Chapter Text
It takes six hours for Sam to wake up. During that time, a thick layer of sweat has developed across the kid’s face and body, soaking his shirt through as his body continues to jerk in continuous spasms. His eyes never stop moving from underneath his eyelids, as if Sam were checking his surroundings even in his unconsciousness. Now that he is clean, the dark circles underneath Sam’s eyes are even more prominent than they had been before, and only seem to be getting darker in his restless sleep.
Dean does not move from his brother’s side once. His thoughts race, and he fears that if he takes his eyes off of Sam for one moment than the kid will have disappeared. It happened once; Dean will not let it happen again.
Dean knows that Sam has woken up long before he opens his eyes. His body gives one final convulsion, his arms yanking at the cuffs constraining him, and then stills. Sam lays so still that Dean considers for a moment that the kid has stopped breathing all together, but his chest continues to rise and fall, though now it is short and controlled, as if Sam was attempting to feign sleep. It may have worked, had the kid not been stiller now than he had when he was actually asleep.
Dean considers speaking, letting Sam know that he is here with him, but thinks better of it. Who knows if these powers that Sam seems to possess are still in effect. The bindings and the sigils have done their job for now, but Dean isn’t sure how effective they will continue to be. Sam was able to get through Colt’s sigils to the graveyard, wasn't he? Nonetheless, Dean decides to wait the kid out and let him make the first move here.
It doesn’t take too long before Sam betrays his act; his body lets out a large, visible shudder and his throat constricts as if the kid were desperate for some water. The need seems to be stronger than his desire to stay under the radar, and Sam is opening his eyes.
At first, he simply stares up at the ceiling, watching the fan move in its endless cycle. Then his eyes shift, taking in the markings on the wall – his gaze moves through Dean as if the man was not there. Sam doesn’t seem to notice the bindings around his wrist, or – Dean shudders to think of – is simply used to being restrained that he doesn’t bother pulling on them.
Dean examines Sam as the boy observes the room he’s trapped in; he notices that Sam’s eyes are extremely cloudy and red rimmed. He supposes it’s possible that Sam was still feeling the effects of the sedative. His body continues to shake sporadically as he looks around the room.
A minute or two goes by like this, Dean nearly holding his breath as he anticipates what his brother is going to do. Then, suddenly, Sam lets out a loud gasp, his body jumping and pulling at the restraints.
“Six, six, six, it’s the sign,” Sam says, his voice raspy and weak, but desperate. “Open the gate, be a good boy Sammy.”
“Sam,” Dean says as gently as he can. Hearing his voice, Sam’s eyes jump to the man as if noticing him sitting there for the first time. His eyes widen just as they had in the graveyard, and his hands begin pulling harder on the restraints.
“Sam didn’t hurt them too much,” he mumbles, repeating the same words from the graveyard. He looks away as quickly as he looked towards Dean and his attempts at escape continue, but Dean does not think that he has any shot of escaping the restraints now that he has seen the sigils are working.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “You remember. It’s Dean, Sam. I’m your brother, do you remember me?”
“Do you remember me?” Sam echoes. “Open the gate, be a good boy Sammy.”
“The gate’s not getting opened, Sam,” Dean says gently.
“No,” Sam insists. “No, open the gate. I will. I’ll open the gate, I promise, I’ll be good father, please, you don’t have to, please, I need it, I need it.”
“What do you need, Sam?” Dean asks. As much as he had tried to hide it, he couldn’t help but flinch slightly hearing Sam use that word, knowing he was referring to Azazel.
Sam groans slightly, beginning to bang his head against the pillow behind him. Realizing that it wasn’t going to do much damage, he stops and begins pulling at the restraints again.
“Gotta open the gate to get it,” Sam says. “I know, I know, I will father, please I’m sorry”-
“Azazel’s dead, Sam, and he ain’t your father” Dean interrupts. “You don’t work for him anymore.”
Sam stops pulling at the restraints. He stops moving at all, including his breath which halts in the middle of his sentence which Dean cut off. Sam looks back at Dean, as if truly seeing him for the first time since he woke up. He looks hesitant, as if unsure what kind of game Dean was playing with him here.
“I shot him with the Colt,” Dean explains.
The Colt, Sam mouths the words but does not make a sound.
“You don’t believe me?” Dean asks. “Look me in the eyes, read my mind. Does that still work with all the wards?”
Sam’s eyes linger over Dean’s collar for a moment, before looking up and staring into Dean’s eyes. Glossy and red rimmed as they may be, those wide, puppy brown eyes have stayed the same all these years. They almost look too big, in contrast with the pale gauntness surrounding the boy’s face.
Dean tries to conjure the memory of what happened with Azazel as best he can. He thinks of how they got Sam in the car, how Azazel had tried to stop them. He clearly sees the way that Azazel’s body had slumped to the ground, the flames around them diminishing as he was reduced to nothing.
Sam can see it too; Dean knows this from the way the boy’s brow furrows, his fists clenching as he stares into Dean’s eyes. Dean feels a slight pull in his head, as if Sam had reached in and physically tried to bring Dean’s memory closer to him.
Then, with no warning, the pressure left Dean’s head as Sam retreated, his eyes leaving Dean to roam back to the ceiling. For a minute, it was eerily quiet, only the constant whirring of the fan greeting Dean’s ears. He was considering whether Sam still did not believe him or if he just didn’t care enough about the demon to have any reaction, when Sam suddenly betrayed that idea.
His gaze still focused on the ceiling, Sam let out a near animalistic whine, loud and desperate. The kind of noise a starving creature makes when it has been wounded. It pains him to think this, but Dean’s mind cannot help but be reminded of the kind of monsters that he hunts.
“I need it!” Sam shouts, so loudly that Dean knows Bobby will have heard and will be down shortly. “Six, six, six, it’s the sign, the sign, the sign, I need it, father!”
“You don’t need anything from him, Sam,” Dean says. “He hurt you, he took you from me, he”-
Sam cuts him off with a shrill scream so loud it leaves Dean’s ears ringing. He continues his belligerent rambling, his voice cutting off into screams of desperation for something Dean is unaware of. His head once again begins slamming itself down on the pillow, hard enough that Dean thinks even with the padding it could be damaging.
Before he can think better of it, Dean has placed his hands on either side of Sam’s face, attempting to cradle it in an effort to stop the kid from harming himself. Sam’s body jerks at the touch, and his head turns towards the left sharply towards Dean’s hand. Before Dean can react, Sam has planted his teeth into Dean’s palm, biting deep and hard into the soft flesh.
“Fuck,” Dean says sharply.
Just then, the door to the panic room opens as Bobby flies in. The older man rushes to Sam’s bedside, taking Sam’s head.
“Release,” Bobby orders. When Sam doesn’t respond apart from a slight growl, Bobby repeats himself, shoving Sam’s head further into Dean’s in an attempt to force him to free Dean’s hand. The tactic works, and Dean rips his hand away from Sam the moment he feels the grip loosen. His hand comes back bloody, and it is an awfully disturbing sight to see traces of it upon Sam’s mouth.
The second Sam’s mouth was free from any kind of blockade, he began his screaming fit once more, his cries getting more and more delirious as he thrashes on the bed. His limbs contort as much as the restraints will allow them to.
“Out,” Bobby says to Dean.
“No, I have to,”-
“Out,” Bobby demands, grabbing Dean by his arm and nearly dragging him out of the room.
As the door to the panic room closes behind them, Dean can still hear the desperate cries of his little brother, for something Dean cannot give him.
Sam’s screams remain quite audible from upstairs, and Dean listens to them with bated breath as Bobby sits Dean down on a chair and goes to fetch the first aid kit.
“It ain’t so bad,” Dean tries as Bobby sits opposite him.
Bobby scoffs. “He took a bite out of you like you were a Thanksgiving turkey.”
Dean looked down at his hand. Sam had left quite the imprint in Dean’s hand, but had not managed to take any of the flesh with him when he had finally retreated. Still, the hand is bleeding something awful, and some of the flesh is hanging off of it so much that Bobby has to apply stitches.
As Bobby stitches up Dean’s hand, Ellen enters the room with a glass of whiskey for Dean, placing it in his good hand before sitting beside Bobby. Dean tells them of the events that transpired in the panic room and why he had begun screaming.
“You shouldn’t have told him about Azazel,” Bobby grumbles. “From what I can tell, that boy was genuinely liked by him. Who knows what Sam’s feelings are ‘bout him.”
“I don’t think it had anything to do with that,” Dean says, frowning. “He didn’t seem to believe me when I told him Azazel was dead, and once he saw for himself he was quiet for a second.”
“Maybe he just had to process it,” Ellen said. “Let it finally click that Azazel was dead.”
Dean shakes his head. “He never said anything to make it seem like he’s going to miss the guy, only whatever it is that he needs from him. It’s all he’s been saying, ‘I need it.’ Seems whatever it is was being withheld from him until he could open the gate.”
Bobby grunts while Ellen frowns, but neither of the two say anything. For a few minutes, they sit in silence, the only sounds being heard are the muffled screams and begging coming from the panic room. Dean considers when Bobby will let him go back in; the man must know that he won’t be kept out for long.
“What if it is some type of drug?” Ellen suddenly suggests.
“Hm?” Dean prompts.
“You heard Ash,” Ellen continues. “Police found all those substances in their blood, nothing they could identify. Maybe whatever it is that they’ve been giving to those kids is addictive.”
“It could be a ton of things,” Bobby tries to argue. “We don’t know for sure.”
“No,” Ellen says. “But don’t you forget that I’ve been running a bar for years. I know how addicts look like when it’s been too long. Sam fits all the criteria.”
Dean considers how Sam had looked when he had woken up. Sweat had drenched through his clothing, his eyes red rimmed and desperate. His body had been shaking as if they were in the dead of winter.
“If it’s a drug capable of making him act like this, what if this kills him?” Dean asks. “Those types of drugs kill people when they withdraw too fast.”
“There’s no saying,” Bobby says. “All we can do is wait it out until we figure out what it is, then see about cleaning him up from it.”
There is a look to Bobby’s face that Dean doesn’t like. One that tells Dean everything the older man is refusing to say to this face. That he doesn’t think Sam can be saved from this. That there is no going back from what Sam’s gone through. Dean elects to ignore it for now.
Despite his reluctance, Bobby and Ellen agree to go and look into getting the information they need. John Winchester, for all his faults, kept very good records on his research. Perhaps what they need to figure out this mess was in there, or if not, then it was a good place to begin looking.
Dean downs the rest of his whiskey, and then pours another one and repeats the process. Once the second glass is drained, he makes his way to discard the glass in the kitchen and to fill up a water bottle. He chooses one that provides little leakage and can be drank from like a straw, so that he won’t have to worry about losing all the water.
He makes his way back to the panic room, glad that Bobby has the sound of mind not to deny him. He knows that Dean wouldn’t listen to that kind of order.
Sam’s screams have diminished some, instead he has resorted back to those desperate whimpers he had been making previously. Sam doesn’t seem to notice that Dean has returned until the man is sitting back in his chair from before. The boy’s eyes look at him through half-closed lids, the dark circles under his eyes growing seemingly by the minute.
“Hey Sam,” Dean says quietly. His blood still stains the corners of Sam’s mouth, but looks to be smeared, as if Sam had attempted to lick it off.
“Hey Sam,” Sam whimpers back.
“How do you feel?” Dean asks, wondering if it was a stupid thing to even mention. Clearly, the kid ain’t feeling too great.
“Just pretend they aren’t bugs,” Sam says. “They’re not bugs and they’re just fingers, fingers scratching, itching, digging.” His left eye twitches slightly and his hands jerk in their restraints.
“I don’t know what that means, Sammy,” Dean says gently. “There aren’t any bugs.”
Sam whines. “The bugs won’t go away, Andy. They won’t hurt, only bite, only bite.”
Dean blinks, trying to keep up. “Who’s Andy?”
Sam ignores him, instead looking down at the bottle in Dean’s hand. “Give it,” Sam demands. “Give it now, I need it, I need it.”
“Yeah, it’s for you Sam, you can have it,” Dean says. He lifts the bottle up to Sam’s lips, careful not to get his body anywhere close enough Sam can take another bite.
Sam quickly takes a sip of the water, but within seconds tears his head away from the bottle and bangs his head against the pillow. “No!”
“Well, I don’t know what it is you need, buddy,” Dean says in return. “You’re sweating buckets, man, we have to get something into you.”
“Buddy, muddy, bloody, cruddy,” Sam mumbles. “Gotta open the gate.”
“That ain’t gonna happen,” Dean says.
Sam looks at the water bottle again, then back up towards Dean’s face, his eyes never quite making it to Dean’s eyes, tears streaming down his face. His eyes are glassy and feverish, making Dean wonder how coherent the boy even is at the time being.
He hates to acknowledge that he doesn’t know this Sam well enough to tell how much of this behaviour is from the fever, and how much of it is from years of torment. Has Sam lost his mind? Is nothing truly left of the little boy that Dean had lost?
They sit in silence for a long while, with Dean occasionally offering the water to Sam but being turned away, Sam’s head jerking as far away from the bottle as it can. The only sounds that can be heard in between are the soft moans and whimpers that escape Sam’s mouth as his fever continues to consume him.
“You know,” Dean says quietly after a while. Upon hearing his voice, Sam’s eyes open slightly wider, showing Dean of his attention, but does not react any further. “The last time I ever saw you, you had a fever just like this. You were so sick, Sammy, I didn’t know what to do. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. I didn’t know they would come and take you, I just left to get you medicine.”
“Gotta get you medicine, Sammy,” Sam mumbles. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Dean knows those words. The exact same words that Dean had said to Sam before he left the motel that night all those years ago. He has spent much time over the years going over these exact words. Had he known then that it would be the last thing he would ever say to his brother, he would have included so much more. He should have told Sam that he loved him, then and so many other times before. He has avoided saying the words so much in fear of…what? That it would be too girly? He has spent so much time beating himself up over this. Had Sam even known that Dean had loved him? When was the last time he had ever told his brother those words?
He hadn’t been sure that Sam had even been awake enough to hear him when he left. He had only said it on the off chance that Sam would wake up and wonder where he had gone. Now, hearing those same words come out of Sam’s mouth, Dean wishes so desperately that he had told Sammy that he loved him.
“I’m so sorry,” Dean says. “I didn’t know, Sammy.”
“I didn’t know, Sammy,” Sam echoes. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, Dean’s dead, we killed him and daddy and you’re with your real father, Sammy.”
“I’m not dead, Sam,” Dean says, shocked to hear his name come out of the boy’s mouth. “They lied to you.”
“Dean’s dead,” Sam repeats. “Dean’s dead, Dean bled, Dean was fed to the hounds. They slash and gash and tear and, and… please, please I need it.”
“What do you need, Sam?” Dean asks desperately. “I’m Dean, okay? Dean isn’t dead, I’m right here and I need you to let me help you.”
“Please, father!” Sam cries. “I didn’t mean to, I wanted to, I gotta open the gate!”
“Azazel is dead,” Dean reminds him. “He can’t give you anything now, so you have to ask me, okay?”
“No, no,” Sam says. “Tried, didn’t work, didn’t work, no good.” His tongue slips out of his mouth and licks around his mouth, as if trying to get rid of the remainder of Dean’s blood that is on his face. Dean stops for a moment and attempts to piece together what Sam is trying to tell him. Whatever he needs, Sam seems to think Dean cannot provide for him, claims he’s already tried it, like licking off Dean’s blood had told him all he needed to know, as if…
As if Sam needed Azazel’s blood.
“Father’s dead,” Sam says abruptly. “Father’s dead, Meg, Sammy lost the Colt and it shot him dead! Father’s dead and I need it Meg, I need it, please Meg, I’ll do it this time I will, I’ll do anything.”
Meg.
Dean knows that name. Meg is one of the demons that John had captured during his hunt for Azazel. She had been one of the bigger ones, had known more than the others. She hadn’t been very willing to give up information, nothing important anyway. However, Dean remembered enough of his dad’s notes to know that she had been the most devoted, the most desperate to prove herself to Azazel. She, too, had called Azazel father, and John had spoken in quiet horror of the things she had admitted to doing for him.
Just then, the door to the panic room opens and Bobby pops his head in. Upon seeing the man, Sam’s eyes dart to Bobby’s hands as if to check if Bobby had brought what he’s been begging for, and then shies into the cot and averts his eyes.
“All good?” Bobby asks, his eyes trailing Dean’s whole body, looking for more injuries that Sam could have given him.
“Peachy,” Dean responds.
“Peachy,” he hears Sam whisper weakly, and looks down at the boy. He hadn’t raised his eyes from their resting spot, but he is obviously still aware of his surroundings.
“He’s not looking too good,” Bobby notes, taking a good look at Sam. He’s not wrong. By now, Sam looks like he’s just gotten out of a swimming pool with the amount of sweat on his body, which continues to shake and jerk about. If the kid wasn’t tied down to the bed, Dean imagines he would be scratching heavily at his skin.
Sam has always had that bad habit. Dean remembers as kids that whenever Sammy would get nervous he would pick at his fingernails, nearly peeling all the skin around them off. He would bite at his nails as well, leaving his hands with nail stubs and scarred edges.
Now, it seems Sam’s still reliant on that particular stress response. Whilst dressing Sam earlier, Dean obviously noticed the scarring surrounding Sam’s body. His back had been covered in lash marks and bites from who knows what - marks that had clearly been given by someone else. But there were other marks, Dean had observed, that had not been like the others. Marks that looked too clean to have been given by someone other than Sam himself. Scratch marks littering his forearms, his neck, his hands. His nails have been bitten and torn to nearly nothing, more than half of the nails missing from each finger. The skin around them have been likewise picked at bad enough that both of Sam’s hands look like they have been through a meat grinder.
“He’s hanging in there,” Dean grimaces, still looking at his brother. “Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
Sam eyes flit over to Dean, then to Bobby, and then back to Dean again. Through feverish eyes, Sam looks Dean in the eyes once again and almost looks puzzled. “Sam didn’t hurt them too much.”
“No,” Dean agrees. “You didn’t hurt them at all.”
“The hell is he talking about?” Bobby asks.
“He’s real worried about knocking you and Ellen over at the graveyard,” Dean says, ignoring the way that Sam’s face contorts as if calling Dean out on a lie. “Or he just recognizes you. It’s what he said to me, what he heard me thinking.”
“Right,” Bobby says. “He worried about the damage he just did to your hand?”
Sam’s eyes flit to Dean’s bandaged wound, and his mouth makes a biting motion, his teeth clacking together as they chomp on the memory of Dean’s hand.
“He didn’t really mean to, right Sam?” Dean says, hoping that he is correct. “He’s just a little overwhelmed. I touched him without asking, it’s my fault really.”
“Right,” Bobby says again, sounding like a broken record. “I need your help for a bit upstairs.”
“I’m good here,” Dean says, hesitant to leave Sam in the state he is in. Who knows what will happen to Sam when Dean turns his back on him again.
“I’ll sit with him,” Ellen says, coming up from behind Bobby.
“Now, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Bobby says, glancing worried at the boy on the bed, now either ignoring the party of three or finally checking out.
“I’ll be fine,” Ellen says, quickly sending the two of them on their way.
As the door clicks shut behind them, Dean waits for a moment to watch Ellen approach the chair Dean had just abandoned, before heading up the stairs.
“I think I know a good place to start,” Bobby says.
“Yeah, me too,” Dean mutters, his head reeling from his conversation with Sam.
“He say anything to you?”
“Turns out he’s real close with Meg,” Dean says.
“Meg? Your daddy’s Meg?”
“Unless you know any other Meg’s,” Dean says. “He’s real delirious in there, Bobby, saying all kind of nonsense. He’s feverish, speaking in rhymes half the time, seems to think I was fed to some damn wolves or something, but he was coherent when he thought he was talking to her. She knows something.”
“Well I think it’s about time we brought her in for a little chat,” Bobby says. “We know from John’s notes how to summon a demon, and I think I was able to figure out which ritual would summon her.”
“You think so?” Dean asks.
Bobby spends the next hour explaining to Dean the details of how they would summon Meg to the house. With the panic room already taken, Bobby will work on fixing his garage out back into quite the same, with the additional power of summoning demons directly into the room. A lot of the specifics flies over Dean’s head, but the overall message is heard; they will get some information.
Knowing Bobby, the place will be up and ready by the end of the week. Until then, they will just have to keep Sam alive and attempt to break the fever that is raging through the kid’s body. Dean hopes that is the reason for Sam’s insane mumbling, but he can’t be too sure. The kid didn’t have a fever the night before, and he had been speaking just as much nonsense then. For now, Dean chalks it up to the kid being under a lot of stress. He won’t stop believing that his Sammy is still in there somewhere.
More importantly, Sam remembers him. Dean isn’t too sure what exactly is going on in the kid’s brain, or what has been done to him to get him to this point, but for now it is enough to know that Sam hasn’t forgotten him. He remembers enough of the night he was taken to be able to recite the exact last words that Dean had ever said to him.
What if that’s the only thing he remembers? A small voice in Dean’s head, one he is all too familiar with, rings loudly amongst the rest of the noise. What if all he remembers is you leaving him?
He shakes that off. He can’t afford to think like that, not now. Sam had been so sure that Dean was dead, had seemed upset over the words coming out of his own mouth. Though, to be fair, the kid had seemed upset over the majority of the words that came out of his mouth, regardless of how nonsensical they seemed to Dean. Dean assumes that in Sam’s mind, all of his words made sense. If only he were able to read minds the way Sam obviously can; then, he would be able to help him.
“How’s that hand?” Bobby asks, interrupting Dean’s thoughts.
“I’ll live,” Dean responds. For the most part, the adrenaline from the night before of finding Sam and killing Azazel had not truly worn off fully yet. Dean has been able to ignore the pain in his hand, and only when he thinks about it does he feel the dull throbbing from the bite wound.
“He tries that again, we may have to consider,”-
“No,” Dean says before Bobby can approach the subject. “I’m not fucking gagging him, alright? Besides, it was my fault. I put my hands on his face, how would you act if some random guy you didn’t know started grabbing at you?”
“Dean,”-
“I’ll be more careful,” Dean promises. “But he doesn’t seem to be too violent.”
“He damn near took a chunk of your hand off,” Bobby says. “If that ain’t violent, what is?”
“He was upset,” Dean says. “I lifted the water bottle to his mouth, got awfully close then too, and he didn’t react like that.”
“He drink the water?”
“Nah,” Dean responds. “He saw the bottle, asked for it. Once he tasted it was just water he had no more interest. It’s something else he wanted, something like…,” he trails off.
“Like what?” Bobby prompts.
Dean sighs. “I can’t be sure, but he keeps begging for Azazel to come give him something, something he can give him, and I can’t. I tried to tell him that I would give it to him, but he said that wasn’t going to work, that he tried already and….”
“Spit it out, boy,” Bobby warns.
“I think he’s been drinking Azazel’s blood, Bobby,” Dean admits. He doesn’t mention how
Bobby eyes widen slightly at the news, but he doesn’t seem entirely put off by the claim. He frowns and his face puckers up the way it always does when he’s been thinking really hard over something.
After some time, Bobby sighs. “It ain’t too surprising.”
“No? Nothing surprising about how my baby brother has apparently been turned into some demonic vampire?”
“We knew they were pumping something into him,” Bobby explains. “It couldn’t have been good. Those powers he has, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You think they’ll go away once it all clears out of his system?” Dean asks.
“We can only hope,” Bobby says.
“How long is that going to take?” Dean asks. “You think it’s affecting his mind as well?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Bobby says. “Unfortunately my application at the demon daycare was rejected.”
“Right,” Dean says. “Sorry.”
Bobby sighs. “It ain’t your fault, boy. But you gotta hear these things. It may come to a time where we,”-
“Stop,” Dean says.
“No, you listen,” Bobby says. “I know you’re smart enough to not be expecting some kind of apple pie ending for your brother. He may get better, but he’ll never be the boy you knew. You need to know that if you have a devil’s chance of taking care of him.”
“I know, Bobby,” Dean says, his voice going soft and hesitant.
“-and,” Bobby continues. “There may come a day where we have no choice but to kill him.”
“No,” Dean says, finding his voice again.
“You don’t know what motivates that boy down there,” Bobby says. “There may come a day he finds his way out of here, right into the hands of a demon who’s willing to give him what he’s so desperate for. I’m willing to bet right about now he’s willing to do just about anything to get what he’s looking for.”
“Like open a gate to hell,” Dean mutters.
“Like open a damned gate to hell,” Bobby confirms. “If you can’t save him, I gotta know what you have what it takes to stop him.”
Dean sighs. “I won’t let him hurt anybody.”
“Right,” Bobby says.
“Look, if this is too much for you, once he gets better I can find somewhere else to take him,” Dean says. He knows that Bobby has no reason to care about Sam. He had known the boy before he had been taken; John had dropped them off at his house more times than he dropped them anywhere else, but never long enough for Bobby to truly understand Sam the way that Dean did. “I could get us a cabin in the woods somewhere, I don’t know. Make my own panic room to keep him in.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” Bobby says. “What’s gotten into your head, boy?”
“Nothing,” Dean says. “It’s just… you got a lot to deal with already, and I’ve long past overstayed my welcome. Now you got two of us in here, and he’s a lot worse than I was when I got here.”
“You think I don’t care about your brother?” Bobby says. “That my heart didn’t break when I heard what had happened to him? I spent years thinking about him, about you. I didn’t see you for years after and when you finally came back you were covered in bruises and flinching at the smallest movement.”
Dean thinks about how different life was when he was living with Rooster. He didn’t have to think about much of anything, back then. All he had to do was follow orders, do as he was told. He wonders how Rooster would have reacted to Sam being back, shuddering at the images that his mind has created.
“I loved that boy, too,” Bobby says. Dean’s head snaps up to meet Bobby’s gaze, steady and unwavering. “I may not have known him as well as I’ve got to know you, but I remember him. He was a good boy, and tough as nails; look at what he has survived. That last thing I want for him is to send him to his grave, you gotta know that.”
“I know,” Dean whispers. “If it comes a time where it needs to be done, I’ll… I won’t try and stop it.”
You’re lying, that voice returns, but this time Dean pushes it away before it can truly appear. It doesn’t matter if he’s lying or not; he won’t let it come to that.
Bobby forces Dean to sit down and eat a real meal and drink something other than whisky before he is allowed back in the panic room. For the entirety Dean has been away, he hasn’t heard any screaming from the panic room below their feet. It’s been almost eerily quiet, and Bobby had gone down twice to check on Ellen before reporting that everything was okay.
Dean scarfs down his meal and drinks some water before making his way back to the panic room. Bobby had suggested that Dean get some sleep before he returns, but a quick look from Dean tells the man that the younger man has budged as much as he would allow, so he did not attempt to force it.
Approaching the panic room, Dean still cannot hear any noises from the room. Sam hadn’t been this quiet since he had woken up. Even when he wasn’t screaming or mumbling delirious nonsense, he had remained steady in his cries and whimpers of pain. Dean cannot hear a single thing coming from the room.
He peeks through the hole in the door before he enters, and his eyes widen slightly at the sight in front of him.
Sam is still tied to the bed, but his body has completely stopped its constant shivering, and lays still and stagnant. His eyes look to be a thousand miles away, his head rolled to the side staring directly ahead at the wall near him. Beside him on the chair, Ellen has gathered a wet rag and has placed it over the kid’s forehead, and her hand lightly brushes Sam’s sweaty hair over his ears. She is humming quietly, so much so that Dean can barely hear her.
He's shocked. Sam doesn’t particularly seem to be enjoying it, but he also doesn’t currently seem to be present. Whatever she has done, Ellen has been able to calm Sam down enough that he was able to retreat into his own mind instead of wallow in whatever misery he must be feeling as his body fights off whatever demonic horror that’s been given to him.
Dean opens the door slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. Upon seeing him, Ellen stops singing but does not cease her movements upon the boy’s hair. She smiles slightly and raises her free hand to bring a finger to her lips, shushing him before he says anything. Dean walks over to the pair of them and raises an eyebrow at her.
“It can’t be easy,” Ellen whispers. “This is withdrawal, Dean. Bad withdrawal.”
“I know,” Dean says. “Talk to Bobby, he’ll fill you in.” He doesn’t explain here in fear that somewhere in his mind, Sam can still hear them. The last thing Dean needs is for the kid to overhear the words demon blood and go berserk once again.
Ellen takes a final look at Sam, her eyes gentle with no hints of fear in them, despite what the kid did to her the night before. Her hand gives one last movement across his hairline before retreating, and she stands up out of the chair for Dean to replace her.
“That rag should be changed to a fresh one soon,” she tells him. “It’s getting awfully warm again.”
“How did you do this?” Dean asks. Nothing he could do earlier would calm the kid down, yet Ellen was able to get him to stop crying and was able to get her hands near his face without Sam trying to bite her.
“He recognized me from last night,” she explains. “I think he felt bad. Right when I hit the ground, I had thought I had broken a few ribs. Once you left, he kept repeating some nonsense about broken ribs, figured he must have heard me the same way he heard you.
“I told him he didn’t hurt me,” Ellen continues. “He said ‘Sam didn’t hurt them too bad,’ same thing he said to you. He was getting real agitated over it, so I just… started singing to him. Jo used to get periods where she wouldn’t calm down after her Daddy died. It helped her, I thought I would try with him.”
“This isn’t the same thing, Ellen,” Dean warns. “He could have hurt you.”
“He didn’t,” Ellen says. “He was surprised by the singing, but he stopped the rambling, then he stopped shaking so bad. I think it was distracting him from how much pain he’s in.”
“Right,” Dean nods. “Then you got near his head, knowing he tried to take a bite outta me earlier.”
“I was careful,” Ellen says, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I’ve been around dangerous men my whole life, Dean. He ain’t one of them. He’s just scared. I thought… I thought he might just want a little bit of comfort. For someone to tell him that everything will be okay.”
Dean looks down at his brother. He may not look content, but he’s as calm as he’s been since they found him. “Thank you, Ellen. Really. I couldn’t have done that.”
“Sure you could,” Ellen smiles. “You just gotta try.”
With that, she leaves the room with a parting squeeze to Dean’s shoulder and a slight brush of his hair, similar to the way she had done so with Sam.
Sam must have been aware enough of his surroundings, though, for the moment Ellen leaves his line of sight his eyes snap back to reality, looking over his shoulder to watch her close the door behind her. Once he hears the solid click, Sam lets out a longing, drawn out whine.
“She’ll come back,” Dean whispers. Sam’s eyes move back to where Dean has just sat down in the chair Ellen vacated. His eyes once again do not raise any higher than Dean’s neck, though he seems to recognize it’s the same man as before.
“Sam didn’t hurt them too much,” Sam whispers.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, understanding the greeting this time around. “Who thought those words?”
Sam frowns, his eye twitching slightly.
“Dean said them,” Dean explains. “My name is Dean Winchester. I’m your brother.”
“I’m your brother,” Sam echoes in the exact same inflection, with no indication he truly meant the words that were being said; he was simply repeating Dean's words once as he had so many times now. “Dean’s dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead like Ava and dead like Andy and dead like… like…,” his voice trails off, getting quieter as the sentence progresses. All the while, his body begins its shaking as if it had never stopped.
Dean takes a gamble. He doesn’t want to continue the same game they had been playing earlier, and it worked for Ellen. Ever so slowly, he brings his hand to Sam’s head. Sam’s eyes track it the entire time, cautious. Dean remembers Ellen’s words:
He’s just scared.
His hand makes contact with Sam’s hair, and resumes the exact motions Ellen had been making. Sam gasps slightly, flinching back at first before pushing his head into Dean’s touch as much as he can around the constraints.
Sam’s mouth opens a few times, as if to say something but then thinking better of it. All the while, Dean continues his motions as Sam’s body slowly, oh so slowly, stops shaking so hard. He still trembles slightly, as if he was cold, though Dean supposes there is nothing he can do about that unless the kid falls into his stupor again.
Eventually, Dean retrieves the rag that has somehow fallen off of Sam’s head during his shaking. He dunks it into the bowl of water next to him and places it back on Sam’s head. Once it makes contact, Sam lets out a small sigh of relief as whatever pain radiating through his body gets a momentary release.
After a few minutes of this, Sam’s mouth opens once more, but this time he is able to produce a sound:
“When the sun comes up, you’ll feel better.”
It’s faint, but the words are clear. Words that are so familiar to Dean, yet he had not heard them nor spoken them in years.
This was a phrase Dean’s mother would tell him whenever he was sick, or hurt, or tired and frightened after waking up from a nightmare. Words that brought him so much comfort that he would repeat the same ones to Sam for those same reasons.
Sam would get headaches a lot as a kid, and would find it hard to fall asleep at night due to the pain. This was a ritual Dean had become familiar with as a child, stroking Sam’s hair in order to help him fall asleep, saying the same words to him to try and ease the pain.
When the sun comes up, you’ll feel better.
Dean doubts that the demons were giving Sam this kind of comfort. Nor does he think Ellen could possibly have known to say those exact words to the kid. There can only be one possible explanation for this. Sam remembers Dean taking care of him.
Right now, in Sam’s jumbled and messed up mind, he may not be able to come to the realization that the man in front of him is the same fourteen-year-old kid who had left him all those years ago to get some damn medicine. He may truly believe that boy had been killed, possibly by the same creatures that took him away from Dean.
However, somewhere deep in Sam’s delirious mind, he recognizes this pattern. He remembers Dean taking care of him, and knows enough to sense that this is the same thing. For now, Dean supposes that is more than enough.
“That’s right, Sammy,” Dean whispers, his hand continuing its pattern along Sam’s hairline. “When the sun comes up, you’ll feel better.”
Sam’s eyes finally come up to meet his without the intention of reading his mind. The kid looks exhausted beyond belief. The circles under his eyes have grown to a level Dean cannot believe the kid is still able to keep his eyes open. The sheet of sweat covering his face alongside the pale demeanour makes him look as if he were going to collapse from the plague anytime soon.
Tomorrow, Sam may grow restless and desperate once more. He may become violent, aggressive, begging for blood or whatever it is he so desperately needs. He may not recognize Dean, mistake him for Azazel.
In a week from now, they will summon Meg and get some answers to try and help Sam. It may reveal answers that Dean would prefer to stay hidden, or it may not help at all.
For now, however, Dean is willing to let all of that slide. For now, he is going to sit here and help Sammy get some damn sleep. Whatever it takes.
So, he swallows his pride and begins to sing Hey Jude, the same way his mother had to him, the same way he used to sing to Sammy when they were children.
And it works.
Sam’s eyes slips shut after a few moments of listening to Dean sing, and his body stops trembling nearly entirely. Dean watches as Sam’s body gets heavier and heavier against the small cot's mattress, and right before Sam slips into sleep, he lets out a single, nearly inaudible sound.
“Dean.”