Blood Gets In Your Eyes
K Hanna Korossy

He'd seen that Dean was disintegrating since their dad had died. Punching a hole in the Impala's trunk had been pretty unmistakable. But Sam didn't realize quite how much his brother had become unmoored until Dean decapitated that vampire with savage fervor. He looked up at Sam afterward with blood splattered across face, and Sam knew.

For the first time, he would have to be the one to look after his big brother.

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Castiel hadn't just found Dean and stopped him from saying yes to Michael. He'd also beaten him to a pulp in his rage.

Sam looked down at the bloody, wrecked face of his brother, and sighed as he'd gathered first aid supplies. Mending his wounds would be easy. Mending the hopelessness that had led Dean to giving in would be the real test.

Dean had never given up on his brother, though, and Sam wasn't about to, either.

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It was the first Leviathan they'd faced since Dick Roman had killed Bobby. Sam should've known it wouldn't go well.

Dean hadn't stopped at cutting off its head. He'd hacked and stabbed at the thing until it was more goo than body. When he'd finally stopped and stared at it, then up at Sam, his face streaked with black, Sam knew Dean hadn't even been aware of what he was doing, blind with rage, with grief.

Sam's own sorrow quickly became eclipsed by worry for his brother.

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Dean didn't hunt after Purgatory. He slaughtered.

He killed with grim satisfaction: Demons. Cacao's incarnation. Most of a vampire nest. He'd tried to eliminate a possessed Mrs. Tran, an innocent werewolf, Sam. Under the influence of a cursed coin, but still. While Sam had been playing house topside, Purgatory had fine-tuned his brother into a killing machine.

When Dean wiped the blood of Crowley's human scientist from his face and smiled grimly at Sam, Sam forgot Amelia for the first time and started to think maybe he had to be here, with his brother, more.

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Abaddon was dead. Dean had killed the Knight with an impressive display of power and determination that had left even Sam awed. And then he'd kept going.

By the time Sam's shouts got through to him and he lifted his head, he was covered in the demon's blood. But as the Mark's hold faded, the confusion, the lostness in his eyes made him look more hurt than homicidal.

That was when Sam decided that his issues with Dean could wait.

His brother needed him.

The End