Shrink-Wrapped

Silence hangs heavy for a long moment, mingling with the thick scent of blood in the room.

Jack is the first to move, drawing Sam's attention as his legs shift and his eyes droop, head lolling against the wall. He's clearly spent from using his power and there's a smear of blood at his left temple, but while he sags where he sits, he stays conscious. Dean, handcuffed and slumped next to the kid, hasn't made a sound, hasn't so much as twitched since the first shot was fired.

Sam's breath catches in his chest, and he can't see his brother's face where it's dropped against his restrained arms. Three bullets – three discharges in a relatively small space – and none of them were noise enough to rouse Dean.

He can't do this again – he isn't even really doing it now. He can't add Dean to the list of hits and losses that seem to keep coming.

Heart thumping wildly, he tucks his gun away and crosses the distance in long strides, gaze sliding briefly to meet Mia's wide eyes, then to confirm the shifter he shot hasn't moved. He steps over Jack's outstretched legs and hastens to his too-still brother's side, needing the assurance of Dean's steady pulse.

He releases a heavy, stilted breath at the feel of a strong beat beneath his fingers, reaches across Dean's bowed head to put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Jack? You okay?"

The kid lifts his eyes to meet Sam's and frowns. He slowly raises a hand to the wound on the side of his head and presses hard, but doesn't make a sound. He studies the blood on his fingertips, tilts his chin.

"I'm okay," Jack says finally, and a little robotically.

Sam nods and pats Jack's arm, offers him a small smile. "That's good." He changes gears, redirects his attention back to his unconscious brother. He places a tentative hand on Dean's back and gives him the smallest of shakes, mindful of the probability of a head injury. When that doesn't work, he adds a soft, though urgent, "Dean."

The gunfire didn't wake him, but Sam's voice in his ear is enough to cause Dean to jerk back to consciousness, rattling the cuffs against the fireplace grate.

"There you go," he encourages as Dean's chin sluggishly lifts, and hisses in sympathy when he sees the blood. No matter how big a dick his big brother's been lately, Sam can't turn a blind eye to the man's pain. There's a reddening bump and a deep gash on his brother's cheek, more blood at the corner of his mouth. At least two hits, he notes and files away for later.

Dean groans and blinks two, three times to clear his vision, then notices Sam in his face. His reaction is harsh and violent and unexpected, his head snapping back, recoiling as he yanks on the cuffs.

Sam pulls his hands away quickly. His eyes tick over to the body of the shifter, and he gets it. "Hey, hey, hey. I'm okay," he assures his brother. "Dean, it's me. I'm fine."

It's not enough, and Dean's wide, crazed eyes search the room over Sam's shoulder. They pass over the body, then dart to Mia, to Jack, taking a head count.

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam says again.

The relief that finally comes over his brother's face then is so vulnerable and raw, it's almost painful to look at. And then, like a switch flips, his expression changes.

Breath hitching, jaw tensing, Dean realizes his mistake two seconds too late to rein it in. He's accidentally opened a door that he's had strategically locked and barricaded; his relief that Sam is okay allowing entry to that painful grief he's been denying. He has a hard enough time facing his emotions on a good day, and right now he's down and handcuffed to a fireplace in front of his brother, Jack the nephilim, and a shapeshifting shrink.

It's visibly crashing over him like rough ocean waves – not just the sheer volume of his loss, but the finality of it. All the things he's been saying, has been screaming at Sam but hasn't truly allowed himself to feel, those things he's been keeping at bay with liquor and loud music and reckless anger – it's raining down on him like vicious blows, and they're all watching.

Breathing hard, Dean averts his gaze and tugs at the cuffs with a violent, overloud jangle in the otherwise quiet office. His voice is strained as he demands, "get me out of these damn things."

"Yeah," Sam chokes out, somewhat guiltily. He pats down his pockets, bounces on his heels and turns to Mia. "Paper clip?"

She finds one in a dish on her desk, presses it into Sam's palm and steps away.

There's no good, or easy, way to free his brother, not with the way the chain of the handcuffs is twisted around the top of the grate. It takes longer than it should, and it feels like Dean's fighting him the entire time Sam works the lock on his right wrist, desperate and self-destructive in his search for higher ground.

Finally, there's a faint click, and Dean's right wrist drops. He immediately moves to stand, gripping Sam's sleeve for leverage as he hauls himself to his feet with the handcuffs still dangling from his left wrist. He staggers across the room, putting a safe amount of distance between himself and the others.

Mia takes the hint, turns her attention to where Buddy's body lies.

Sam grants his brother a moment to pull himself together, helps Jack to his feet and briefly examines the blood on the side of the kid's head, but whatever wound there was has already closed. There are a lot of questions surrounding Lucifer's son, and Sam knows he won't like all the answers but Jack's power does make some things easier. Dean won't be so lucky.

He turns to his brother – or, to his brother's back – and squints at the cuffs hanging from his wrist. "Dean – "

Shoulders tense, Dean spins with his palm outstretched, takes the bent paper clip from Sam without a word or eye contact and makes quick work of the second cuff. They fall with a clatter to the polished hardwood, and Mia startles. He wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, wincing as he bumps the oozing mark on his cheek.

"Dean?" Sam tries again.

"I'm good," Dean says with a sniff, transferring the blood to his jeans. He still doesn't look up at his little brother.

Sam narrows his eyes, but nods. Dean's really, really not good.

None of them are.

They're not getting any younger, and Dean doesn't quite bounce back from a hit the way he did when he was twenty-six. Not that Sam has much room to talk.

He's the only one who managed not to get himself knocked out during the night's festivities, so Sam easily wins the driver's seat. It's a partial peace offering on Dean's part, but is mostly owing to the fact his can't focus on shit through his left eye right now.

Dean palms his forehead and leans against the passenger door, brooding and silent for the first two hours, shooting random glances into the backseat toward Jack. There's still suspicion there, wariness, but the kid saved both their asses. Again. Eventually his head droops, and he spends the rest of the trip softly snoring, temple tipped against the window. Sam nudges him awake a couple of times, but otherwise allows his brother the much-needed nap. The kid sleeps the entire way, head tilted back against the seat in an incredibly uncomfortable-looking and overwhelmingly human position.

They make it back to the bunker as the sun's coming up, and by that point Sam can hardly keep his own eyes open. They drop Jack off at his new room, and on the walk down the hall, he yawns and jerks his chin at the gash on his brother's face, which he'd taken the opportunity to inspect during a fluorescently-lit midnight stop for gas, and deemed just deep and wide enough to warrant a stitch or two. "You want me to take a look at that?"

Dean shuffles to a stop and probes the growing bruise with a wince. "Nah, I got it."

Sam nods, cracks his jaw with his next yawn. "You gonna crash?" Dean had clocked a solid four hours in the car, but from the look of him could do with another eight or nine or twenty.

His brother's squinty, thoughtful expression says that sleep is the furthest thing from his mind, and it takes him too long to respond. "Yeah."

Sam doesn't put much weight behind it, but doesn't have the energy for the conversation they're destined – or possibly doomed – to have. He's knows exactly what's coming, got a sneak peek back in Mia's office.

But Dean's not the only one who let something slip in Madison.

At least you had a relationship with Mom. I mean, who would she always call? Who would she look to for everything? You had something with her I never had. And now I'm just supposed to accept that I never will have it?

It probably wasn't fair to drop such a bomb on Dean in front of a perfect stranger, and it's likely his brother thinks he was playing dirty, or throwing him under the bus in front of the shrink, or, hell, was just fed up with his heartless asshole routine. It's possible these were all factors, but mostly Sam was just trying to be honest with himself, and with Dean. Neither of them is particularly adept at putting a label to their pain, but that's usually the first step in making it go away. He hadn't intended to throw guilt into his brother's already volatile emotional cocktail. But he knows he did, all the same.

He spends the next ten hours dead to the world, and he's not at all surprised when Dean finds him in the library around dinnertime, looking pinched and bruised and anything but rested, a pair of bandages fixed over the cut on his face.

He's not at all surprised when Dean offers him a beer – his brother's olive branch of choice – and perches on the edge of the table like he's been thinking, and he has something difficult to say.

Author Note: As soon as this episode (which I thought was overall pretty solid, and the best of the four so far this season) ended, I felt like there was a tag fic buried in here, and I just had to find it. Well, it found me, and pestered me all through the past two workdays.

Additionally, I'm working on finishing Be All Our Sins Remember'd for Nanowrimo this year, so look for an update - I know, FINALLY - early next month.