Let Me Do What I Do
K Hanna Korossy

The ring of the phone startled him. It felt almost surreal, a phone call after his fight with the Darkness-stricken…and his own probable infection. Sam fumbled out his phone.

Dean.

That one word on the screen had elicited so many emotions over the years. Longing and dismay in college. Consolation when Sam had first returned to the hunt. Worry, anger, relief, frustration, joy at different points over the following years. But almost always, in small or large measures, comfort.

He grasped at that now, along with his phone.

"Hey, you good?"

00000

"Hey, you good?"

Dean almost shook his head. He'd left Sam back at the Alamo of a hospital, besieged by the infected, and his first words were asking how Dean was. So typical.

00000

"Yeah, about forty miles outside of town. Far as I can tell, it's…isolated to Superior."

Thank God. Sam's tight chest eased a little. Maybe he hadn't wrought as much damage as he'd feared, releasing the Darkness. We are not evil, he'd said to Dean earlier, but Sam still agonized over doing more harm than good.

00000

"Well, that's something."

Dean grimaced. Three words, yet they carried all Sam's guilt, his weariness. Saving people means all the people…not just each other, Sam had said, but he didn't stop putting Dean first. Sounded like he was paying for it, again.

00000

"How 'bout you? You okay?"

Sam sagged back against the supply closet shelves. He hadn't heard that genuine concern in…a long time. Even before Dean had succumbed to the Mark, he'd still been harsher, more closed off. No matter the cost of what Sam had done, it was still worth it. He didn't even have to lie when he answered.

00000

"What'd you expect?…Like it or not, I'm gonna find a cure."

Sam didn't answer his question. And Dean was pretty sure he heard an implied, if it's the last thing I do, at the end. Not worrisome at all. But there was one thing he did believe in: Sam.

00000

"Yeah, I know you are…Man, things are screwy right now. I know we don't have any answers, but at least we got one win, you know?"

Sam closed his eyes. Dean was apologizing. So typical.

00000

"Yeah, I hear ya."

Despite the words, Sam sounded defeated. This crap will keep repeating. Sam wasn't wrong…but it was Dean's job to carry that load with him, and give him hope.

00000

"All right, I'm gonna run Jenna up to her grandmother's. Shouldn't be more than a few hours. Then we clean up that town. We find the Darkness, and we kick her ass."

Sam ghosted a smile. Trust his big brother to lay on the optimism when things were looking their bleakest. Another thing he'd deeply missed. Sam was just afraid he wouldn't be there to see Dean's win this time.

00000

"Yeah, that's great, Dean. That, um…sounds like a plan."

Dean's mouth pressed thin as he put his phone away. Yeah, Sam wasn't telling him everything: something was really wrong. He glanced impatiently after Jenna. Sooner he got her safe, sooner he could get back to Sam and fix whatever it was that made him sound like that.

They didn't leave each other behind; everything in Dean had rebelled at driving away from the hospital, leaving Sam to face those odds, that threat. But Dean had to protect Jenna and the baby. And he had to honor his brother's wishes.

Let me do what I do.

Fix things. Use that big brain, and even bigger heart. Sacrifice himself. Sam had asked the same thing when he'd faced the Cage, the Wall, the Trials, the Mark. And Dean let him no matter how much it hurt, how much it went against his grain, because that was who Sam was.

Jenna finally returned, and Dean slid into the car, engine already running by the time she climbed in.

One thing Dean could do, though, was to be there so his brother wasn't going it alone.

The End