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Dean’s been firing guns since he was in single digits. The sound hasn’t gotten a reaction out of him in a decade.
This time, Dean flinches.
The silence that follows is almost worse. He knows Sam will need a moment so he wipes his eyes and gets his game face on. He’s gotta pull his shit together. For Sam. Sam still needs him. The girl’s dead but he can still help Sam.
Minutes pass. Sam does not reappear. Anxiety creeps over him, giving him jitters down to his toes. He wants to give Sam more time, he does. But they gotta go.
(More urgent, more oppressive, is the terror of what it means if the silence is suddenly broken. Sam’s a good shot. He won’t have missed. He will have made sure Maddie didn’t suffer. If another gunshot follows, it would be for...)
Dean doesn’t quite run, but he moves fast enough to get ahead of his irrational, morbid imagination and throws open the door.
Sam stands over Madison’s body staring blankly at the wall where her blood sprayed across it like a modernist nightmare. His arms are still stretched out as though he just fired. There’s a bit of blood on his face, too (practically point blank, must shot her from point blank--), and Dean thinks for a split-second infection before shoving the thought away. He’s reviewed a lot of wolf lore in the past few days. It takes a bite to turn.
There’s no reaction from his brother as Dean enters the room or kneels by the corpse. Madison’s big, dark eyes are empty now so he closes them for her. It’s something Sam would do if he weren’t... upset.
“Hey,” Dean says softly, carefully removing the gun from Sam’s hands. There’s no resistance, Sam rooted in place. “Hey, we gotta go.”
Dean lays a hand on Sam’s shoulder and he finally animates. He blinks slowly, tears spilling down his cheeks.
Dean guides Sam’s arms down to his side. “The shot,” he explains patiently. “Someone will have heard. We have to go.”
Sam nods stiffly as a robot and lets Dean lead him out of the apartment and into the Impala. He slumps in his seat as if his spine has given up. He doesn’t sniffle or sob but his eyes remain wet, teardrops spilling over like water from a leaking dam. Dean starts the car, pausing only long enough to pull a handful of napkins out of the glove box. “Clean yourself up,” he orders, not unkindly. Sam doesn’t reply. Dean’s not even sure he heard him. He sighs but says nothing. It’s gonna be a long day.
*~*
It would have been better if Sam killed her at night, Dean reasons as he drives. When she was turned. When she looked like a monster. Maybe then--
He remembers the poor neighbor guy, Glen, as he bled to death, blinking dumbly at the sky, understanding that something had gone horribly wrong but not knowing what or why. Dean’s reluctant to admit it, but what died on that street was more human than beast. Just a frightened, confused human.
Never mind. It’s better that Madison knew what was coming and died on her own terms. Should they all be so lucky.
Dean eyes Sam as he stares out the window, face blotchy and eyes red. There’s no longer a river running down his face but a steadily dripping faucet instead. Every so often his breath hitches like he’s forgotten how to breathe. He runs his sleeve under his nose to mop up snot, napkins completely forgotten.
Sam probably wouldn’t agree. Given the chance, he would have bundled Madison away to some faraway corner of the earth, keeping her locked down until he could slap together some miracle cure, easy as discovering penicillin. Dean’s selfishly glad Madison agreed with him on what needed to be done. That kind of half-life, dependent entirely on empty hope, sounds like hell. He couldn’t live like that. More to the point, he couldn’t let Sam live like that.
They drive all day, pretty much non-stop, Sam limp beside him and silently weeping on and off. Dean would leave the state, but before Sam came pounding on the hotel door, frantic over Madison’s transformation, he had tracked down a probable case in LA. Heading out of dodge only to turn around and come right back would probably mess with Sam’s head just as much as sticking around would. So Dean jury-rigs a middle ground, taking a winding, scenic route down the west coast, turning a five-hour trip into eight, before bringing them to a halt at some cheap almost-seaside inn in Santa Barbara.
Sam doesn’t utter a single word when he’s hustled into their room, or when asked if he wants a shower (he doesn’t). Nor does he say anything when his teartracts are wiped (futily) away with a warm washcloth, or his shoes are yanked off, or he’s pulled onto the (one) bed, arranged so his head is pillowed in Dean’s lap. The whole while he only shoots Dean quick, wounded glances, as if wondering when he will lose his patience. Dean still hears the gunshot and knows his patience will endure.
“Sleep?” Dean asks, combing through Sam’s hair. Sam hides his face in Dean’s thigh and shakes his head. “Figured. Let’s put something on, huh?” Dean turns off the tableside lamps and turns on the TV, channel surfing until he finds something black and white and inoffensive--some B-grade noir, he thinks--and lets it murmur stilted dialogue until the room’s full of a sort of hypnotic hum. He plays at paying attention as he twists dark strands around his fingers. It’s getting a little long, curling up in the back. He likes it, though he’d never say. He wonders if Madison liked it, too.
It takes another hour for Sam to speak, just as Dean is thinking of calling in a pizza--not from hunger, but shere biological necessity.
“I don’t know why I feel like this,” Sam whispers, voice cracking from disuse. “I barely knew her.”
Dean doesn’t know either, yet cannot call Sam’s feelings foolish, unreasonable, or false. An echo of his brother’s pain aches within him like a phantom limb. “You got a big heart, Sammy,” he sighs, tucking a piece of hair behind his brother’s ear. “Too big, maybe.”
Sam squeezes out a few more tears from the corner of his eyes. Dean didn’t think it was physically possible to cry this long and hopes the well Sam’s drawing from isn’t bottomless. “I liked her, though. I liked her a lot.”
“I know.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“I want it to stop.”
“I know.”
Jess was easier. With Jess Sam could be angry, and an angry Sam can be directed as he wields his fury like a knife, and, eventually, worn down. This? Dean doesn’t know if he’s ever experienced a raw, senseless sorrow like this. Even their mother’s death, forever an open wound, was defined at the time by confusion and fear, sharing an equal spotlight with a sadness his four-year-old mind could barely grasp. He hardly understood “gone forever” let alone “dead,” leaving him for a long time with muted bewilderment instead of grief. Of course, Dean hadn’t killed his mother, and Sam, for all the guilt he carried, hadn’t killed Jessica. Madison was a different story.
Dean wishes, not for the first time today, that he’d just done the deed himself, Sam’s protests be damned. He thinks Madison would have understood and is fairly certain Sam would forgive him... eventually.
“I wish I were like you,” Sam confesses wetly. “I wish I didn’t feel anything.”
Dean stills. Is that what Sam thinks of him? That he’s some kind of heartless monster?
It takes only a moment for him to resume carding through Sam’s hair. He doesn’t mean it like that, Dean assures himself dully. The kid’s hurting right now. It’s fine. He’ll be fine.
A wail rips from Sam’s throat; the dam has finally broken. “I’m s-sorry,” he whimpers into the soaking denim of Dean’s jeans. Whether he’s apologizing for his words or the onslaught of fresh tears Dean can’t say. It doesn’t really matter in either case. “I-I-I’m--”
“Shh,” Dean soothes as Sam clings to him and bawls. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” He murmurs nonsense to Sam as he weeps, body wracking with the force of his sobs. The first kiss lands uncoordinated and awkward somewhere near Sam’s temple, the same kind of chaste peck he handed out like candy when they were kids. Those that follow are equally sloppy and hasty, traveling over Sam’s brow and cheeks as Dean tastes his brother’s salty tears. The kisses are meant to be comforting, grounding, just as they were for a colicky infant or fussy toddler who didn’t understand why Dad was gone again. He knows this situation is different. He understands somewhere in the back of his mind that his brother’s continual brushes with tragedy can’t be smothered by innocent familial embraces, that the breadth of his emotions can’t be salved by childhood gestures. Yet, the calm that consumes Dean by simply trying anyway swiftly overwhelms and dismisses these facts as he settles back into a familiar role: big brother to little brother, the caregiver to the cherished. The willful--and addicting--ignorance of the passage of time and radical change in circumstance is perhaps the reason why it takes so long for Dean to realize that Sam is kissing him back.
Sam’s mouth skps over his chin and cheekbones. What’s happening doesn’t click until their lips actually meet, not insistent but still firm, Sam seeking him out clumsily like a stumbling moth to the flame. Dean allows it as Sam’s tears have stopped flowing, though his eyes remain wet, and permits two more after that until he pulls away. Not far, just far enough to search Sam’s face and see if he can pin down where his mind’s at.
“M’sorry,” Sam mumbles, lower lip trembling. “I didn’t... I don’t...”
Dean silences him with a firm kiss to the center of the forehead, then squirms and shuffles until they’re side by side and Sam no longer has to crane his neck to look at him. “It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean assures him, cupping his cheek. It shouldn’t be okay, not really, but the calmness within him doesn’t dissipate. If anything it strengthens, settling into place. This makes sense somehow, and the simplicity of his conclusion reassuring: his methods of helping Sam haven’t grown obsolete. They have simply evolved.
Sam shakes his head. “I can’t, I... I don’t want you to die, too,” he professes.
Ah. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Dean lay where Madison had, and now she was dead. Over a year ago Jess lay here and she, too, was dead.
The similarities and differences between himself and the dead girls don’t matter. Sam has likely already held them up for inspection and found his conclusions inevitable. But Jess and Madison had their role to play and so does Dean--and his trumps theirs any day of the week.
“Big brother’s not going anywhere,” Dean vows, pressing his mouth to the crown of Sam’s head. It’s probably a lie. But when Dean does go (and he has no doubt he will go, probably sooner rather than later), it won’t be because of this-- not this precious, fragile thing that he can so easily, so gladly, give to Sam.
Sam must believe him because his eyelids flutter shut as Dean rains more caresses over his face. When Dean captures his mouth this kiss is less frantic than the first, coaxing and inviting. Arousal remains a distant idea, gently kissing one another until Sam falls asleep in Dean’s arms, head nestled against his shoulder.
Duties fulfilled, at least for now, Dean clicks off the TV and settles in for the long haul. This role is one he’s happy to play.