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They’re tired and dirty from digging the Doc’s grave. Dean turns on the bright light in their motel room and it only illuminates the grime and exhaustion on them. He flops down on the couch, but Sam doesn’t join him, and doesn’t take first shower either. He starts pacing.
At first, Dean isn’t irritated enough to let it bother him. Then, Sam doesn’t stop and it’s clear he isn’t ready to move on.
Dean would be lying if he said it wasn’t plaguing him as well, and Sam walks, and it spins and spins in his mind, until it bursts out of him, “Would you have gone there? Become a monster like him?” Dean holds his breath as he waits for the answer. He needs Sam to deny it, but it’s clear he won’t when he stops pacing and turns to fix him with a pained stare.
Dean thinks he’s going to snap, but while there’s stress in his voice it’s more repressed anguish than anything aggressive. “Yes. If it meant you wouldn’t die.”
Sam needs to let out his emotions and it could go one of two ways. There’s either going to be a fight or he’s going to—Dean bites his teeth and hopes he shows anger. He’d rather have the fight, he couldn’t handle Sam crying without breaking down himself. But he can’t be truly mad at him, not when the argument would be over this, not when Sam looks at him like that.
Sam sways on the spot and Dean doesn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers, and whether it’s for what happened today, his plans, or what’s going to happen now, Dean doesn’t know, but then Sam slumps where he stands and a sob rips through him.
“Sam, no.” At once, Dean’s pretenses fall away, and his very core starts hurting—the part of him that’s so attuned to Sam, the part of him whose only purpose is to take care of Sammy, and that’s urging him to comfort him, to kill the thing that’s hurting Sam. If it was only so easy as to kill the problem.
Sam’s hair hangs in his face and it doesn’t escape Dean how he balls his hands into fists to hide their shaking.
“Sammy, c’mere.” Dean’s voice is rough, and he can’t hide the painful touch it gets when Sam is in distress. He stands and catches Sam’s hands, tugs Sam closer, and sits down, pulling Sam into his lap, one leg on either side of Dean. Last time they sat like that Sam was four. Sam is too tall for this, but they make do.
“It’s okay.” Dean clamps his arms around him and crushes Sam against his chest and let’s him cry.
It really is. There was always a hope that Sam would maybe find a way, but Dean would have shot down everything anyway since that meant breaking the deal. Dean closes his eyes and swallows the knot in his throat.
“No,” Sam says, hitched and ragged. And he’s sobbing into his shoulder, and Dean holds him even closer for it. Rocks him lightly. Sam shivers violently; it’s a full body cry—Dean can feel him convulsing with every breath, clawing desperately at Dean’s back, and pressing his face against his neck. Dean doesn’t join him there after all, save for a few silent tears.
They’re dry by the time Sam calms and sits up a bit straighter, with a faraway expression in his face. Dean combs through his hair, wipes at the wet streaks on his hot cheeks and under his puffy eyes.
“I hate you,” says Sam tonelessly, his gaze unfocused.
“I’m sorry,” Dean whispers.
He thinks Sam is going to say more, but there isn’t much that hasn’t already been said. This would be a time for Dean to recite parting words—past thoughts he hasn’t said, arguments that still gnaw on him, last confessions, how much he loves him. And he would too, if he thought Sam would allow it.
There’s no use in trying when Sam is still clinging to the hope of defeating Lilith—and he will stay stuck in his determination until Dean grows cold under him and then some. He won’t accept any words of finality.
“Sam,” Dean starts. Saying those things aren’t his intention, he knows better, but Sam interrupts him before Dean can even start on any speech to comfort him.
Sam shakes his head slightly. “Don’t. Please.”
He catches his eyes. They’re pleading, and that has always been more effective than his words. Dean doesn’t have the heart to argue, or the energy, doesn’t want them to be angry at each other now, not anymore, not when he’s so close to death.
He places his hand on Sam’s cheek instead. Sam presses his eyes closed tight like this is just as bad as a death speech, and Dean kisses him anyway.
Gently, a peck. And then a little firmer when Sam’s face softens. It’s an awful first kiss—full of regret and denial and ‘why now, why not sooner?’ and the deep-rooted knowledge that there won’t be any more after.
It’s their first, and their last, and only for today.
They don’t stop kissing for a long time.