Disclaimer: Still not mine.
A/N: This contains SPOILERS for both 221 and 222. Please take note.
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Bow and Bow Low
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By the time Bobby gets back just to tell Dean the guy who hurt Sammy got away, Sam's nails are blue.
Dean's seen Sam look a lot like the way he is now, before. With a pale face and white eyelids. Teeth stained red with blood; shirt and jacket too. Dark circles under his eyes, his lips slightly parted. Dean's even held him like this, all wrapped up in his arms like a wall of protection. He's seen Sam hurt and unmoving and hurt.
But never with blue nails.
Dean would tear his own nails out if it meant Sam's weren't blue any longer. His soul too.
By the time Bobby gets back just to tell Dean the guy who hurt Sammy got away, all Dean can think to say is What the hell for did you stop and come back then?
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They get Sam into the nearest house and on one of the beds. Dean tries to differentiate his mind between the thoughts Sam be awake and Sammy's wake. He can't though, and Bobby's mouth is tight-lipped when Dean tells him to get chairs.
"Dean, I'm going to go get whatever I can from the car, try and make a few phone calls. You gonna be...?" Bobby asks after a while. It must have been a long time, because Dean notices now the sun is nearly up.
"I'm fine."
He flinches when Bobby puts his hand on Dean's shoulder, but Bobby has enough sense not to move it away just yet. Dean hears him take a few deep breaths, then he squeezes and lets go. "I'll be right back."
The door opens and shuts, and Dean is alone with Sam.
Dean is alone.
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He thinks about saying something, anything that would mean something, but Sam can't hear him anyways. Then he thinks about taking Sam's hands, but now more then his fingernails are tinged blue and Dean can't bring himself to touch them. Dean can't bring himself to touch Sam.
He ends up with his own hands covering his mouth as he begins to sob, but standing up doesn't seem like too good an idea right now so he doesn't do anything else to relieve the burning he feels in his stomach and chest. He can feel his eyes water as he frantically tries to keep them open and connected to Sam. After all, he doesn't know how much time he has before Sam's dust and ash and Dean is more alone then he has ever been.
Sam may be a corpse, but Dean's still breathing and he doesn't believe for a moment that Sammy wouldn't stick around to at least say a proper goodbye. You know, 'jerk' or 'I love you' or something else equally sentimental and absurdly Sam.
Sammy.
This is it. This is the end. Dean doesn't know what comes next – living or mercy – but he does know that no matter how it goes down, it's going down without him trying to do a damn about it one way or the other. The one thing he thought was worth saving the world for is gone, dead, Sammy, lost.
And since Dean lived for Sammy, he's gone, dead, and lost too.
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"Dean? Brought you this back."
"No thanks, I'm fine."