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Sam’s five hundred thousand dollar heart beat skyrocketed when Cregg pulled the gun. He hadn’t been expecting it and while he’d been stressed and testing the restraints under the eye of a camera through which - if Cregg was right - over a hundred thousand monsters were watching, he hadn’t been thinking this blowhard would just shoot him. It wasn’t fair - it didn’t even make sense: Sam had way more organs than just his liver and heart. He should have more time for all of them, right?
But did he want his last words to be wheedling for more parts of him sold off to monsters?
He didn’t really get a chance to think on it. It happened way too fast and Sam looked away, cringing in resignation as Cregg suggested he say goodbye. Bracing himself, eyes closed tight, Sam’s thoughts ran through two lines: a true, depressed apology and goodbye to Dean for getting dead, and then anger flaring in him about how this asshole had deigned to talk about Dean like he had. It was flippant and stupid, but selfless anger was as good a mood as any to have when the lights went out.
When the bullet sounded, Sam’s body spasmed. He waited for the pain to register and after a few moments, he twitched his eyes open and over to spot his brother, smoking gun in hand. Sam collapsed back against the chair and relished his breath.
“Show’s over,” Dean announced. Sam huffed, half amused and half judgmental as Dean stepped up and took a second shot to Cregg's skull. Sam swallowed nervously, still strapped to the table. He let the echo of it dissipate before saying anything.
“What took you so long,” Sam rasped.
“Shut up.”
Sam tried to smile. Instead he realized his eyes were watering. He heard his brother dragging the body a couple feet before finally getting over to him. A warm palm landed on his chest - solid, anchoring.
“Hey Sammy,” he murmured, looking around at the chair’s restraints.
“Hey,” Sam whispered.
“Let’s get you outta here…” he muttered, ducking down to start on the strap around Sam’s right hand first.
“Wait, Dean,” and Dean stopped, palm back on Sam’s chest and looking up directly at him. Sam was taken by the fear and desperation in Dean’s eyes, and he hated it but he knew it was going to impact him now too. So far it’d been a two-second surreal near-death experience, but it wasn’t like Dean had been waiting and watching to enter so he could deliver the best punchline. Dean had walked in the very second Sam’s brains were about to splatter the wall. Of all the things, Sam would have died like that. No doubt Sam would have left Dean to die in a similar manner too, whether in this hunt or another. “The, uh, ca-camera,” Sam stuttered, off-balance. The stakes of their deaths never failed to rattle him. He shakily nodded at the tripod and camera setup. Dean followed his gaze, his free hand on Sam’s chest pulled off, and a second later another gunshot rang out. The tripod comically blew backwards off its legs. Without another word, Dean went back to pulling Sam’s straps off.
Sam swallowed and realized he’d started to tremble as his limbs came free - body going colder, breath coming a little less easy. Dean had obviously picked up on it too because normally he never kept both hands on Sam, bracing him like he was. The strap around Sam’s ribs was the last to go, with Dean loosening the leather better than Sam could since they wrapped around the back. Sam had to focus so hard on keeping control he didn’t realize when he was free until Dean practically lifted him up.
“Take a minute,” Dean ordered and Sam wasn’t about to argue the point as a tear slipped down his cheek as gravity switched directions. “You got this, say it,” Dean whispered, twisting Sam so his legs hung off the chair. Sam nodded quickly.
“I got this,” he murmured too quickly. Dean rubbed his shoulders and Sam leaned forward, dipping his head against Dean’s chest on a long controlled exhale.
“Again, Sammy,” Dean whispered into his ear, patient; affectionate.
“I got this,” Sam repeated, slower this time, his voice stronger. Dean moved around, jostling them, so Sam wrapped an arm around his brother’s back to stay where he was against him. Dean draped his coat over Sam’s shoulders.
“I got this. I’m good,” Sam clarified, his determination building as he warmed up. Sam gave himself a scant few seconds to listen to his brother’s heart beat, feel his hands rubbing his back before they just settled and held him tight, and that was all Sam needed. His breathing normalized, eyes dried, and the tremors diminished.
“Okay,” Sam blew out a loud breath, thrusting his mind back to reality. He pulled away from his brother suddenly.
“Wendy?!”
“I split up with Donna-”
“You killed the other guy - the harvester - before you got here, right?”
Dean’s eyes widened and shook his head before they both took off out of the room and down the dilapidated warehouse hallway, Dean leading the way. They turned a corner and Dean thought he could make out a dark, hobbling figure.
“Donna?” he shouted, still racing towards it.
“Yeah!” Donna shouted back, rough but confident.
“Need help? Got Wendy?”
“Got Wendy. She’s fine - in shock,” Donna replied, her voice relaxing as the brothers slowed down and came up alongside the aunt and niece. The brothers noticed Wendy wasn’t registering them, her focus determinedly on the ground.
Dean held her up with Donna as they made their way to the car.
Sam stewed in thought as they drove to the hospital to admit Wendy, dropped Donna and Doug off at the motel, and tracked back to the warehouse to torch the evidence. As they drove back to the motel to see how Donna and Doug were getting on, Sam knew Dean was going to take him to task for brooding, and Sam found himself preemptively resenting him for it.
They got back to the motel just in time to catch Doug waking up as a freshly minted human and reject Donna a few minutes later.
“Donna, you kill monsters. You’re a damn hero. But that’s… it’s not me. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.”
Sam was sad for Donna but impressed with Doug. Good for him, Sam thought. If only some of our friends and family had said the same thing, they’d still be alive.
So when Doug took off, Sam stopped Donna from pursuing.
“Let him go. Donna, when you choose this life, anyone who gets too close, eventually they get hurt. Or worse. So let him go. He’ll be safer that way.”
Sam felt for Donna’s tears, but they’re nothing compared to the guilt and grief she’d feel if Doug died because of her.
Dean thought Sam was too rough on Donna for saying what he did. Sam still thought he was justified when he brings it up in the car… but he couldn't really streamline what he was feeling, so he asked when knowing them has ever worked out for anyone… which he knew was dumb. He knows they save people, which is exactly what Dean said as his answer.
Sam didn’t want to let it go though. They get people killed. Kaia.
“Hey, look, I know you’re in some sort of a-”
“No no no no no no no don’t - don’t… You keep saying I’m in a dark place, but I’m not, Dean,” Sam lied, but the rest he wouldn’t have to: “Everything I’m saying is the truth. It’s our lives. And I tried to pretend it didn’t have to be. I tried to pretend we could have Mom back and Cas and - and help Jack. But we can’t. This ends one way for us, Dean. It ends bloody. It ends bad.”
The minutes passed and the car kept going, sleek and steady. Sam stubbornly stared out the passenger seat window, refusing to even glance over to see his brother and get an idea what he thought about what Sam said. After more minutes passed, Sam realized the tension wasn’t going away. Dean had something to say - Sam could feel it, and it ate at him as his watch kept ticking… and he hated Dean had this effect on him, so he tried to act like it didn’t by… stubbornly staring out the passenger window even more.
Sam sighed impatiently, loud and impertinent and really truly if there was one thing he couldn’t do for the life of him, it was to genuinely ignore his brother.
“You know, Donna’s not us, Sam,” Dean finally said, his voice patient and low. Sam made a face, all set for more verbal sparring.
“What has that got to do-”
“You said us, Sam. You asked ‘when does it ever work out people knowing us,’ not Donna. You’re putting all our shit on her and telling her what you think we should be doing… or should’ve done…” Dean corrected.
“That’s not true-”
“No, stop. Sam, you want Doug to be safe from us, then don’t call Doug,” Dean whispered comically. “Problem solved. I don’t care what you think of us and what we do right now, but Donna doesn’t get people killed.”
Sam pursed his lips and folded his arms across his chest, mulling Dean’s point over and trying to come up with a decent counterpoint.
“That’s what we thought when we started hunting together,” Sam offered grimly.
“This isn’t about us.”
Sam huffed and shifted in his seat.
“Donna’s not us,” Dean repeated. “And as for the other stuff…” Dean paused awhile. Long enough for Sam to get a handle on his anticipatory anger… and then long enough for him to be genuinely curious what Dean was going to say because he was just staring out the windshield, headlights lighting up the median, and he looked sad. And scared.
“I get it. But…” another long pause and Dean glanced at Sam, eyes glistening and Sam’s brows furrowed. “It… ending bloody. It ending bad…” Dean trailed off and licked his lips. “You’re describing what could’ve happened if I’d been ten seconds late today.”
Sam’s breath stuck in his throat.
“We gotta…” Dean grimaced, trying to find the words, “we gotta live until we die, Sam.”
Sam looked down, softly pushing his hands into his pockets.
“I’m with you,” Sam murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Dean replied immediately, without thought, and it made Sam smile with gratitude. He sighed and pushed his knees up against the dash, quickly losing any semblance of his earlier argumentative mood.
“I guess it’s like…” Sam trailed off, thinking, “we save others from death, and each other in life…”
Dean snorted.
“Thanks, Nicholas Sparks.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, his thoughts backsliding in favor of teasing his brother.
“How do you know that author? I need to know right now.”
“Rachel McAdams in the 1940’s, dude.”
“Did you watch to the end?”
Dean made a face.
“You cried-!”
“Dude shut up everybody cries at that movie.”