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Sam wakes up in the cemetery.
The cemetery: the same one where he'd taken the swan dive into Hell, Lucifer held tight in his mental grasp, Adam/Michael clinging to his sleeve, down and down and down.
At least, he's pretty sure that's what happened.
How he's here, now, alive and whole and himself - no one else crawling through his mind, demon or angel or otherwise - he can't begin to understand.
The only thought in his head, pounding along with his heartbeat - how strange to have a heartbeat again - is Dean.
Dean will know. Dean will understand. Dean will be able to explain it all.
Get to Dean. Step one.
The reality that he doesn’t know where Dean is - doesn’t know what day it is, what month, what year - flits briefly through his mind, but he ignores it. He knows where to start, sort of: Lisa Braeden. He’d told Dean to go to her, to get some normal in his hands and hold on tight. If Dean’s anywhere, that’s where he’ll be. And if he’s not, she might at least know where he’s gone.
He stumbles, limbs stiff and weird like he hasn’t moved for months, over the rough ground toward the cemetery gates and then stops dead in his tracks.
The Impala is there.
The Impala is there. Twenty feet away, as though she’d been dropped from the sky.
The driver’s seat is empty.
Sam’s throat, rough with disuse, tears with a sharp, painful sound. He trips and nearly falls, but manages to haul himself over to the car.
When he reaches out to touch her, trails longing fingers over her hood, his hand comes away thick with dust. He stares down at the streak he’d unwittingly wiped away, the lustre of black paint visible through the heavy grime.
Something’s wrong. Dean would never let her get like this.
Sam falls backward, sweeping his eyes over the whole car. Grass is growing high around her tires, but none of it is flattened as though crushed beneath her. She doesn’t look like she was driven here. At least not recently.
There’s no rust on her, just dust; Sam remembers, dimly, Dean describing the future world to him, the way Baby had just been left to rot, how Dean had known instantly after seeing her abandoned that something was very, very wrong. That’s not what’s happened here.
Not yet, his traitorous mind whispers. Sam’s stomach turns. If the Impala is here - has been here the whole time - where is Dean?
His guts roil again and he retches, but there’s nothing to bring up, not even stomach acid, so he swallows hard against the sensation and wipes his hand on his jeans. He tugs on the door handle, but it’s locked.
Uttering a silent prayer for forgiveness - whether it’s directed to the car or his brother, he can’t decide - Sam finds a rock in the grass and smashes the driver’s side window, pulling the door open from inside.
He settles into the seat, feeling out of place as always - this is Dean’s space, Dad’s before him, and Sam has only ever been an interloper here. Even during Dean’s four months in Hell, Sam had never been at home behind the wheel. He’d only ever been keeping the seat warm for Dean. For when he came back.
He rips open the console, fumbling with wires. He hasn’t hotwired a car in years - and never, ever this car - and his fingers are clumsy, stiff like the rest of his body. It takes a full ten minutes before he gets it, hears the car rumble to life under him, and the sound rips another one of those hurt noises from deep in his chest.
The stereo kicks on after a few seconds, the tape whirring to life. “Rock of Ages”: the song Dean had been blasting as he’d rolled into the cemetery where his brothers stood toe to toe, slaves to the heavenly beings wearing their bodies. The song is brash and loud and just the thing to piss off a couple of high-and-mighty archangels trying to have a pissing contest. It’s so Dean.
When Sam smiles at the memory, he’s surprised to find tears have risen in his eyes.
He puts the car in gear and backs out of the cemetery. He leaves the song on.
Driving through Lawrence is strange and horrible, like always. Sam can’t remember it, of course, but for a brief time, this had been his hometown. The town where his parents had met, fallen in love, gotten married, had Dean and himself. The town where his mother burned and his father broke down.
He doesn’t drive past the house; it’s pointless. He has more memories of being there four years ago, to chase away the spirits that had been torturing the family that lived there now; the family that had been so blissfully unaware of the horror that had happened in those very walls.
Instead, he heads for the motel they’d stayed in during that time. If Dean is anywhere in town - and how can he not be, without the car? - it’s likely here. If not...well, one step at a time.
Get to Dean. Step one.
He swings the car into the parking lot and cuts the engine. Tries to remember which room they'd had, because Dean likes to pick the same room if they stay in the same place more than once, but after four years and four hundred motels since then, it's impossible.
He's saved the ignominy of having to either ask at the desk or go door-to-door by sheer luck. Movement catches his eye and he looks over to see Dean, heading for room 24.
His heart skips a beat or six at the sight of his brother. Dean - he's too far away to see him properly, but it’s unmistakably Dean. Sam’s pretty sure he could pick out Dean’s footsteps if he was blindfolded in the dark.
He’s scrambling for the door handle before he can think any further, wrenching the door open and spilling himself out of the car. The door to room 24 slams closed while he’s still stumbling towards it, but it doesn’t matter; in seconds he’s there, pounding on it with his fist.
The door opens abruptly and Sam drops his hand, staring down at his brother.
Dean looks - bad. Dark shadows under his eyes, at least two weeks worth of beard on his cheeks and jaw and who would have guessed that Dean’s beard would be so gingery; Sam’s stomach twists pleasantly at the surprise.
Shuttered green eyes look up at him, but there’s no joy in them, no shock, no delight or relief or even recognition. Sam realizes that Dean isn’t looking at him so much as looking through him. The realization smothers any of the words that are trying to bubble up his throat.
“Aww, fuck.” Dean’s voice is harsh, rough; it sounds like Sam’s voice sounds in his own head, rusty and unused. And then the door is slamming in Sam’s face and he hears the lock turn.
He’s still just standing there, too stunned to react, when a voice at his elbow startles him.
“He won’t let you in.”
Sam turns his head. The speaker is a tiny woman, pushing a laundry cart. Housekeeping, Sam assumes. She nods toward the door. “24. He never lets anyone in.” She leans in conspiratorially. “Not even us. Sheets haven’t been changed in over a year.” She shudders in disgust.
Sam can now at least put a rough timeline together. Over a year - Dean’s been here, alone and hermit-like, for over a year. Sam’s heart aches; at the same time, anger boils in his veins. Why didn’t Dean listen? Why didn’t he go to Lisa, like Sam had asked him to - begged him to do? Why had he done exactly what Sam had feared; shut himself away from the world to wallow in his pain?
Because it’s Dean, his mind whispers back, and that’s what he does without you. He shuts down.
Sam harnesses that anger and uses it to pound on the door once more. “Dean!” he yells. “Dean, open up!”
He’s not expecting it when the door swings open. Dean’s looking at him now - scowling, actually, but it’s better already. “None of the other are so loud,” Dean complains in that rough voice, glaring up at him.
Sam blinks. “Others?”
“The other hallucinations,” Dean snaps. “Figures you’d be loud though. Fucking Sammy.”
Hallucinations. Dean thinks he’s a hallucination. Great. Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m not a hallucination, Dean.”
“Sure,” Dean bites back. “That’s what they all say.”
Sam kinda wants to keep being exasperated, but Dean’s words are needling at him, and the haunted look that’s underneath the overlay of annoyance on his brother’s face is worse. Dean’s learned to cope with whatever happened to him after Sam took his tumble, but that doesn’t mean he’s okay.
So he shoulders his way into the room, pushing Dean aside firmly, but gently. Dean splutters in disbelief. As Sam closes the door, he catches sight of the maid, wearing a similar look of shock.
He turns to look at Dean once more; Dean, who’s standing with his mouth open like a fish and his eyes like dinner plates. Sam takes him by the shoulders. “I’m not a hallucination,” he repeats, softer now. He feels a tremour roll through Dean’s body - and then Dean faints.
Faints like a fucking girl: his eyes roll back and his knees buckle and Sam tries to catch him but he still isn’t moving quite right and he only manages to grab Dean’s arm as he falls, slowing his descent to the ground.
Knowing he doesn’t have much hope of hauling his inert brother onto the bed, Sam just sinks down next to him, drags him close, limp and unresisting. He rubs a gentle finger over the auburn hair of Dean’s beard, still mesmerized by the colour, and over the purple smudges under closed eyes. It’s hidden by the scruff, but Dean’s face is thin, nearly gaunt, and his skin is pale.
Sam skates his fingers under Dean’s shirt to feel ribs too close to the surface. They don’t do well away from each other, Sam knows. His first two months at Stanford, he’d lost so much weight that his RA took to escorting him to and from meals. He remembers Bobby telling him that for the three days he lay dead on a cot in an abandoned shack outside Cold Oak, the only thing Dean consumed was Jack straight from the bottle. And when Dean had been in Hell...Sam shakes his head to rid himself of the memories, hazy are they are with alcohol and pills and demon blood. It doesn’t matter now. They’re together again.
He just has to convince Dean that he’s really here.
Dean’s eyelids flutter and he utters a breathy moan. Sam withdraws his fingers and cradles Dean’s head gently. “Hey, hey,” he says softly. “Take it easy.”
Dean twists in his grip. “No,” he groans, fighting to get away. “Leave me alone.”
“Dean, it’s me. It’s Sam. I’m really here.” Sam holds him, close but careful; he knows how violent this interaction can get, and how quickly, if Dean decides to lash out.
Dean thrashes. “No!” he insists. “You can’t be real. Sam isn’t here. He’s gone.” His voice breaks, raw and pained. “He’s gone.”
“Damnit, Dean.” Sam holds on tighter, rocks Dean gently like he’s a small child. “I’m not gone. I was, but now I’m back.”
“Fuck you,” Dean sobs, and a tear slips down his hollow cheek, lost in the ginger hair. “Fuck you.”
Sam grits his teeth. He hadn’t counted on this; Dean being a wreck, holed up in a shitty motel, tortured by hallucinations. He hadn’t expected a miracle, but this - this was bad. Worse, he doesn’t know how to make Dean believe that he’s actually there.
One of Dean’s flailing hands catches him hard in the shoulder. It’s not a real punch, ‘cause Sam knows he would have been flattened if it was, but it shakes him from his stupor and he catches hold of Dean’s chin and yanks him forward, sealing their lips together.
Dean whimpers under his mouth and goes still, like a field mouse when the shadow of an eagle passes by overhead. The stiff lines of his body under Sam’s hands make Sam uneasy, so he pulls back. Dean is staring at nothing, eyes wide, but even as Sam backs off, Dean’s turning to look at him - really look at him.
“...Sammy?”
The sound of Dean’s voice, so lost and broken and little-boy sad, punches Sam hard in the gut. When he replies, his own voice is tight with tears. “Yeah, Dean. It's me. It's really me.”
Dean's fingers dig into Sam's forearm, sharp and deep. He stares up at Sam like if he blinks, Sam will disappear. “How - how are you here?”
Sam shrugs, smiles through the tears that are once again prickling in his eyes. “I don’t know, man. Woke up in the cemetery like I’d just laid down for a quick nap.”
“I…” Dean trails off, can’t find the words, and raises one hand - shaking quite badly, Sam sees - to cup Sam’s cheek. He looks so bemused that Sam would laugh, but it’s not funny at all.
Still, he tries for some levity. “Don’t you wanna test me? Silver, holy water, all that?”
Dean struggles in his grip once more, but this time Sam lets him go, lets him sit up so they’re on the same level, their legs still tangled together. Dean’s brow knits in a look so fierce that it takes Sam’s breath away. “No,” he says vehemently. “I don’t care how you’re back. Demon, angel, ghost - I don’t care. Just care that you’re here.”
His words, intense and harsh, are worrying and Sam tries to reason with him - half because he doesn’t trust himself, because he wants proof that he isn’t anything supernatural. But Dean reaches out and drags Sam in by the collar of his dirt-smeared shirt, pulls him closer until he can get his mouth on Sam’s.
His kiss is frantic, panicked, searching for reassurance. Sam doesn’t have much to give, but he does his best; he takes Dean’s face in his hands, cradles his jaw and tries to slow the pace down, coaxing Dean with his lips, his tongue.
Dean sobs once against Sam’s mouth and Sam locks down the noise threatening to escape his own throat. He tears himself away from the kiss, presses his lips against Dean’s neck, murmuring into the skin there. “I’m here, I’m here. It’s me, Dean. I swear.”
Dean gasps in response, practically crawling into Sam’s lap in his efforts to get closer. Sam takes his weight, lets Dean straddle him, lets his hands snake back under Dean’s shirt, feels Dean’s face push into his shoulder and pretends he can’t feel the tears that are soaking through the fabric.
He finds himself rocking back and forth, the same comforting motion that Dean’s rocked him with, so many times, and it’s like they’ve traded places.
He’s not sure how long they sit there for, clinging to each other like scared children, but the wet patch on his shoulder has dried again by the time Dean speaks, hoarse and wrecked. “Guess you’re pretty pissed at me.”
“For what?” Sam rubs his thumbs over Dean’s cheeks, through the auburn hair he still can’t get over.
Dean’s eyes drop down to avoid Sam’s gaze. “For being here. Not goin’ to Lisa like you told me. All that.”
Sam’s reply is hesitant. There are a hundred things to say, to ask about, like the car, but Sam can't bring himself to ask just yet. “Honestly? I’m just happy to find you alive.” He tightens his fingers on the back of Dean’s neck. Dean chuckles, but it’s hollow. “Yeah, well…”
Sam shakes his head before his brother can go on, before Dean can tell him if he tried to kill himself, if he got that lost. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You’re here, I’m here. What more do we need?”
He lets his head fall against Dean’s, foreheads pressed together, and breathes in deep, filling his lungs with Dean.
“Nothing,” Dean answers fiercely. “Nothin’ but you, Sammy. That’s all I need.”
For the first time since the cemetery, Sam feels like he’s truly back.
Get to Dean. Step one.
The next step: hold onto him.