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1.
When the walls come down there’s no screaming, Sam doesn’t jump off the nearest bridge or kill Castiel, or even really do anything. It’s quiet. Too quiet. And that’s how Dean knows something is wrong.
Leviathans are trying to take over the world andhe couldn’t find time to care less, Dean is thiscloseto ending it because Sam hasn’t spoken in three days. Three days without his brother's voice is worse than the year he spent with Lisa because at least then he knew Sam’s picture couldn’t talk back, now it scares him.
But he’s going to keep being next to Sam, he’s going to stay until Sam talks and until he can make up words again. He will— he’s his brother, if he can’t do that, who will?
So he takes the bowl of chili that Bobby made up to their room. He doesn’t want Sam to be alone too long so unless they’re sleeping, he tries to be in the same room at all times.
“Sammy?” He knocks on the door twice before entering, shutting it behind him. It’s a new habit he’s forced himself to develop. The first time he came into the room without knocking first Sam fell off his chair with wide eyes.
Sam only looks at him, no wide eyes, no kicked puppy look, just— wounded. Sam’s wounded and (though Dean won’t say it) he’s afraid it’s beyond repair. Then, a miracle, Sam opens his mouth. To whisper gibberish. Dean sits next to Sam on the bed, offering the bowl. He’s near tears just hearing his brother's voice— his real brother, for the first time in 15 months. “Sammy?”
It’s futile, Sam only looks up at him to say… something. Whatever it is, it’s not English, and Dean doesn’t care to find out, he just wants to hug his brother, no matter how quiet his words are. He wants to hug him so bad and reassure in his ear that everything will be okay, that they’ll figure it out. But the last time Dean tried, Sam knocked him out.
“You gotta eat, Sam.” It’s one of his staples these past three days. Telling Sam he has to eat seems to be the one thing he can do without it blowing up in his face, and it surprises him every time he actually listens. He takes the bowl from the tray, picks up the spoon, then looks up to ask Dean something, he can tell it’s a question, but it’s gibberish.
The first time Sam is speaking to him in three days and he can’t even understand him. God, this is— it’s so—
“Can you tell me what that means, buddy?” Sam furrows his eyebrows then decides it’s not worth his time as he looks down at the bowl of chili to wolf it down. It’s enough for Dean that Sam looked up at him. It’ll work itself out. That’s what he always says and it always works. It’ll work itself out.
++
It will work itself out, Dean repeats again as he knocks on Sam’s door two days later. It’s past ten and he’s sure he’s asleep but he hears some knocking and rustling from his room so decides to come make sure everything is fine.
“Sammy?” He says, his voice low and thick with sleep. He was just about to pass out. When he gets no reply he opens the door and invites himself in, sees Sam having a panic attack, and runs over to him. “Sammy? Hey, man, come back to me! Sam!”
He’s never sobered up like this.
Sam’s eyes slam open so fast it gives Dean whiplash and he bunches Sam’s shirt in one of his hands, the other on his neck, over his hair. Sam’s mumbling, more words that Dean can’t tell apart, and then it’s arguing, he shouting, he’s screaming. He’s speaking. His voice. It would fill Dean's heart up if he wasn’t so petrified.
“Sammy, it’s just me, no one else is here!” That grabs his attention and he whips his head to Dean’s direction, their faces only inches apart as his breathing becomes even heavier, eyes more wide, mouth drier. He shakes his head like seeing Dean is making it worse. And it takes everything in Dean not to slam his head against the wall. “I’m right here, no one else, just us,” he coos, hoping, praying, that that’s the right thing to say. It is.
Sam’s breaths are less shallow, his eyes just a little more focused on Dean. Thank God. And then— then the unthinkable happens. Dean’s a strong man, he knows he is, raised to be nothing but. Seeing Sammy throw himself into his arms? He couldn’t get any frickin’ weaker. He melts into it, pulling him closer, tightening his grip. He thinks that that’s that, Sam will fall asleep in his arms, just like when they were kids. Instead he leans into his ear, says something through gritted teeth and pulls away.
Dean may not have understood the exact words, but he can recognize a threat when he hears one.
+++
“I’m losing my damn mind, Cass.” He’s not even being dramatic. He can’t think clearly anymore, forgets whether he ate breakfast or not, where his glasses are. It’s getting pathetic. “And he won’t talk to me— just mumbles things…”
“What things?” He asks thoughtfully, and it helps calm Dean down to know he’s not the only one seriously thinking about this. Obviously, Bobby cares, he’s been reading books on damaged souls the second Castiel gave Sam his memories back (something Dean obviously hasn’t forgiven but desperate times) yet it isn’t enough.
“I don’t know. It’s not English.”
“Enochian?” Oh. Oh, God, Dean is so damn stupid. Of course it’s freakin’ enochian! You’re stuck with an archangel for years and they don’t speak their mother tongue? No way.
“Probably, maybe.”
“Can you repeat any of it?”
“Repeat— no, of course not, it’s freakin’ gibberish man, freakin’, I don’t know ‘tibibp’ or some crap.”
“Tibibp?” He says it like he’s considering it carefully, Dean makes a noise in affirmation. “It’s a letter of disagreement. ‘Can not’ or ‘do not’, depends.”
“Well that’s all I got.”
“Doesn’t really help any. I can come and talk to him, see if I can understand what he’s trying to tell you.” It has crossed Dean’s mind plenty. Calling Cass to come over, praying, he’s almost done it a handful of times. But his pride, ego, maybe just his feelings, won’t let him. Cass is the damn reason this wall went down, why would he give him a chance to redeem himself?
Because he’s his best friend. Because he messed up and that’s okay, they all mess up.
Because no one in the world matters more than Sammy and if he can’t find a way to help him he’s not going to stay on this earth for long. “Yeah. Okay, drop by as soon as you can.”
His ego will have to recover later because Cass drops by too soon. As in right this second, phone still to his ear, as Dean jumps due to the flutter of his wings. “Is now a good time?” Castiel’s tone is monotone and it takes Dean a second to remember that the angel is, in fact, not being sarcastic, just asking a genuine question.
“Fine.” He throws the phone onto the couch and leads Cass to Sam’s room upstairs, passing by Bobby in his own room having a nap. The man deserves it with all the damn research he’s been doing lately. When they’re at Sam’s door, Dean hesitates, taking a breath before warning Cass, “don’t upset him, okay?”
That seems trivial. Cass nods anyway and they knock twice before entering. The room hasn’t changed and neither has Sam’s position, still has his back flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as if it’ll have any answers. As if it’s any more important that Dean is. And it fills him with a kind of envy he didn’t know he could have against inanimate objects that steal Sam’s attention.
“Sammy? Hey, buddy, Cass wanted to check in on you.” Dean’s careful to soften his voice, as much as he could, anyways, and approach slowly. It’s kind of like speaking to an injured deer. ”Sam?” He says again but gets no reply.
He looks over at Cass, his eyes desperate and pleading. The angel walks to Sam’s bed and starts… speaking the same damn gibberish Sam’s been speaking all day. It’s not the exact same, considering Dean’s only heard two of those words in Sam’s sentences, but it’s just as infuriating.
He waits to comment on it. At least until Sam responds. Sam replies to Cass like he just insulted him, and it’s making Dean go crazy. He can only handle so many wrecks from Cass. “What the hell is he saying?”
Cass furrows his eyebrows before turning to Dean, “It’s… old. Ancient Enochian even I don’t speak, no one but archangels would understand— though I did get some things. He’s cursing me, he’s angry. Sam thinks we are torturing him.”
“Torture? Why would we be torturing him, does he still think he’s in The Cage?”
“Sam does not… there is no Cage. In his mind he has essentially forgotten Earth.”
Dean doesn’t understand. Forgot Earth? He’s been on it for twenty eight years, kinda hard to forget something like that. And sure, Dean gets it. He went to hell at twenty four for forty years, so double his time on earth, but it didn’t make him forget it. In fact, it was all he thought about down there.
But Sam… forgot. Does that mean he forgot Dean? His brother? The only damn person that matter in the world. No, no way. It can’t be like that. “Cass, tell— ask him if he remembers me.” If he thought he was pathetic before, this takes the cake. Beggars can’t be choosers, and he’s not in the mood to care. Cass looks over at Sam, speaks slowly like he’s thinking of each syllable. Sam tilts his head in confusion, looks up at Dean and nods. “Good, you remember me, Sammy?”
He nods again and Dean walks over to the bed with a half-smile on his lips. He’s getting somewhere. “What about English, buddy? You r’member that?”
Sam nods again. Dean has to sit down to collect himself. “What! Then why haven’t you been talkin’ to me?” He doesn’t respond, looks back up at Cass and shrugs. His back is laid against the headboard and his eyes glacé around the entire room before they fall on Dean. For some reason, Dean understands what he wants. Food. It’s been one of the only reasons Dean has sat on his bed, offering him something to eat, so he probably expected it.
“Okay, yeah, I’ll let you talk to Cass and I’ll order… I don’t know, soup or something.” Sam doesn’t acknowledge him, playing with his fingers on his lap just above the bed. It’s been his safe space for the past week, why would now be any different?
He orders the food as quickly as possible, for all four of them, and runs upstairs. He’s prepared for the worst. Sam and Cass not getting anywhere, Sam forgetting him but only remembering him by name. He has so many questions, so little answers.
Cass is speaking to Sam, or trying to. He’s struggling to sound out the words, talking slowly. Sam looks… broken. Skeptic, maybe, like he can understand what’s happening. Dean understands, Sam thinks he’s still in The Cage. But for him The Cage is not something that happened for a while, it’s his whole life, it’s all he knows. It doesn’t break dean’s heart, it freakin’ claws it out. Eighteen years he’s spent looking after his little brother, raising him, trying to make the world a better place for him and he can’t remember any of it?
What was any of it for if Dean wouldn’t end up protecting Sammy.
+++
“He’s getting better.” Cass says casually, as if they’re talking about the weather. “At English. He spoke yesterday.”
It’s been a week. Dean doesn’t go into Sam’s room while Cass is with him, mostly because Sam stares at him like he’s expecting food and Dean’s scared that while they’re teaching Sam to come back to Earth, he’ll forget Dean’s his brother, not the chef.
“Good.” He still hasn’t talked to Sam. In English or otherwise. He’s been looking up Enochian, trying to understand some phrases at least. The important things to snap Sam out of a panic attack or ‘I’m your brother’.
It hasn’t gotten any easier trying to learn an ancient language no one speaks without having Sam by his side. But Sam’s gotten more comfortable, not around him or Cass, just in the comfort of his own room, he seems to speak to no one in particular. Sometimes it’s loud, angry yelling, other times he’s just casually catching up with a friend. Who knows anymore?
“Can I— should I talk to him?” He’s been using Cass as his compass the entire time, he’s not sure what to do otherwise. Everyone is getting tired and leviathans are still out there. They’ve heard so many terrifying stories this past week that it almost made Dean want to up and leave, get the hell out and fight like he always does.
But like he told Sam six years ago, right on his damn college campus, he doesn’t want to.
“You could if you want, although I am not sure how much help it would be.” Cass’s tone is… careful, like he’s walking on eggshells around Dean.
Dean stands up abruptly, knocking the couch back a step to grab whatever food Bobby made. Grilled cheese, two sandwiches and he walks to Sam’s room cautiously. His mind is spinning, every step he takes closer, he hears Sam’s voice more clearly, he’s arguing with someone. But it’s a normal disagreement, no shouting.
When he knocks, he half expects Sam to draw a gun on him. He’s not sure where he would possibly get one, but it crosses his mind that Sam’s not too far off from a stranger that he’d do it. Instead, Sam looks away from whoever he’s speaking to and pans to Dean.
“Dean, again!” He exasperates, throwing his hand in the air. He’s standing, not in bed for the first time since the veil came down and he’s speaking freakin’ English. Sammy is back. Sammy is back. Sammy is back.
Sammy is upset that Dean came into the room? “Sam, you okay?”
“This isn’t going to work!” More English. His accent is surprisingly good for someone who you’d think is learning the language from scratch but Dean remembers Cass explaining to him that Sam isn’t like a foreigner learning English for the first time, he just needs a refresher since he hasn’t used much of it.
“What isn’t going to work?” He asks, approaching slowly.
“This! Lucifer—” Aaand, we’re back to gibberish. Enochian. What the hell ever. “It won’t work.”
“Sammy, you’re out of The Cage, you’ve gotta know that, man!” He’s shaking, beyond it, the plate is somewhere on the nightstand and he’s not sure when he put it there. “It’s me, Dean, Lucifer isn’t here!”
Sam’s not the same. He isn’t. He may never be.
More Enochian, more insults, “I swear, Lucifer—”
“I’m Dean.” So many people have joked about them acting like a married couple but this feels too close to it. Way too close. And not even in a funny way. “Sammy, please. Remember— God, Poughkeepsie! Poughkeepsie.”
Sam doesn’t look impressed, crosses his arms, “you’ve been in my head, I’m not stupid. You are. You can keep doing this forever but when Dean—the real Dean— gets me out of here you’ll be the one all alone, not me.”
“Come on, Sam, please, I’m begging you, it’s me. It’s Dean. You gotta listen, okay? Ask me anything, anything you don’t know.”
“How would I know it’s right?”
“Man, I don’t know!” He sighs, frustrated, angry, depressed, “I’m not even speaking Enochian, haven’t you… haven’t you noticed that?”
He might as well have hit Sam with a ton of bricks because his eyes widen, and he falls back onto the floor. It’s loud and harsh, makes Dean wince as his six foot something brother toppled over like it’s nothing, like it’s everything.
“I— I don’t understand half the crap you’re sayin’, Sammy. And Cass, he’s been tryin’ to get you to speak to us, do you— are you seeing it? Are you seeing us now? Not in the cage, baby, you’re not in the cage.” The old nickname spills out like it’s nothing as he leans down into the floor, his hand cradling his brother's cheek. Sam doesn’t pull away from him and it gives Dean such a sense of relief, he could hug him. But he’s not sure if Sam would like that.
“I— you— but,” he’s stuttering and frowning and his voice is so contrastingly thick to the kicked puppy Dean sees in front of him, “but I didn’t get out. You’re—” More frickin Enochian. That damn language barrier that Dean thought they got over, that he might genuinely kill someone over.
“You did. You got out, remember? Remember we were together, before the walls came down me and you hunted together and we stopped Cass. Remember that? Stopped him from using the leviathans.”
Sam nods. He nods. Dean’s about to throw a parade. “You remember?”
“Yes— Lucifer cox remder veline—”
“No, no, Sammy, English, back to English, baby. Lucifer’s not here do you— do you see him anywhere?” His voice is shaking, much like he was earlier, but he doesn’t stop looking Sam in the eyes, he needs Sam to focus. Focus on Dean. Just Dean. Always Dean.
He looks over Dean’s shoulder, just a glance, subtle and unsure enough that it breaks Dean’s heart. Lucifer is here? In the room with them? His hallucination, anyway. Not that it makes it any better, any version of Lucifer shouldn’t be near any version of Sammy.
He pulls his gaze back to his brother, shaking his head. He’s downplaying the torture in his mind. He did it when they were seven and he’ll do it till they’re sixty and balding (well, maybe only one of them will be balding).
“What is he saying? You know he’s not real, right?”
“He— I know he’s not real.” That’s a relief, “he’s a part of me.”
That sounds… bad? Self-torturous? Wrong? Who knows, maybe Sam doesn’t mean it that way, but Dean still isn’t gonna hear it. “Lucifer has nothing to do with you. Nothing. You’re not the freakin’ Anti-Christ, Sam. You stopped him, you stopped the damn apocalypse.”
“Yeah, he’s a part of me. ‘Cause it…”
Great, now he’s talking in half sentences. “Lucifer is dead! He’s gone, you trapped him and whatever you’re seeing? You need to snap out of it, man, please. We can’t have you like this, I need my brother back.”
Sam’s silent. Sam leans his head on the wall behind him in defeat, while Dean is truly feeling it.
+++
“You didn’t—” He says something, starts with a ‘v’, maybe, but cuts himself off. Dean’s thankful he can tell the difference between English and Enochian now. It’s only been two weeks. “Knock.” He’s still spelling lots of uncommonly used words out, like he's teaching himself the language, “on my door.”
“I do. I knock everytime.” Logically, he knows Sam isn’t accusing him of anything, but still. He’s got to argue on principle.
“At fir—tes—first.” He says that one impossibly unrushed.
“Right. Sorry,” it’s beyond genuine, “I didn’t know you’d want me to knock now.”
Sam shakes his head swiftly, “no no, don’t. Don’t. Please, Dean, don’t.”
“What?” He regards Sam’s pout gently, rubbing a hand on his cheek. It’s been the only type of touch he allows knowing Sam won’t freak out on him. Or shut him out.
“You got me out. I’m out of… Lucifer. He’s not here anymore.” He keeps changing the subject, running around something, in between it, dodging it— Dean can barely keep up. He doesn’t think Sam can keep up either. He’s living in a million different worlds and each one is more different than Dean can imagine.
“Yeah, Sammy, you are. You said you don’t want me to knock. Why?”
“‘Cause he does. Always, always knocks. He— mocking me.” If dean’s heart was whole before, it sure as crap isn’t now. He should’ve seen it coming, should’ve known Sam would tell him about what Lucifer did to him sooner or later, he just doesn’t know if he can take it when his brother is this way— this scary way.
“I won’t knock anymore. ‘Wasn’t mockin’ you either, you know that, right?” Sam nods, putting down his chili bowl (again for the third time this week), and leaning closer to Dean. He… Sam leans his head on Dean’s shoulder and it knocks the breath from his lungs. He isn’t just trying to get comfortable around Dean after not having for so long, he’s seeking comfort from him.
From him? The same Dean he didn’t believe was there in the first place?
“Thank you, De,” That nickname. That frickin nickname that Sam’s only ever said before he turned twelve and he hasn’t heard it since.
“You’re welcome, buddy.” He wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him a little closer, but it’s subtle enough to not surprise Sammy.
And okay, so this isn’t ideal, it’s freakin’ terrifying having a Sam that doesn’t speak except half-English, but it’s a Sam that wants Dean and that’s all Dean cares about.