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The drive to the motel gave Sam a headache. Dean had turned the music up to an unholy volume that left Sam’s skull throbbing, but for once he didn’t have the heart to turn it down. He was used to his brother cranking up the sound to drive him nuts and usually wouldn’t have hesitated to fight him on it, but he couldn’t when he knew that the reason Dean had turned it up so high was so Sam wouldn’t be able to hear what had to be shaky breaths and sniffling.
After Dean’s little confession at the side of the road he had thrown Sam the keys without making eye contact and wordlessly slipped into the passenger side, resoluting looking out the window and scrubbing his face clear of tear tracks. Sam got the impression that he was driving not because Dean couldn’t - although he certainly wasn't in a fit state to anyway - but because it meant he had to keep his eyes on the road, meaning he couldn’t look at his brother.
It was an endless journey that really only lasted a couple of hours, and when they pulled into the parking lot Dean stayed in the car and Sam let him, giving him some time while he went to sort things out for their short stay.
Sam considered getting two rooms but quickly decided against it; no doubt his brother wanted space but he didn’t think it was a good idea. He loaded things into their room, half convinced that after he grabbed the last bag the car would take off and he’d need to let it. He was surprised that Dean followed him quietly into the motel room.
Dean tossed his bag onto the bed closest to the door, grabbed a shirt and shorts from it, and headed to the bathroom without saying a word, the door locking behind him.
Sam sat on the other bed and pulled out his laptop, but he couldn’t focus on it. His phone buzzed in his pocket with a text and he knew that he should check it, knew it was from Ruby, but he ignored it anyway.
He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to respond.
With Uriel’s little hints and the way Dean was acting he had known that his brother remembered Hell, and it didn’t take a genius to know that it had to have been unimaginably bad down there. Torture was an obvious guess and that didn’t surprise him - he hated the thought of Dean having to go through it, but he had known all the time that it had happened.
But to hear that it had lasted so long? That his protective older brother had spent a decade doing the torturing …
You held out for thirty years. That’s longer than anyone would have.
Sam’s words at the roadside came back to haunt him; it was the only thing he could think of but it wasn’t enough. Platitudes and gentle reassurance had never worked on Dean, never. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say.
He knew that when Dean walked out of the bathroom he would pretend that nothing had ever happened. He would be quiet for the rest of the night and lash out if Sam tried to bring it up again, and then they’d go to bed and wake up in the morning and Dean would have his walls back up and that would be that.
Sam knew that he should stop him from doing that, but he had no idea how.
Some small, selfish voice in his head screamed at him that it was better when he was curious and in the dark, and he didn’t know what Dean had been through, been through for his sake. It wasn’t fair.
Dean was in the shower for much longer than usual - another thing Sam would normally yell at him for - and he stayed in the bathroom for about twenty minutes after the water shut off, but Sam still had no idea what to do or say when the lock finally clicked.
He glanced up as his brother walked into the room, but only long enough to gauge the state he was in. He was tense and angry and quiet, pretty much exactly what Sam expected. Knowing that Dean hated being watched at the best of times, he kept his eyes on his laptop screen, pretending to be researching even though he was staring at the desktop page.
Deciding it was best not to push Dean right away, with everything still so raw, Sam put on his best researching-a-new-case face and tried to look interested, only sneaking a very quick glance at the other man every once in a while. Dean had sat at the grubby table and turned on the television, flicking through the channels without settling on anything, and Sam left him to it, trying to come up with the right words before he opened his big mouth.
It took only thirteen minutes for the tense atmosphere in the room to implode. Sam wasn’t especially surprised that Dean was the one to speak first, but he hated how his brother sounded.
If Dean was going to break their silence, Sam would have guessed that he’d ask if Sam had found a new case or say he was going out for burgers and beer or simply blow up at Sam and ask if he was ever going to say something. He was expecting anger, expecting Dean to lash out like a cornered animal like he always did when he had been seen in a vulnerable moment.
Dean’s quiet murmur of “You can’t even look at me, can you?” was the last thing he was expecting.
Sam gaped for a moment, thrown completely off guard, but he replied, “Dean, I … this wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you or anything.”
“Sam, don’t.” Dean turned to face him, and Sam’s breath caught in his throat as he saw how watery his brother’s eyes were before he quickly looked away. “You wanted to know and I … look, I’m done lying about it. You wanted to know, now you know. Should have warned you it wasn’t pretty. Sorry.”
“It’s Hell, Dean. It’s not supposed to be pretty.” Sam shoved the laptop off his lap and shuffled forward so he could sit at the edge of the bed facing his brother. “You held out for thirty years. Thirty years, Dean. That’s huge. Listen, I get that you’re … not proud of it, but you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Dean scoffed. He was facing Sam but he was looking determinedly at his lap. Nonetheless Sam saw how he tensed up, and he got the feeling that there was even more to the story than Dean was saying, but it didn’t seem fair to try and demand any more from him today, not even if Sam was sure that he wanted to know at all. Shame rolled off the elder Winchester in thick waves, a veritable cloud of self-loathing that Sam doubted he had any real hope of penetrating. He had to try, though.
“I mean it, Sam. I’m sorry.”
“Dean, look at me.” Dean didn’t. “Never mind the last ten years. You spent more than half the time down there telling that sick bastard where to go. You’re only human, Dean. It’s okay that you...”
“That I what, Sam?” Dean burst out, and although this was more like him it wasn’t right, because he wasn’t angry, this was frustration and guilt and desperation. “It’s okay that I ripped them to shreds? It’s okay that I did to them all the same crap he did to me?” Tears spilled over and his voice got louder. “It’s okay that he freaking won?”
“What do you mean? How did he win?”
“I said yes!” Dean cried, and it was close to a scream. “I broke! I could have kept telling him where to stick it, but no, I had to chicken out and give Alistair what he wanted. Those people that I … they must’ve thought I was the same as him. I was just as good. I ...”
“Dean, stop it!” Sam yelled, rising to his feet and cutting off his brother’s vicious shouts. “Enough, okay? I get it.”
“No, Sam.” This time Dean’s voice was a whisper. “No. You really don’t.”
“Yeah, Dean, I do.” He held up a hand to stop Dean’s protests before they started. “I don’t mean about what happened in Hell. I don’t know what it was like down there, I get that. But this? You blaming yourself for what happened … that I get.”
Sam approached his big brother cautiously, like he was coming towards a wounded animal. Dean tensed up and curled in on himself, so even though he didn’t look up Sam could tell that he was aware of the sudden closeness. He continued until he was right in front of the other, kneeling down in front of him. He placed one hand on Dean’s knee, keeping his touch gentle enough that Dean could shove him off and move away if he wanted to.
“Dean, I know you blame yourself, and I can’t stop you from doing that. But I can promise you that it wasn’t your fault. What you did down there … it was inevitable. Anyone would have broke eventually. You lasted for decades. That’s more than anyone else could have. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.”
“Sam ...”
“Listen to me for a second, Dean. I know that it must have been … I know I can't imagine. But I do know that you’re not to blame. I mean, c’mon, man. You got lifted out of Hell by an angel. If what you did was so terrible, that wouldn’t have happened. God wanted you to be saved. That has to mean something.”
“No it doesn’t!”
“If God can forgive it, so can you. Maybe not right away but you can.”
“I don’t deserve to be forgiven, Sammy” Dean whispered. He finally looked up and met Sam’s eyes, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t.”
“Maybe you don’t think you should be, Dean, but I do. And apparently, God does.”
Dean just shook his head, closing his eyes as fresh tears fell. He was trembling, and Sam carefully took both Dean’s arms and pulled him to his feet. Dean barely managed to stand, so Sam mentally aborted the hug he was going for and instead guided his brother to sit on the edge of the nearest bed, sitting down close beside him. It was telling that Dean simply let himself be moved around, but his hands were shaking badly enough that he probably couldn’t have shoved Sam away if he’d wanted to.
Sam nudged his brother’s shoulder, getting him to look up. He knew that the angle he was working was going well enough, but too much logic and repetition and Dean would close up or run, he knew that. What he needed now was to try and get Dean to let go of some of this, and it was going to take a lot more than a strained confession at the roadside.
“It’s okay, Dean. I know you don’t believe that, but it will be okay.”
“It’s not okay, Sam!” Dean hissed through gritted teeth.
“It will be” Sam said with as much confidence as he could muster. “I promise, Dean.”
“Aw, c’mon, Sam” Dean snarled, but it was half a sob. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Fine. But I can promise that I don’t blame you for any of it, Dean. Thirty years telling him where to go … thirty years, man. No matter what happened after, you spent thirty years being tortured so someone else didn’t have to. You did good.” Feeling like a bit of an idiot, Sam took his brother’s chin in hesitant fingers and forced Dean to look him in the eye. “I’m proud of you.”
Sam played his trump card and watched as it paid off. Dean went from staring at him, half angry and half despondent, to pulling his face away and curling in on himself with a harsh sob.
Sam didn’t hesitate to pull him into his arms, anticipating Dean’s half-hearted struggle and holding him firmly enough that it didn’t make a difference. Dean could have pulled away if he had really wanted to, but either he didn’t have the energy to waste on it or he simply didn’t want to, because he slumped into his brother’s embrace. His hands were curled in front of him, somewhat awkwardly crushed between them, and he hid his face in Sam’s shoulder as guttural sobs forced their way out.
Dean’s cries were desperate, and he sounded pained as he wept into his brother’s shirt. Sam held him tightly, closing his eyes in sympathy as he listened to the other’s anguish. Now that the floodgates were open, Dean was loud and occasionally sounded choked, like the sobbing could give way to screaming at any moment. His breathing wasn’t good, and although he needed to work through this, Sam was aware that if it got any worse he would be in danger of hyperventilating.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dean was embarrassed and furious with himself, because if he had to go breaking down over what had happened downstairs - something he didn’t feel he should be doing, not after what he’d done - then he should have got it out of the way in private, not in front of his little brother. Sam didn’t even know the full story, didn’t know that although he now regretted what he’d done, he had enjoyed it at the time. He didn’t deserve the forgiveness and the understanding that Sam was showing him, but he couldn’t get away from his brother’s arms, wasn’t strong enough to try.
Deep down he needed this, yearned to have someone, anyone, tell him that it would be okay one day, that one day he was going to be able to look in a mirror without wanting to throw up. Sam was offering comfort that he didn’t deserve but desperately needed, and Dean didn’t accept it because he wanted to, but because the mere thought of pulling away now made the cries come harder when he just wanted them to stop.
Giving up on appearances, Dean forced his arms out from between them and curled them around Sam’s waist, his own grip tight as his fingers twisted into the material of Sam’s shirt.
Taking this as his cue, Sam rubbed circles on Dean’s back with one hand, and rocked him so subtly that it was almost imperceptible, enough that Dean wouldn’t be embarrassed by it and try to pull away. Dean, for his part, certainly noticed the motion (no trained hunter could have missed it) but didn’t resist it, too far gone to worry about any implications of being cradled in his younger brother’s arms and rocked like a child.
Dean’s heavy sobs filled the motel room for the better part of fifteen minutes, with Sam’s comforting gestures encouraging him to continue until he was ready to stop.
Neither of them spoke; there was nothing to say. Dean had said all he was going to for now and Sam knew better than to try meaningless platitudes. All that was left was to let Dean work through the pain, and Sam tried to convey without speaking that he wasn’t judging him for breaking down over this.
By the time the sobs had trailed off into barely audible whimpers, Sam’s shirt was damp from the tears and his hand was numb from rubbing the other’s back. He loosened his hold on his brother but kept his arms around him when Dean’s grip on his shirt didn’t loosen at all. Dean’s breathing was harsh and he remained slumped against Sam for several minutes before he was able to pull away, keeping his head down to hide his face.
Sam kept one hand on his brother’s shoulder, ducking down a little to try and meet Dean’s eye. The older hunter’s face was flushed with exertion, his eyes were red and swollen, and salty tear tracks marred his cheeks. Dean looked exhausted.
“Hey. You back with me?” Sam murmured, voice deliberately quiet.
Dean nodded and swallowed hard before responding. “Yeah. Sorry, Sammy.”
“It’s okay, Dean.”
Slowly, Sam let his hand slide off his brother’s shoulder, drawing back only enough to give Dean space. Dean still wasn’t looking at him but that was alright - he knew that his brother wasn’t going to be himself for the rest of the night, and he wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Dean announced that he was going to bed. Sam let him go, telling him to get some sleep.
Sam stood with Dean and smiled at him as reassuringly as he could. Dean still didn’t meet his eyes, but he did clamp one hand firmly on his brother’s shoulder and quietly murmur, “thanks, Sam.”
“Any time.”
Dean nodded in response before turning away, climbing into bed with his clothes on and pulling the covers over his head.
Sam’s heart clenched as he looked at his brother curled beneath the blankets like a child hiding from nightmares, though he knew Dean was hiding out of embarrassment more than fear. It was going to take a lot more than one night to get it through Dean’s head that despite his surprise, Sam didn’t think he was weak for breaking in Hell. Tomorrow they’d go back to normal and who knew how long it would be before Dean opened up about any of it again.
But he’d helped for now, Sam knew that much for sure. Dean may be embarrassed, but he seemed lighter, like Sam had helped him carry the burden, even just for a little while, and that would have to be enough until Dean was ready to talk for real.
Sam left his brother alone to lick his wounds while he took a shower, but he was quicker than usual in there, unwilling to leave Dean alone for longer than he had to.
When he came back to the main room of the motel, Dean had emerged from under the blankets just enough that Sam could see the almost relaxed features of his face and know that he was asleep. He was still frowning a little, the way he always had when he’d fallen asleep with something on his mind and hadn’t been asleep for long. But he was peaceful enough, so Sam let him be.
He ignored the sudden urge to do something stupid like try and tuck him in, instead crawling into his own bed. He kept watch over his brother for a few minutes, mostly just for his own benefit, before he finally reached over to turn out the lamp, turned over and closed his eyes.
“Goodnight, Dean” he whispered into the darkness.
Unknown to either of them, Dean’s hand stretched out towards his brother in his sleep, an unconscious response.