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“Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.”
“And what if you don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
For at least ten minutes after that, neither of them speak. Sam keeps staring out of the window, and Dean keeps turning his head to look at him, and he knows Sam knows, but neither of them acknowledge it. Dean wants to say something, to find a way to make this better, to comfort Sam somehow, but he has no idea how to even begin.
It’s breaking his heart, the way Sam is so obviously holding in tears. Dean wishes he knew of some way to fix this, to take all these feelings that are hurting Sam away. He’s never been good at handling this kind of thing - he does better with demons he can fight, monsters that are tangible, physical enough to beat into submission. Something like this, something so deep inside Sam that it’s had its claws in him forever... he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t remember the last time he felt this helpless while Sam was still breathing.
He can’t handle seeing Sam in pain. Any kind of pain. And for him, there is no feeling worse than seeing Sam in pain that he can’t make disappear.
The final straw is when Sam lets out a choked-off sound that would’ve been a sob if he’d let it past his lips. Dean glances over. Sam’s shoulders are hunched and his head is lowered, hair falling around his face so that Dean can’t see it, but it’s painfully clear that he’s not holding up too well at all.
Dean pulls over. It’s not even really a conscious decision. His hands and feet move of their own accord, steering and braking until the Impala comes to a halt on the shoulder. Sam looks up a little when the car stops, but his head drops back down when he sees Dean looking at him.
“Hey,” Dean says gently, reaching out and lightly touching Sam’s shoulder, mindful of the healing bullet wound there. “Sammy, hey.”
Sam doesn’t look up. His shoulders are shaking.
Dean shifts closer, moving across the seat so he can put his hand on the back of Sam’s neck. He rests it there, just letting Sam know he’s here with him, and says, “Hey, it’s okay, you know. It’s all right.”
Nothing’s all right. Nothing’s okay. Even their victories don’t feel like victories anymore and Dean will never forget the way Billy had looked determined right up to the end, but for now, all he can do is lie to Sam. It’s all he’s got left.
And Sam knows he’s lying. There are tremors coursing through his entire body, and there is a wet hitching sound to his breathing that tells Dean he’s still trying hard not to cry, and he won’t look up. And every single sound out of him is tugging at Dean’s heartstrings, making his chest ache, and all he can think of is the fact that he’s just killed a teenager and Sam is not okay and they’re going home to an empty bunker-
Fuck it, he thinks desperately, and wraps both arms around Sam, pulling him in.
Sam doesn’t resist - in fact, he willingly lets himself be dragged into Dean’s embrace, where he promptly buries his face in Dean’s chest, practically contorting himself to do so, and throws his arms around Dean, hands fisted in the back of his jacket. Dean holds back just as tightly, one hand going to the back of Sam’s head. He can feel Sam shaking even harder, and now he can hear muffled sobs, can feel wetness on his shirt where Sam’s face is pressed into it, and there are tears in his eyes too, his own shoulders aching from the burden on them that just won’t slide off no matter what he does.
“It’s okay,” he repeats, whispering. “Let it out, Sammy. Come on. Let it all out.”
And Sam does. He needs this, Dean knows. He needs to cry it all out now, a week’s worth of tears, a lifetime’s worth of pain, before it all builds up to something even more, before he falls apart from the weight of it. And Dean needs it too, needs to feel Sam solid and warm against his body, and the driver’s side door digging into his back, because it’s the only way he can keep reminding himself that everything that matters is right here.
Every time he closes his eyes he sees Billy. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Jack. The harder he tries not to think about either of them, the more their faces crowd his mind. Two boys, kneeling in front of him, one facing him and the other away, both of them waiting for him to deal them the killing blow.
And Sam, who’d had to kill Rowena barely a week ago, shaking and coming apart in his arms, crying so hard Dean doesn’t understand how he can still breathe. There are tears dripping down his own face - he’s not too sure of when the first one fell - and all Dean can do is hold on with all the strength he’s got in him, press Sam’s head to his chest, and stroke his hair, and whisper, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay...” until the words lose all meaning and morph into nonsense.
It’s not. And it won’t be for a while. Maybe tomorrow morning they wake up and they’re all right. And maybe they’re not. Maybe Sam still stays in bed, and refuses to eat, and maybe Dean never stops seeing Billy and Jack behind his eyelids. Maybe they’re never okay again, this one last apocalypse being the straw that breaks the Winchesters' backs.
But all that’s on tomorrow. For now, Dean holds on tight to his little brother and cries, and lets Sam sob into his chest, and keeps repeating nonsense he doesn’t believe, because today, this is all they’ve got. Each other, and the Impala on the side of a highway, and whispered half-truths between them.