Chapter Nine

Bobby watches Dean fade into the silence and television and the bottom of a whiskey bottle. It's been a week (and it has been just as slow and painful as the last one had been), and Dean's chin and jaw is covered in scruff, grief and loss and exhaustion hanging heavily in the bags under his weary eyes and the shadows around them. They make his cheeks look sunken; make him look even more pitiful. There's always those faint snarling lines around his slightly upturned mouth, hiding quiet rage at the world that's still carrying on and fate and Bobby and himself and almost everything that breathes (not Sam. Sam's not breathing anymore). His gaze is squinting into the screen, but something tells Bobby that he's only trying to get lost into whatever crap is playing on that box, and he's failing. He's trying to disappear inside something, into the TV or alcohol or sleep or false pretenses that Sam was hearing him. He's trying not to think, and it's not working. Not if Sam's dead body is lying on the same mattress it did three years ago.

It felt familiar, a sense of de-ja-vu. The loaded, stifling air around them, the darkness in Dean's eyes and the numbed pain around the bones and muscles of his face, Sam's corpse.

"Son," Bobby calls softly.

"Leave me alone, Bobby," Dean replies tiredly, his voice rough from disuse and the burning whiskey sticking to his throat.

"You haven't eaten anything," Bobby says instead of all the other things he should have said. But he didn't want to tell him that the cabin was starting to smell of his brother's death, or that Sam wanted to be cremated in a proper hunter's funeral, didn't want to tell him that he should get up and take a shower and brush his teeth and change his clothes, that destroying himself like this isn't going to bring Sam back, that Sam wouldn't have wanted this for him. Dean was raw inside, and the lightest of scratches would burn like hell, and Bobby has already hurt enough. He didn't want to do that anymore.

"I'm not hungry," Dean says, his tone strained and forced and low, like talking is grating him inside and sapping too much energy. It's all the same old depressing routine, and Bobby doesn't know what to do, feels like his head is blocked and confused and he's powerless, wanting a solution, an escape, a way to fix it all, and not knowing a single way on how he can do any of that. His full, burdened heart is pushing him down further into the seat of his wheelchair, taking strength off his shoulders and back, and he's exhausted deep from his skin to his bones, sick from his stomach to his throat with sorrow and guilt and longing for his lost son and the stench of death filling his nostrils every second of every day.

He doesn't know what to do.

...

Dean's sitting beside Sam again, talking to him as if he's still alive to listen to every word Dean says attentively and completely. Sam was always such a good listener. He wasn't lost in his own thoughts while someone was talking, and he never interrupted the other person.

Dean's smiling a little (it's the only time of day he ever does) as he speaks, hand lightly over his brother's pale hand, hesitant like he's fragile. He's telling him childhood memories, and it only gets sadder and sadder to see, because it's as if he's trying to make up for all that lost time of last week (God, was it all really one week ago?), but he knows it's not enough and he can't let go of this boy he practically raised after only twenty-seven years and so he's willing to carry his corpse around until he himself is gone too, or until the world ends.

"You wouldn't stop laughing, Sammy…" Bobby pieces the small, whispery murmurs together, like they had their own little world of memories and conversation within those walls, all theirs and no one else's, and Bobby felt like an intruder even being a room away.

Bobby turns his head away from the open door and instead stares at the food on the table that's gone cold. He doesn't know why he still puts it there every day when it'll just be left until the next morning, and the only person who can help that boy was lying colder on a bed.

…

Dean leaves on a morning, disappears for the whole day until night. Bobby was worried out of his mind the first hour, wondering what could have possessed him to vanish like this, where he could have gone, what he was going to do.

If he was going to come back or not.

But he sat beside Sam, stared at him and stared at him and stared at him as he drowned in the pool of emotions inside of him and tried not to break for the fiftieth time.

And then it hit him. It hit him hard and he couldn't believe it took him this long to figure it out.

It's all too similar to three years ago, and it's sickening, coupled with the memories of those few days, the same feelings, the same air and the same tragedy, and with everything that's happening now. It's so much worse now, so much more painful the second time. It rips off the band-aids from the old wounds, carves them open, and it makes newer, fresher ones too.

He runs a hand down on his weary face, feels a desperate, helpless, burning need (almost the same kind, he thinks, of that week before) to do something, to stop this whole thing from happening (but he just feels like he's trying to hold a tide back because there's nothing he can do), to stop Dean from making another stupid, goddamn deal that Sam would have to wake up to and face again, but his legs are his shackles to this crap of a wheelchair, and there's nothing he can do.

…

"What the hell did you do?" Bobby hisses, wheeling towards Dean, who was standing slumped in the doorway. Sam hasn't woken up, and he doesn't know whether to think that's good or bad.

"They wouldn't take my soul," Dean whispers, and standing there so dejected and lost, raw eyes and a broken voice, he looks like a defeated little boy who lost everything too soon (but everything never came until he lost his baby brother without a goodbye).

Bobby doesn't say anything, just leans forward until he can reach his hand on his eldest's shoulder. Dean shrugs it away and walks off, and Bobby already knows where he'd be sitting when he turns back.

"I'm sorry, Sammy…"

…

Sometimes Dean is sitting on the couch like there's nothing to exist for, like he's trying to forget that he does. Sometimes he's pacing like a caged animal, caged in a life between no Sam and no way to bring him back. He wants to escape, and Bobby's afraid of what that may imply, what it might lead to in the future. It doesn't seem like something Dean would do. Dean fights against the sufferings, the unfairness of the universe, pushes, thrashes, the heels of his feet digging as he's dragged. But the reason why he does any of that isn't here to watch him not give up, so he doesn't put it past him.

He feels like he's going insane, wondering when it'll become too much for the both of them.

...

Bobby finds out, on a Saturday, that they aren't out of miracles yet.

The devil, he learns, smells of fire and blood and roasted flesh. He smells like Hell, as he should. It mixes in with the sickening stench of his youngest son's cadaver (but he thinks it's becoming too familiar now, if he no longer feels overwhelmingly sick of it).

Lucifer's standing over Sam's body, green shirt and greener eyes with sandy blonde hair. His smile is crooked, calm as he looks at him, hidden fires of rage behind it all (the kind where the anger wears out into subdued tranquil, but the dull need for vengeance is never gone). Dean's sleeping, finally, but his hands are never empty of the whiskey bottles slowly vitiating his liver, and Bobby's not sure whether he should call him here or not (he's not sure if he'd even hear him in his alcohol-induced sleep).

"Get away from him," Bobby growls, his voice and his muscles angrily and fearfully trembling, but bold. Sam's dead and Dean might be following, he's in a wheel chair and the world's ending anyway (nobody left to try and save it) so he's right behind them. There's nothing left to lose.

"Very brave, Singer," Lucifer comments, tilts his head. "But I don't have the patience right now." He slowly turns back to Sam, touches his head gently, like a father to his child.

It's a short-lasting visit. Bobby is wise enough to stay silent, but not enough to stop glaring. There isn't anything bad he could do to Sam (it makes him wonder why he's even here), but it still bothers him having the friggin' Satan right next to his deathbed. It's an old protective instinct, now no longer necessary, it seems.

His heart is suddenly too heavy in his chest again, and he wants to sink into his wheel chair and never move an inch.

Lucifer withdraws his hand, glances at him one last time, with that same crooked smile hiding Hell in it.

And then he's gone.

But Sam's back.

There's air whooshing into Sam's lungs. He's gasping it all in, his mouth open, eyes large, ribs expanding as it rises higher, before relaxing back down. His chest is still heaving up and down after while he's panting for more oxygen, short intervals between each jounce, gaze wild as they dart around.

But it sounds like the most beautiful miracle Bobby's ever heard, given to them by the friggin' devil of all people.

...

Bobby doesn't let go of the kid for a whole long minute. He had sat there, watching him wither away in that one week while he hoped for just one thing to go right (and it didn't), and then wallowed in the hopelessness of never having him breathe again for another. And god, his chest is suddenly clearer, lighter, his heart fuller, but not with sadness. He can only imagine what Dean would feel like, seeing his brother back up and moving.

Sam smiles at him as he backs up. There's tears in Bobby's eyes, and he just takes a few seconds to take it all in. The kid's damn hair all over on his head and face, the deep kindness in his puppy eyes, the soft smile on his face.

"Dean's in the other room," Bobby talks first, motioning his head towards the room behind him. "You won't like what you see, though. Boy's been killing himself."

Sam's smile drains away at the mention of him, and he looks down sadly at his hands, biting his lip in a pause.

"He didn't come for me," then he says softly. He inhales. "I… I was dying, and - "

"He didn't know, son," Bobby cuts him off. "And he did come for you. He was coming. It was just too late when he got here."

Sam exhales gently, nods, and Bobby never did underestimate the boy's capacity for forgiveness.

…

Dean's mind wakes up another morning without open eyes, not ready to face the gray world yet again. His head is pounding and his stomach is nauseated, feeling like the swirling sickness is rising up to his throat. He doesn't know if it's the hangover or the meaninglessness and captivity.

"Dean?"

Every bit of mind he has flies out the window in that moment. He's frozen, incapable of moving or speaking. He thinks maybe he didn't wake up, maybe he's still dreaming of arguments about the best '90s movies and fighting over first showers or remote controls and of quiet smiles or loud laughters in the Impala; still dreaming about ignored calls and endless roads that never seem to finish and flat lining machines and sad hazel eyes staring into his own, asking him why he never came (and he never knew how to answer it with anything other than a broken apology).

Sleep is either the best part of his day now, or the worst (reliving Sammy's death is just as bad as living with it). It's screwed up how he still keeps craving it for the good dreams, just to see him alive again in them.

"Dean? You awake?" the voice asks him, rich and deep and gentle and kind. It's so easy to take normal, every-day things for granted, just until they're no longer normal and every-day. He misses it (misses everything about this stupid kid), regrets that he didn't appreciate it more, twisted into a longing for another chance to have it for real. He feels it every damn time he wakes up and realizes he probably never will.

Dean slowly opens up his eyes.

And sees him, kneeling on the floor in front of him while he's lying down on the couch.

And then he's being bombarded with memories of a little boy with those same eyes and that same brown floppy hair and that same love in his bones that seizes his heart and fills behind his ribs to his throat. He looks real. He looks so real. He wants it all so badly to be real.

"Sammy," he chokes it out through a shaky, pained whisper. He looks real (the colors and the clarity and the perfect detail of where his mole lies just a little left to the bridge of his nose and the way his broody eyebrows are naturally furrowed all the time and the way his dumb hair shines in the early morning light), and he knows this time that it isn't, and god, he wishes he could go back to the oblivion where he doesn't remember that Sammy's dead and he was too late and he's dreaming of insignificant memories that never really seemed to matter as much when they were making them.

"Hey, hey, hey," Sam hushes as his face crumples, catches his trembling fingers reaching towards his cheek. "Dean, it's okay. It's okay. I'm okay."

"No, you're not," Dean whispers, still choking on his pain. "You're dead."

Sam looks confused.

"No, Dean. I'm... I'm right here. Lucifer brought me back," he tells him.

That stills him completely for a moment.

Before he shoots up so swiftly, he finds himself in one moment to another without even realizing how it happened. He suddenly has not-Sam pushed down against the ground, his hands crushing his collar angrily. Not-Sam's hands are up in surrender, looking a bit nervous and confused as he stares up at him, breathing heavily (Breathing. He wishes it was his own Sam breathing).

"Get out of him!" he snarls, jerking his collar. He's ready to punch him, his fist raising and seconds away from diving into his face.

"Dean, I..."

"He's telling the truth, boy." Bobby comes wheeling in, interrupting the situation before it escalates into blood and bruises.

"Yeah? And how would you know that?" Dean hisses, his mouth twisted up into a sneer that looks like he's either close to breaking down or trying not to do any further damage. It's just salt on wounds, losing him and then seeing him walking and talking after a whole week of unbearable, overwhelming depression, only it's something else inside of him.

"Just look at him," is all Bobby says.

And Dean does.

He looks into hazel eyes, huge and soft and compassionate, with a depth of childhood adoration and humanness and a forgotten sadness of years and years in a damaged life still hanging heavily in them, the darkness of blood and bones and monsters that he's seen still living inside of them. He picks apart all the colors that are ever-changing in the different shades of light, like autumn leaves, and he's there, and he's looking back at him with a soft smile that rivals a world that tried to break him and a big heart that the sulfur in his veins was supposed to blacken and a kind soul that was meant to be evil since birth (and against all odds stacked against him, he came out still himself inside of himself) and it all comes together to form one name in his mind and on his lips and he knows. He knows it's his Sammy.

"Sammy," he exhales it out in a breath, shaky and light, his bruised, burning eyes closing in relief, his chest unburdening, feeling the weight inside him slowly float away, and like his lungs aren't so tight and clogged anymore, but it's almost unbelievable to see him right here in front of him, alive and warm and tan-skinned (not dead and cold and pale).

"He brought me back. He couldn't have me dead if he wants my consent," Sam explains quietly. "I - "

Dean pulls him up by the collar and straight into his arms, feels the ribs on his back pushing and pulling back against them as he breathes, feels the warmth flooding in his bones for the kid and the ache of longing in them settle, the pain silenced by the solidity of him.

"You're back?" Dean asks it through a hoarse whisper. "You're really back?"

"Yeah, Dean," Sam answers, nods against his shoulder with a smile. "I'm back."

Dean clutches him tight, and doesn't let go until he's sure it's not just another dream.

…

"I'm sorry," Dean says. Blurts it out, really, in the middle of a meal. There's chili steaming on the table, and he's hungry again for the first time because he's not sick and full with despair instead, but he doesn't touch it until he says the words that have been stuck in his whiskey-burned throat.

Sam startles at the sudden sound after a long stretch of silence, shoots his gaze up at him with his spoon half-way up to his mouth. Bobby's staring at him too now. Dean feels exposed in front of them after hiding away in his escapades for the past week, but he plows through. He clears his throat, still burning, still a little choked up and aching, and says, "I'm sorry for not coming. For not picking up the phone."

It's to Sam and to Bobby, and they're both looking at him but he's not ready to look back at them, to find anger creasing their brows and setting their gaze aflame. He almost feels stupid, ashamed, and too late, because he had already screwed things up, and he had only gotten lucky, and maybe they're thinking the same thing, thinking he's stupid for asking to be forgiven after everything and...

"Dean," Sam spoke first, and it's soft and understanding and it doesn't make him feel stupid at all. He ventures a glance at him. "You didn't know."

"I should have picked up the phone," Dean replied, and he feels like he had forgotten how to say or think anything but that.

"Maybe." It's Bobby this time, and he's just like Sam. "You damn well better not do that again... and you better learn how to forgive your brother because not all of it was entirely his fault." Dean wants to tell him that he already did, already realized it, but Bobby continues to talk. "But you also better learn how to forgive yourself now because beating yourself up about it isn't going to help anybody."

Dean stares down at his plate, wishes it would be as easy as it is to say it. He feels sick again. Talking about it brought all the feelings of guilt and regret and too close back, the fear of what could have been instead.

"Bobby's right, Dean," Sam joins in. "You can't keep beating yourself up about this. It's over, and we're all okay now."

"You don't- you don't understand, Sammy," Dean whispers, shaking his head. "I... I almost..."

"I know, Dean," Sam said quietly. "I had known it for four months."

"But we weren't... we weren't okay. I didn't know you were dying, and I never said goodbye, and you died thinking I never would have come. I made you think that."

"Dean," Sam says, sighs softly. "Dean, you didn't make me think anything. I was selfish too. You were hurt and angry and I should have understood that."

"Never meant I wouldn't have come," Dean replies softly. "I would have if I had known."

Sam goes quiet, and silence follows between all three of them. But it's a different kind of silence than before, the kind where, even though there are still things to clear of it, feels like enough right now, like things are better and are only going to get better from here on. The peaceful, muted tranquil in the atmosphere makes their chests feel lighter and more open with hope.

Dean looks at Bobby and Sam, thinks back to the two weeks that don't feel as small as they should, and feels that at least everything that matters most is right again in his world.

The End

Author's Note: Hey, beloved readers! It's finally finished now. I can't believe it, honestly. It's been an amazing ride, no matter how many bumps there were. *hits head against wall* I promised you all I wouldn't abandon it and that I'd complete it no matter what it takes, and it wasn't remarkably on time, but I'm happy I did. Writing's tough, and full of doubts and perfectionism and guilt for me, but I loved it whenever I got to do it, and I hope you lovely people have enjoyed reading it too. I'm really, really sorry for the delays I put you through. My story's definitely not that big of a deal, but I know there were some of you who really, really looked forward to it, and sent me PMs and reviewed again every once in a while, asking for updates, and that made me feel flattered and just terrible as shit, lol. But thank you. It meant you thought of my story, and that means a lot. And what also means a lot to me is your patience and loyalty and forgiveness. I couldn't believe just how understanding you lot are. Kind of blew my mind. But I know I haven't been the most punctual, and I'm not going to give any excuses for that, and I just hope you all can forgive me for it one last time.

I've decided that I won't be posting any stories unless I complete them beforehand, or else it'll be the same problem that I've had here, and I don't want to repeat history, ya know? So I guess that'll take a while. But I hope I can see you all again when I do! I love you all so much. And you might be thinking that I don't really know your beautiful selves behind the screen, but I think I've seen enough from the amazing support and love and kindness, and there have been a lot of times when you've made me cry with your reviews, and some of you said I made you cry with this story, so we're even. *wink* Thank you guys for all of it, for the tags (still baffled that it's over a hundred), the reviews (short and long, also baffled that it's over a hundred), the patience and forgiveness and loyalty. And goodness, I feel like I could just say thank you as many times as it would fit here, and it wouldn't do it justice for how great you guys have made this experience for me. Still, thank you. *tackle hugs*

I wish you guys the best, and I hope many good things come your way, and I want you to know that you're really, really awesome, each and every one of you. You made this lame-ass girl here smile and grin and cry with each and every review and tag (and PMs), and thank you for that.

See you again, soon, hopefully!