering.
‘You sure you don’t need anything while I’m out? I mean, crazy week and all—’
‘Dude, go! I’ll call you if I think of something.’
‘If you’re feeling weird—’
‘If you don’t get out of this house in the next five seconds I’m gonna relabel all your cassettes.’
‘Jeez, ok! But if you—’
‘Dean!’
Eventually, whatever’s happening inside that head of Sam’s gets so bad, he stops being bothered by his brother circling him like a helicopter; he stops even trying to say he’s fine. He spends a lot of time on the couch, only passingly aware of what’s happening around him. His only movement is in his eyes, tracking them around the room, vaguely following the little dramas on the old TV. He sips the gatorade Dean gives him and lets his brother hold him for a little while, occasionally groaning when something peaks the pain radiating out from deep within his skull.
‘’m sorry, I don’t… don’t know what’s happening to me.’ He says, trying to pull himself up, pull himself together, and failing for reasons he cannot even begin to fathom (because Dean hasn’t told him).
He spikes a low-grade fever. His temperature regulation goes to shit. Dean holds a cold washcloth to his forehead even as Sam pulls a blanket tighter around himself, wearing all of his layers no matter how many times Dean tries to convince him to strip at least one.
‘It’s freezing in here.’
‘It’s not, Sam, you’re just sick. Come on, I don’t want you to overheat.’
‘Nuh-uh, no way. I’ll freeze.’
‘Come on, just till your temp comes down a little bit.’
‘Fuck off, Dean.’
Dean sighs. ‘Sam—’
‘No! No, I’m not doing it.’
Dean lies on the couch at night and tries not to imagine the fires of Hell snaking out of the cracks in his brother’s head, because that’s all he can picture when he feels the warmth on Sam’s brow.
‘You’ll be fine, Sam, I’ll make sure of it. OK? I’ve always got you, don’t I?’
Sam nods, but it’s a small and desperate thing. Dean hopes Sam believes him, because one of them has to, and he’s not sure it can be him.
If this goes wrong, if something happens, Dean has no idea what he’ll have to do, wouldn’t even know where to begin to fix it. It’s always been his job to fix their family; he doesn’t think he could handle being that far out of his depth.
Sam spends the last night of that week on the bed beside Dean. Dean had been up there with him for a few hours, letting Sam burrow into him. He’s not making much noise, but Dean is still shushing him softly. Dean would have called it the ‘migraine from Hell’, but he can’t bring himself to make the joke, just in case he’d be right. Sam is holding tightly onto Dean with one of his arms, the other wrapped firmly over his head. No medicine Dean can give has helped Sam, so Dean is stuck offering the only thing he can. He wishes there was more he could do. Sam keeps his eyes clenched shut, but Dean knows there are tears there.
‘It hurts… it hurts so bad.’ He whispers, it’s all he’s able to say.
The next morning, Sam is gone.