Palisades Of Strength

"It's temporary," Sam says; and Dean hears the desperation in his brother's tone despite the attempt at matter-of-fact confidence. Sam Winchester declares it; so it must be. "The doctors said so."

In fact, the doctors have said no such thing. The doctors have said possibly temporary. Trust Sam to latch onto the faintest of all hopes. Or to build them out of pipe dreams, out of what he wants so badly to hear, even if no one says it to be heard.

Problem is, Dean doesn't know if Sam's raw pain and need is for Dean, or for himself because of Dean. Because of what's been lost.

What does he think I'll do? Off myself?

Christ, he hasn't done it so far, has he? Despite everything? Despite dying and, you know, hell?

Alastair. Alastair and his taunts, his undeniable truths.

Demons lie.

Alastair hadn't. Not about this. The first domino has fallen. The first seal is broken. Cas confirmed it two weeks before.

And yeah, Dean knows exactly what psychosomatic means.

He knows, too, what PTSD is. With all the shit that comes down on hunters, it's easy to chalk up everything to the job, to believe that a head gets screwed just because the body does. But that's bullcrap. Dean knows there's more. And maybe it is just a brain shutting down, surrendering the last vestiges of a child's wish to be a superhero, even though he knows he's not good enough. Not strong enough.

I'm not the man either of our fathers wanted me to be.

Sammy's superhero was never John Winchester. No, that secret identity was Dean's conviction. Sam never bought into that. Sam believed his big brother was the true superhero.

Or had. Until he learned differently.

"Daredevil," Dean says, knowing it explains so very much.

But Sam has never been one for comics. He sounds lost. Distracted. And a tad—impatient? Yeah. Maybe. Sam is always impatient, a little, when he can't grasp Dean's shorthand for feelings and explanations.

"What?" Sam asks.

And Dean smiles. Nope. Kid brother has never cracked the Dean Winchester code. Sam thinks so, especially now that they are adults and more in sync than they ever were as kids, but Sam is still a six-pack of ballparks behind.

Dean's smile dies.

Okay, yeah. This isn't a comic book. This is—reality.

Sam's tone is tight. "Cas can fix it."

"Maybe," Dean agrees, in a voice that still breaks now and then; and feels a hollowness in his chest. Feels helplessness beating within his oh-so-fragile ribcage, stirring up emotions he wants no part of, threatening to breach the bones.

Fear. Panic. Bleak desolation, and a black despair.

Cas had not fixed him in the hospital.

Cas told him what he was, and why he mattered, but he did not fix him.

But he sheds all. Because he must.

"Dean—"

"I'm not a quitter, Sam."

He hears the gust of Sam's breath, a noisy rush of air as if someone has slammed an elbow into his solar plexus. "No. No, Dean. Never. You think I don't know that?"

Dean isn't altogether certain what he believes of Sam's thoughts, these days. Or, well, Sam's emotions.

I have erected edifices and mountains, palisades of strength, when I am naught but weak and inconsequential, a mote not even worthy of approaching God's eye.

He can't remember where he read that.

Or even if he had.

Comporting himself among the angelic host, dicks that they may be, tends to make him occasionally think in something akin to bastardized Bible-speak.

Or is it a poem?

Nah. Not unless some high school chick read it to him, or quoted it, thinking to sound romantic before he worshipped at her font.

So to speak.

"Dean . . ."

It's obvious that Sam really, truly, does not know what to say. Has no inkling of how to even approach the topic. Which makes Dean smile; Sam Winchester at a loss for even a carefully calibrated assault upon the flanks of emotion, when usually he just crashes on through his big brother's barricades with unfaltering intent?

I have erected edifices and mountains, palisades of strength—

Okay, yeah. Possibly Dean has done that. Is doing that. And Sam senses no flanks he may assault, because everything is new. New and strange and baffling; and, as always, frightening.

And now?

—when I am naught but weak and inconsequential, a mote not even worthy of approaching God's eye.

Sam is freaking.

Dean isn't.

Because payback is a bitch.

But sometimes fair.

"Dean . . . "

And Dean takes pity on him. "Sam, I hate it. Chisel that in stone, okay? I am not happy, I am not resigned, I am not all Serenity Prayer about this, okay?" The tide of fear rises again, beats upon his crumbling shore. "It sucks, man. It's fucked, man. But as much as I hate to sound like a bumper sticker or some twisted Dr. Phil fortune cookie, it is what it is. I told you that years ago, after I screwed myself by firing a taser at a rawhead while standing in water. I mean, what kind of stupid-ass moron does that? But it's all part of the gig. Hunters just tend to think big picture—you know; dying—when there are plenty of smaller pitfalls along the road. This is—this is just one of 'em."

"Dean! Look, depression I get, and anger, and misplaced guilt, but this is—"

Dean slams the flat of his hand down upon the table. Bobby's table. It rattles beer bottles, the plates Dean knows are greasy and luridly red-and-yellow from the remains of nachos under melted cheddar and salsa, with salt grains glinting dully in dim light. He can smell the heavy scent of cheese, cilantro, tomatoes and sodium. He just can't see any of it.

It cuts off anything more Sam means to say, and his breath, on a choppy, startled inhalation.

"Stop," Dean says, and even in an untrustworthy voice he knows he sounds every bit as commanding and intractable as their father; and won't that just set off his brother? "Just stop, Sam. I'm trying to form scabs, here. Don't rip 'em off, because I don't want to bleed again. I can't bleed again."

Because if he does, it will be much too easy to never scab again, to just bleed out.

Sam is silent, but the world isn't. Dean hears the creaks and pops of the old house settling, the pinpoint smacks of kamikaze moths dying on contact with Bobby's porch light, the ticking of the kitchen clock that always runs nine minutes slow regardless of resettings (and exorcisms), the occasional squeak of the wooden floorboards overhead and the thump-scuff of Bobby's booted heels as he moves about his bedroom.

Giving them space. Retiring from the battlefield within his own home.

Winchester business.

Bobby is family. But he removes himself when he feels it wise, or necessary.

Or maybe because he has his own grief to deal with.

"We don't know—" Dean begins, and Sam takes that as an opening, seizes it.

"No, we don't know, Dean! This could be over in an hour, tomorrow, in a week, or—"

"—a year? Two? Maybe never?"

Sam says nothing. They both know the truth: that there is no answer. That maybe, possibly, this is for good. The doctors said it might be that pressure tweaked something, the oxygen deprivation, or possibly it was something else entirely for reasons unknown . . .

"I can go down," Dean says, "or I can go down fighting . . . or I can not go down at all. Now, you tell me—which option do you think is most fitting for one of John Winchester's sons?"

Sam's tone is ravaged. "God, Dean—don't bring Dad into it! This is about more!"

Upon the wooden chair at Bobby's table, Dean twitches as he takes the hit. He knows, he knows Sam has no idea what that tone means, what those exact words awaken in his older brother.

Memory. The night a goodbye was said. The night Sam . . . well, deleted himself from the family tree. When Dean attempted to explain to him how very much John Winchester needed both sons.

"God, Dean—don't bring Dad into it! This is about more!"

That night John's eldest wept bitter, silent tears in the front seat of the Impala, in a bleak, black night pitilessly starless, so their father would never know how much it hurt him to lose his baby brother.

He had said, I can't do this alone.

Yes, Sam said, you can.

Dean places the flat of his hand atop the table. Creeps it out to the center. Spreads his fingers. It's been years, but he does it.

Drops the edifices, the palisades, and ventures, "I can't do this alone."

"Cas," Sam says, as if it answers everything. As if he has no memory of their exchange years before.

"Maybe," Dean agrees. "I damn well hope so. But . . ."

But. Because the angel offered no miracles in the hospital, even when Cas was the reason Dean nearly died.

Sam's inhalation is unsteady. But he manages it; manages, too, to remember to place spread fingers inside of his brother's upon Bobby's table. It's what they always did, to gauge a scrawny kid's growth against his big brother's.

Dean can't see it. But he feels the brush of fingers inside his own.

Christ. Sam's hand is so big now that it's Dean who should be fitting his fingers inside of his brother's.

And that makes him smile.

This time, Sam doesn't say 'Yes, you can,' to support his own needs, but oh so quietly, to support his brother's, "What can I do?"

Tears threaten. Dean swallows tightly.

"Tomorrow," he says, "I want you to take me outside. To the Impala. And I'm going to put up the hood and get good and greasy, and I want you to hand me whatever tools and parts I ask for. Okay?"

Sam sounds mystified. "Okay."

Dean smiles. "I don't need eyesight to tune my baby. Any more than Daredevil needs sight to solve crime."

~ end ~

This is, of course, AU, as Dean never went blind after his experiences in "On The Head Of A Pin," one of my favorite episodes. Usually I adhere to canon, but part of the fun and challenge of fanfic, for me, is to now and then play with canon a little, experiment just a bit, without diverging too far from it. This time I wanted to go with purposeful ambiguity, though the Daredevil reference was an intentional signal to readers familiar with the comic book. In my head canon, the blindness is psychosomatic and cleared up soon after the conclusion of this story. (This fic was actually inspired by one I read in which Dean goes blind, and Sam is trying to find ways to anchor him; my thought throughout was that if he got under the Impala's hood, Dean would find a way to the light.)