Chapter Text
Sam was afraid.
They all knew it wasn't a sound idea, having Sam just walk around with a broken psyche, but it was the only plan they had. They regretted that now.
The leviathans weren't easy to spot at the best of times, but they had always managed one way or another, be it reflections or the hunter's instinct that never slept, they had known. Except, this time, Sam hadn't.
He was cowering on a bar seat far too small for him to be so hunched over, nursing a drink in one hand and pushing on his palm with the other, eyes flitting around restlessly in the near-empty pub, completely unaware of his surroundings sans the hallucinations of his torturer singing in his ear. Dean had gone to 'investigate' a sultry-looking girl who was eyeing him over her cocktail glass. He'd told Sam to stay put, but with Lucifer describing all if the ways Dean's date could slice and dice him, Sam wasn't happy sitting still. He needed a distraction but was far too skittish and disjointed to go and find one, which was why when a handsome stranger sat next to him he nearly prayed to a God he no longer respected.
"Hey, you alright?" The man's voice was gravelly and rough, like the warm burn of whisky and the smell of smoky leather. He smelt like home.
Sam managed out a "yeah, yeah, I'm uh, I'm okay." then quickly added a 'thanks'.
"You sure? You look a little pale there, friend."
Sam barked out a bitter laugh, all charade and resentment. "Long night."
"Boy, If I ain't heard that one before." The stranger chuckled, removing the stained leather jacket and chucking it onto the counter, which Sam weakly noticed as disrespectful, but weirdly, the bartender didn't seem to care. Said bartender was looking at him like he was meat, so Sam squirmed a little closer to the stranger's comforting and sharp presence. "Can I buy you another drink?"
Sam looked up at the man, surprised, but quickly relaxed into his seat at the thought of some free self-medication. 'Yeah- uh- please. That'd be great."
"'course," He waved a confusingly smug look with the bartender and snapped in command, the man behind the counter got to pouring. The stranger seemed all the more interested.
"So... What're you doing here so sad, Sam?"
'I'm, uh.. you know, waiting for my brother. God, I sound like a little kid."
"No, no, you're all good." The man put an encouraging hand on Sam's back and an unknown warmth erupted through him.
"I- uh- if I'm being honest, I think I'm going crazy." The glass was thrown his way and Sam took a long swig of a sipping drink.
"We're all going crazy, kid."
"Not like I am." Sam sat in silence, his mind tired. His body all of a sudden a dead weight, leading him to lean on the stranger with his lack of inhibition. The stranger grinned a satisfactory grin as Sam sipped.
"wait," Sam paused, the sudden spike of adrenaline so intense that his vision warped. "How did you know my name?"
"the empire is rising, Sam." The stranger chuckled. "You need to stop acting like a lost puppy when people give you attention, it's unbecoming. What if the wrong person pays you attention, hm?" The leviathan's voice, so comforting moments previously, now dripped with a sickly sense of pride, dangerous and teasing.
Sam threw himself back out of the chair, tripping over himself and catching last minute on wobbly legs. "I'll kill you." Sam threw a shaky pocket knife at the doubling figure in front of him. The figure simply chuckled, eyes and grin predatory enough to send chills erupting across Sam's uncoordinated limbs. The figure drew out a knife and cleaned it on his jacket. Sam didn't know how to get out of the situation, so he did what he knew.
"DEAN!"
Dean felt the cry in his soul, and heard it from all the way upstairs, even with his tongue down a pretty girl's throat. "Did you hear that?"
"No?" She scoffed, thoroughly annoyed at the halting of Dean's motions.
"I need to go." Dean took off in a sprint before he could hear her protests. By the time he had reached the bar, he was moments too late, with Sammy sliding down a wall covered in a deep and sickening red. He flew into a rage, unable to rationalise or even see straight, and decapitated both leviathans in quick succession. Once the thick red fog cleared from his vision he caught sight of his baby brother in enough pain to contort his face. "Sammy?" He wasted no time getting to the ground next to his brother. "It's okay."
Sam grunted, teeth splattered with hints of blood that Dean tried to convince himself weren't there. The low light of the room highlighted the rapidly draining colour in his brother's face, pasty and wrong. The younger Winchester's eyes flit about the room, distracted by things unknown to Dean before they quickly refocused on his big brother as if afraid he was going to slip away at any second. Sam wanted Dean to be the last thing he saw. "Dean," he panted, ragged breaths bouncing off of the walls, further suffocating Dean as if they weren't making him sick enough.
"Sammy, look at me."
Sam let out a keening noise from deep in the back of his throat, all high-pitched and terrified.
"You're gonna be fine, Sammy, okay? I'm gonna stop the bleeding and clean you up, just a little stab wound, barely even a prick, right? We'll go back to the impala and you'll get a good rest and this will be a good laugh in the morning, okay?" He was rambling in a futile attempt to comfort himself, words running off his tongue as quickly as blood dripped down Sam's stomach. Sam didn't seem to be listening, focusing on the increasing effort of keeping his eyes open.
"De," Sam hadn't called him that since he was shoulder height. Sam was struggling to get his words out, crackling gargles sounding with each breath.
"I'm here, Sammy, I'm here." Dean had hurriedly pressed his flannel to Sam's free-flowing wound. The blood oozing forth was pooling around his hands, too much for the flannel to absorb. The sickly-sweet twang of metal was quickly filling up the room. "You're okay."
Sam's eyes were drifting in and out of awareness. "De,"
"Yeah, Sammy?" Dean's voice shook, he was barely holding on and his big brother could see that.
"sorry."
"Don't be, Sammy, we'll get out of this. We got out of everything else." Dean's plea fell upon deaf ears, God never felt that kind. The room's energy felt wired, the drop of your stomach moments before you fall seeming to stretch into eternity. "Sammy, please."
"Don' think," Sam panted through his words "'m making it out."
"Well, I ain't doin' this shit alone." Anger bubbled just below the surface of Dean's tone. His hands shook with the need to fix, and he couldn't, so instead he needed to break. "Sammy, dude, come on, please."
Sam coughed up a hearty splatter of oozing thick blood that hit Dean's chest, decorating it in a way that would never wash off. "Dean?" Sam sighed, face contorting. He shuffled himself forward on disorganised limbs to lean against his brother. "'m glad you're my big brother.'
In a second Dean knew it was all over. He moved Sammy to support his neck but still see his face, cradling him the same way he had done running out of that burning house all those years ago. The blood on his hands almost had him drop Sam, the thickness of it making Dean barely suppress a gag. It felt oily, coating his fingers and suffocating his touch into something dirty and distant. He wanted to stroke Sammy's hair and nearly went to, but the sudden sight of his baby brother's body, dead and cold, with blood crusted in his long hair stopped him in his tracks. "You uh," he took a steadying breath and had a sinking feeling that he was never going to feel like he'd ever caught his breath again.
"You remember when we were kids and you'd uh- you'd get those fevers? You wouldn't settle if I wasn't right next to you at all times. It used to stress me out," he cleared his quickly tightening throat. "I'm glad now."
Sam's breath was slowing, despite this his eyes shone bright with panic. "De-" he could sense darkness pulling at him and he wanted nothing more than to stay. Sam knew he was probably following his dad's footsteps, going straight back to hell, unless the leviathans sent you somewhere completely different. Fear clawed at his bones like a rabid dog.
He didn't need to tell Dean his thoughts, he already knew.
Dean steeled his resolve, the anger could wait. "Sammy, you're okay, yeah? You're with me, nothing's gonna touch you. When we get back we're gonna drink beers and watch shitty moves," Tears sprang to his eyes against his wishes. "We'll even get you some of that rabbit food you love so much."
Sam chuckled at this, eyes half-lidded.. "Promise?"
Dean couldn't help the broken noise that erupted from the back of his throat. He sucked in a steadying breath like a good soldier. "Promise."
Sam's eyelids fluttered, losing his battle with consciousness. He looked like he wanted to say more, but it got stuck in his throat. Dean provided a weak comfort of "its okay, Sammy.", which, despite everything, seemed to relax Sam enough to let go. The childlike complete trust in his brother prevailed above any experience. His breathing slowed to a halt, but the ghost of a smile remained.
Dean sat there in silence for a moment, and then two, the icy chill to the room finally settling in. In those brief moments, he stared as flashes of his brother at each age hit him with the force of a planet and knocked the wind out of him. The moment lasted until a pressure built up in his chest so severe that it threatened to rip his heart open, and he screamed. He screamed until his throat was raw and his eyes could cry no more tears. After that, it was anyone's guess on his long he sat and stared, but it was enough time for Sam to go cold.
The older Winchester held onto his baby brother as if he was the only thing steeling Dean to sanity. He looked around, unsure of what he could possibly to do remedy the situation. He remembered his promise to Sam, a promise to take him home, and so he got up. Dean fought against the weight in his arms threatening to tumble him down, and he got up with Sam still nestled in his arms. After a few painful steps proved near impossible Dean wobbled to a dissociated stop. "Cas," he whispered, tone flat, before repeating himself. "Cas."
The flutter of wings in front of him rattled his ears, shaking him out of his near-comatose mental state.
"Sam, Dean, how can I he-" Castiel cut himself off upon seeing the bloodied mess of Sam Winchester's limp body. Dean had never seen such agony paint the angel's face. "How- maybe I can-"
"Leviathan," Dean answered plainly, knowing no amount of grace could heal what those unnatural monsters had done.
"Oh, Sam." Castiel's eyes nearly watered before he calmed his reaction. "Would you like me to take him?"
Dean basically growled at the angel, angling his body as much as possible with Sam's weight sitting heavy. The reminder nearly toppled him over. "Just get us home."
"Home?"
Dean's eyes widened for a second. Where was home? "The.. you know where we're staying. Don't be a dick."
In a second, they were back inside, in the room where they'd shared beers and stories and laughter. "Shit," Dean had to plant his feet not to be bowled over by the contracting of his heart; Sam's head lolled back at the action and he nearly threw up. He walked Sam over to his bed and lay him down as gently as his shaking muscles could manage. He tried to turn his back after that, but the sudden idea that Sam was probably cold flooded Dean's mind, he was always cold as a child. Dean pulled a blanket over Sam up to his shoulders and tucked him in, nice and neat. Castiel's eyes watching his every move became apparent to the Winchester and he offered up a weak explanation."Sammy, the room's- as a kid, he was always shiverin', complained about it a hell of a lot too. Always needed a blanket- so..."
"I understand." Cas sounded like a fucking therapist. The angel walked over cautiously. "I can keep him warm for a while if you'd like?"
"Don't fucking touch him." Dean spat without thinking, and the guardian backed off. "Fuck, sorry, Cas, I just-" Dean held his hand up to punctuate his point. "Don't touch him, it'll make it all..." Real.
"Of course, Dean."
~~~
Dean had been sitting there for hours by the side of Sam's bed, the same way he would do when Sam was delirious with a fever all of those times as a child. He would sit by Sam's bed as a comfort, squeezing his hand and shushing him back to sleep after he'd dreamt a demon had taken him. Dean had always chalked it up to hunting, he knows now that wasn't the whole truth.
Go how he wished he could comfort Sammy now.
A vague idea formed in his head.
"Cas?"
"Yes, Dean?" Castiel had been waiting just as dutifully on the opposite side of the room, watching Dean's every move.
"You took us back in time to see Mom."
"Dean," Castiel's voice was sorrowful, knowing what Dean was going to suggest. "You know we can't. His death is fixed. I did that because I had no other choice.."
"For god's sake, Cas! I'm not asking to go back to yesterday, I- I just- let me see him as a baby. One more time."
"...I can do that for you." Castiel made his way across the room to Dean and rested a hand on his shoulder. The world span, Dean's stomach along with it as he felt his body separate from his mind. Just as it became too overwhelming he materialised alongside Castiel in a shady motel. The first thing he noticed was the shrill scream of an infant alone in a cold room. 'Sammy?"
Castiel took a step back, observing. Dean ran to his little brother, barely eighteen months, who was sitting on the floor, red in the face from crying. 'Oh, oh, Sammy." Dean bent down, hauling his very much baby brother up into his arms. "It's okay, kid, don't cry." don't cry." He bounced Sammy up and down on his hip and sighed in relief at the sobbing tapering off. The smell of mould and damp invaded the room at every corner, blue-green at the barely concealed cracks in the plaster. "Poor thing's been breathing this in all day..."
"Why is he alone? Infants this age should be supervised."
"Thank you, boy-wonder, I know." Dean glared, fussing over the child dressed in far too big clothes balanced on his side. "Dad would leave on hunts, he would never take Sammy with him because of the noise. I would toddle down to the closest fast food joint to nab some food, but I couldn't carry him with me. Not my fucking fault, I sure as hell know that now. I think, though, this time, Dad had taken me with him in the Impala, poor old Sammy was left on his own for hours today."
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"Yeah, well, he burned in hell for long enough."
Sam started up Dean's face, a small smile dancing there from time to time. Dean noticed and grinned, offering up a finger for Sam to take. His brother grabbed it, barely reaching, and giggled to himself. Dean's chest erupted in warmth.
"You know," he chuckled, remembering his anecdote in fond satisfaction. "Sammy, smart as he is," Cas didn't comment on the 'is'. "He was a slow developer, I mean, he was nicknamed pipsqueak and runt until he was about sixteen. He was still skinny as anything even when he got tall. I dunno what happened," Dean trailed off before rounding back, eyes significantly more pained. "He walked late and he talked late, much to Dad's dissatisfaction. By this age he could only say a couple of words, but the main one," Dean punctuated his sentence with a bounce to his arms, erupting another playful giggle out of Sam. "was my name."
"He'd always say Dean?"
"Well, no," Sam fussed upon hearing the name and babbled out 'De!"
Dean froze, his entire body jolting as he was thrown into the memory of Sam calling out to him, hands slick with inky blood. He managed to force himself back into the moment, body shaking, just far Sam. "That's me, buddy."
Dean revelled in the moments he spent with young Sam, numerous joyful memories flooding back, hazy summer days and comforting his baby brother. "Oh, Sammy..." Dean rocked the kid to sleep, a heavy head of fluffy hair breathing softly onto his shoulder, and a small trusting weight in his arms. "In some other life, we would've stayed this innocent. This wouldn't have been the beginning of his end."
Castiel took this in, envisioning the alternate world in which all of them were safe together, a life without fear, some other world where they kept Sam. Some other dimension that Cas could sweep Sam out of, back to them.
Castiel had an idea.