Chapter Text
Sam wishes that Dean had been disappointed. It would’ve meant Dean was still capable of feeling emotions. But Dean doesn’t say anything. He simply gets up and walked out of the room – back towards the bed Sam had forced him out of.
Sam makes to follow, only to be stopped by Rowena’s delicate, manicured, hand on his forearm.
“I warned you it probably wouldn’t work,” she says. “And, as I’m sure you’ll recall, you agreed to pay me either way…”
By the time Sam manages to get to Dean’s door he’s already locked it. Sam presses his ear to the wood (thinks that it’ll leave an indentation one of these days) and hold his breath until he hears the soft rustle of sheets. He lets the air out his lungs. This little ritual is all he seems to have with his brother these days.
“Dean,” he says to the door. “I’m sorry. Let me in.”
“’S fine, Sam,” his brother says, and the worst part is he means it. “I knew it wouldn’t work.”
“Something will work,” Sam says, like they haven’t tried everything. like God hasn’t been ignoring their prayers. Like the queen of hell wasn’t just sitting in the living room. “We just need to keep looking. We can get him back.”
Through the door is silence. Sam imagines Dean, prone on the bed, blinking fast, trying to let the words mean something.
“We can’t.” Is all he eventually says. “But if you need to keep trying, I’m not going to stop you.”
Sam’s not consciously aware of his hand hitting the doorway until his palm is stinging. “Goddamit, Dean! Do you think I’m doing this for my…” He takes a deep breath, forces himself to calm down. He’s angry – stupidly fucking angry – and he’s angry about that too. Anger, he knows from experience, will only numb Dean further. “Look,” he tries again, picking out his words carefully. “Cas was…is my best friend – I want him back, of course I do but…” there are cameras in the dungeon he doesn’t say. There are cameras in the dungeon with microphones on them. “…I don’t understand you can just give up like this. On him, after everything.”
Dean doesn’t say anything for a long time. Sam keeps his ear against the door, hopes he isn’t imagining the breathing.
“I’m tired, Sammy,” Dean says eventually, voice emotionless. “So tired. And I can’t…just leave me alone. Please.”
“Dean…” Sam rests his forehead against the door. “Will you unlock the door at least?”
“No. ‘M tired. Gonna sleep.”
Sam retreats, and calls Eileen. He wishes she was here. Or, maybe, it’s more he wishes he was there. But he won’t leave Dean like this, and they’ve agreed to move things slowly because they can now. He has to keep telling himself that – that they have time, they don’t need to rush – and for the most part it feels good, to have something to look forward to, to have the time with himself but…he can’t help but wonder how slow he’d move if Dean wasn’t locked in his room.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he confesses, guiltily, to Eileen, once they’ve given each other the normal run down. “I can’t leave him – I won’t let him give up on himself, but I don’t know how to make him do something.”
“What is it exactly you want him to do?” Eileen asks, fingers moving hesitantly.
“I just want him to, I don’t know, to move, to act. Cas is gone and Dean should be fighting but instead he’s just lying there like he’s…like he’s dead already.” Sam feels guilty the moment he’s finished. “God, that sounded really bad but…I don’t know what to do when he gets like this.”
“Do you really think there’s a way to bring Cas back? Because Jack didn’t, before he left, and if he couldn’t…” she trails off, Sam wishes they were together, so he could reach out and take her hand.
“I have no idea,” Sam admits, running a hand through his hair. “But until I do know for sure, one way or the other, I’ve got to keep trying, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t. And Dean…”
“It’s a lot,” Eileen says slowly. “That you’re asking him to take on faith. And if Cas meant what you say he meant to Dean, then that might not be enough. And it might be that Dean’s not ready to think about Cas living again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he’s grieving, Sam. And grief, it’s not always something that everyone can fight. Sometimes it’s something you need to let go through you.”
“You’re right, you’re right but Dean isn’t going through it – he’s sinking in it, and I don’t know how to pull him out.”
“Maybe you can’t. Maybe all you can do is hold him steady.”
“Shit,” Sam, loves her so much in this moment it scares him. It’s the kind of love he’d burn for, and maybe that’s the problem. “Thanks. I know I’m not very much fun at the moment.”
Eileen laughs. “I don’t mind. Besides, I miss Cas too, and Dean. I –” Sam’s phone cuts off abruptly, the screen frozen and pixelated.
“Eileen?” Sam taps the screen a few times. “Are you…” he stops. There’s sound coming from the hallway. A rhythmic sort of tapping.
As he pushes his bedroom door open the sound becomes louder, wetter. It’s coming from Dean’s room.
The door is still closed when he gets to it. Water is seeping out from under it. Sam’s not wearing shoes – it’s cold. Colder than it could be: if it was coming from the taps.
“Dean!” he yells, reaching in his pocket for his lock pick. “I’m coming in. Hold on.”
He knows better than to try and knock these doors down. His hands fumble a bit, but he’s picked this door often enough the last few weeks (when an ear to the door wasn’t enough to hear signs of life), so he makes short work of the lock.
The door won’t open straight away like it normally does. He slams his weight against it. Pushes and pushes until he feels it hit the wall. It’s only then he can take stock of everything else his body is telling him. He’s wet from the waist down – the room is half submerged. The water that had been pushing the door closed is holding it open now. It laps at the doorway, a few drops spilling over, but most of it contained by some invisible barrier.
Sam turns to the bed. Dean is floating, submerged, just above it. His mouth is open. Sam thinks his heart might stop.
The water is thick, and it’s slow going – the tiny walk from the door to the bed. Sam feels like he’s pushing uphill against a river – but the water barely even ripples. Dean’s not moving at all.
When he finally reaches the bedside, his feet have done numb. He can’t help but wince as he plunges his hands in, hooking them under Dean’s armpits and hoisting his head above the water line. Dean is warm still, thank God. His head lolls, mouth still open, water streaming from it – too fast and too much to be what he’s swallowed.
Shifting his brother’s weight onto one arm, Sam reaches a hand towards Dean’s neck. His pulse is strong, and it sends a wave of relief through Sam that’s almost enough to make him drop Dean back under the water.
Rowena had better be a very long way away.