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Dean awoke to his name.
"Dean?" Sam called out again, sounding unsure. That wasn't unusual these days. They both didn't really know where they stood with each other in their new, sharp, estranged dynamic shifting as it settled into something they'd never experienced that had lost its intimate trust. Unsureness was the least of the symptoms that had stemmed from their new, sickly normal.
He sighed and rolled over his side to lay on his back. He didn't even want to open his eyes and deal with whatever crap Sam had going on now. Or at least another hour before he had to.
A hand grabbed his arm, clutching on to shirt sleeve awkwardly. "Dean, what - what's going on?"
At that Dean opened his eyes and sat up. Sam stood over him and was staring at him with perplexed eyebrows. Something pinged in Dean's brain as odd, and it took a only few short seconds to understand.
"What the hell?" Dean asked and leaned forward, peering like the lessened distance would sort this out into some type of optical illusion that would be cleared away if he got closer. Like proximity would change the sight before him. He rubbed his eyes but the image stayed the same: it was Sam but he looked - he couldn't be - but he looked almost younger somehow. Something in the length of his hair, something in his posture, a lot of things in his eyes, and alright maybe even a couple more things about the way Sam looked.
"I don't know," Sam answered even though Dean hadn't really been talking to his brother.
"What the hell?" He asked again but this time addressing Sam.
"I don't know!" Sam reiterated, pissy and confused and so unlike how Sam talked to him nowadays. There was none of the uncertainty, none of the heaviness, none of the awkwardness. That alone is what cinched it for Dean in a way the visuals and his own eyes could not.
It really was a younger Sam, wasn't it? His brain rebelled against the idea, however true he suspected it to be.
He didn't know of anything that could mimic someone but younger. Didn't know what the hell he was dealing with here. Couldn't be possession. Couldn't be a shapeshifter. Not unless one had been keeping Sam's form from when it had seen him a whiles back, maybe. But he'd never known a shapeshifter to keep a form for so long. As crazy as it was, Dean thought that maybe -
Maybe it really was a younger Sam.
The hair length looked a little familiar. With silent eyes, Dean measured it and tried to compare each strand to his Sam. It was a difficult task. These days, he often couldn't bear to look at his Sam. He counted bangs and layers and tried to match it in his head. There was a time when he could've placed each and every strand, no matter the way it parted. But now Dean looked and looked and could only visualize that maybe it was different from Sam's silhouette.
The thing was - this Sam looked at him like Dean ought to know. From just a glance, even. His brows started to pinch in confusion the longer that Dean stared at him.
But how? A witch? Some soft of new demon thing Sam was messing with?
"How did this happen? How did we get here? It's not possible, what do you think could have done this? Why? And what -" He paused in his barrage of questions and sounded even more confused. "Why do you - why do you look like that? What's going on?"
That took Dean aback. "Me? Why do I - why do you - " He cut himself off. "Okay. What's the last thing you remember?"
Amnesia maybe. Amnesia of the body as well as the mind. Okay, yeah, that sounded insane. But maybe Sam's body just... forgot how old he was. Or something. Ah screw however implausible that sounded; it had to be something.
Sam stared at him with a mix between hesitation and skepticism and then sat down on his bed instead of looming by Dean's bedside. Still holding on to Dean's shirt sleeve but arm now even further outstretched to do so. "Well... We were driving."
That did nothing to narrow it down or help solve this puzzle. "We were driving?" Dean repeated, utterly unsure what that meant. "I'm gonna need a little more detail."
Sam frowned. Dean frowned too. If this was a younger Sam, then he wouldn't be used to the tone of voice Dean had taken with him just then. Dean found himself feeling guilty but didn't want to make a thing of it or draw attention to it.
As apology, Dean went first. "Look," He said, a hell of a lot nicer, "I don't know what's going on either." He gestured to the motel room around them. "We're not exactly in the car. And you're not exactly you. Unless you've gotten some work done or a facelift or whatever the hell to look like that."
His brother leaned back, withdrawing his hand and staring at him with confusion that warred with sudden understanding. Brows falling and lifting, eyes crinkling and uncrinkling as he processed that. "I'm not me. And you're not you." He spoke aloud to himself. He looked down to the twin mattress he was seated on, an identical one to Dean's, and then looked back up. He rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans and nodded, fortifying himself - settling delicately on understanding rather than confusion - before he resumed talking. "We were in the car," He said again, but much softer this time. "On our way back from California."
"California?" Dean asked and tried to mentally go over all the jobs they'd done there and use it to clock what age Sam might be. Older than Pasadena. Younger than Jericho. Maybe -
"Hollywood, actually, to be exact." Sam dipped his chin to the side in his gesture he did whenever explaining something or correcting information.
Okay, yeah, that did help narrow it down. The Hollywood job. Man, that seemed like forever ago. And not just because Dean had spent decades in hell.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Sam asked, surprising Dean. And then it was surprising to him that it had been surprising to himself at all. Why was that so? He just hadn't expected Sam to try and quid pro quo here, he supposed. He wasn't really used to it anymore.
Dean cut to the chase. "Two thousand nine."
Sam's face froze for a moment before it crested over in incredulity. "You don't mean... Do you mean the year two thousand and nine?"
He confirmed it. "Yup. Two, oh oh, nine." As Sam digested that, Dean continued, "Like I said - " He gesture to the motel room around them. "We certainly aren't driving. And we certainly aren't leaving Hollywood, that's for sure. We've been in this room all night, man. Or least I have."
"But..." Sam looked to him in helpless confusion, "How did I get here?"
Dean exhaled heavily. "Don't know. But something tells me you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
"Wait." Sam's head snapped up and his eyes were shining and huge and so achingly hopeful. Christ. Where had that youthful optimism gone? The wondering of it curdled in his stomach. "Dean, it's two thousand and nine."
He failed to see what was so wonderful about that. But clearly something had Sam near rapturous and going gaga.
Sam lifted his eyebrows, waiting for Dean to catch up to his thoughts because he was so used to being in sync with each other. When Dean shrugged, his eyebrows lowered in an annoyed line even as electric excitement visibly coursed through him. "Two thousand and nine, Dean?" He shook his head hard, hair flopping and dislodging just as his eyebrows resumed their amazed wonder. His hazel eyes shined so damned bright as he stepped towards Dean and grabbed him. "Dean, it's two thousand nine."
"So you keep telling me."
"You're still alive!" Sam's breath left him in an exuberant huff. "Ha!" He ran incredulous hands down Dean's shoulders and arms, as if feeling out the truth with Dean's body as the irrefutable proof. "I did it? I broke the deal, I-I saved you?"
His overflowing joy hurt to look at.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean lied, voice rough and low, "You did it."
That caused Sam to look at him like he was a damn miracle. Eyes shining and so joyous and awed. To Dean, Sam's smile was as much of a marvel as he thought Dean was. It felt like looking at something amazing, something precious and good.
It'd been a while since he had felt something like this. Sharp and not dulled by exhaustion, which temporarily took a backseat to the ache building in his chest. It wasn't just how young Sam was that seemed to exacerbate the effect. It was in the stark difference from this Sam - this Sam who was still his Sam - to the one of current day.
Seeing Sam look at him like that, God, well, it'd been so long since his brother had looked at him that way. Like they stood a chance instead of resigning to the hopeless, weary acceptable that they held no control over their lives, the way Sam seemed to use to justify how he had no control over his actions because this was just the way things were now and the choices he made were necessary instead of what they actually were: choices. This Sam in front of him looked like he believed that Sam and Dean had fought, had won, and could win anything if only they fought hard enough, if only they fought together. Dean wished to the God he didn't believe in that he too could believe those things that had used to come so naturally to him but now felt so far away and unreachable.
How long had it been since Dean had stopped thinking of them as a unit? Nowadays Sam wasn't inseparable from Dean; no, he was another problem in Dean's unending list of them. They weren't a team anymore - and certainly not the team that this younger Sam could pledge his faith in so fully and so unreservedly.
Did that part of Sam die when Dean had died? God, what he wouldn't give to get that back.
"...Dean?" Sam asked, seeming unsure about what was going on but so intuned that something was going on. Because this Sam could still care enough to read Dean while the current Sam had been too caught up in maintaining his lies and his damn demon blood fix than to look at Dean - really look at Dean - and see past his own selfish, shady behavior long enough to understand that Dean had crap going on too.
Crap that Dean had absolutely no intention in telling him.
Dean forced himself to smile. "It's nothing, don't worry about it," He said and watched the furrow in Sam's brow as he thought it over, watched it clear away so easy to read before Sam even nodded his acceptance.
Sam's hesitance melted and he resumed staring at Dean like he was a miracle, like he was sacred. Dean had missed this so much and the bittersweet ache of experiencing it with a Sam he no longer could have was a wondrous agony, an agonizing wonder. Sam wasn't electric anymore but still illuminated and tender in his glowing. His light warmed Dean's skin so much that he wanted to bask in it forever.
"C'mon, Sammy," He said with a smile, "Stop looking at me like that."
He shook his head. "Sorry, sorry, it's just - I was so worried, man. I've been worried sick every single day, you don't even know - " He cut himself off and shook his head again, his smile coming back wider. "But, Dean, you're alive. I just... Well. It's good to know that we're going to figure it out."
They wouldn't.
It was a reminder to him that this younger Sam being here situation was dubious and needed to be researched - and needed fixing. As soon as possible so that Dean never had to strip away that awe, even as guilt built a home within him the longer he lied by omission. What was Dean supposed to do here? Correct him? Make him lose that bright eyed wonder? Or was he supposed to play at ignorance? What was he supposed to do with a Sam that had no clue how screwed up everything was going to get? Why was it his responsibly on whether to break this younger Sam with the inevitable hurt or play pretend like a goddamn charlatan liar?
"C'mon." He knocked a hand against Sam's head, and his younger brother gave him a bitchy glare for a few seconds before he rolled his eyes and resumed smiling. As easy as anything, God. "We're going to Bobby's. See if he can help us figure out what's going on."
Dean hoped to hell that Bobby could.
Bobby doesn't notice anything odd about Sam, other than commenting that he looked good.
Dean wondered if he would have noticed any difference had Sam not told him. He couldn't help but to think that he would - he had to notice, right? - but the doubt nagged at him. Surely he would have. Or would he have given a cold shoulder to someone who wouldn't even begin to understand why Dean was upset with him? It grated at himself that he even wonders; it wasn't important. Not really.
Bobby is floored when Dean tells him, double takes and gapes. But, God, Bobby did what he did best and was stable and there and had his best 'we'll figure this out' expression on. It eased some tension out of Dean's shoulders because he wasn't alone in this anymore.
"Well what about Sam?" Bobby asked while gathering another book from his shelves and setting it on his desk. And then saw the error in that before they could say anything. "I mean our Sam." Bobby threw out a gesturing hand. "Did you call him?"
He had. A few times. "He's not picking up."
Bobby wavered. "Huh. Okay," He said and sounded at a loss. "So our Sam's M-I-A." Dean kind of wished that Bobby would call him something else; Sam didn't really feel like theirs anymore. Beside the fact that it made the kid behind Dean wince. "It could be some kind of - age regression." Bobby set down another book and then turned his back to the pile, done with it for now, to peer at the interloper. "Maybe that is our Sam."
Dean turned his head to look at that Sam and find any traces of the frustrating brother that he'd been wary of lately; but he couldn't tell. He just couldn't tell. Not when lately Sam felt so much like a stranger to him. "But, hell, it's just as likely that it could be some sort of equal swap."
An equal swap? Dean mulled that over too.
If it was their Sam, then it was a solid credence to the fact that he didn't remember anything. Dean had heard, once, of someone who'd been de-aged by a downright nasty witch and the kid didn't remember anything from her adult life. Dean also remembers that the tale had been open ended with no other solution other than to let that kid grow up as naturally as she could since it was impossible to undo.
But then again... it seemed just as likely - or even more so, since they hadn't tangled with any witches - that the Sams could just have been swapped.
He imagined himself younger and watching in disgust as his brother drank demon blood right in front of him. His brother choosing it over him and living with that knowledge for any more time than was absolutely necessary.
Yeah. He kinda hoped it was a regression thing more than a swap, for that reason alone.
"What some sort of Wife Swap?" Dean scoffed, the joke instant and automatic.
"Yeah. Maybe."
But then an idea occurred to him. "Bobby," There was an urgency in Dean's voice that made the mechanic straighten up and listen good. "If this is a swap... Do you think that after we sort this out, we can change the past?"
"Change the past?" Bobby shook his head. "What are you even talking about?"
"I mean - " Dean had to stop and control himself because there were so many things he meant. Too many. And they were all fitting to burst out of him. "No dying. No demon bitches or angel dicks. No apocalypse."
"What?" Sam asked in a winded, hoarse croak, like his shock had been punched in the gut.
Bobby ignored him to scratch at his bearded chin and answer Dean. "I don't know..." He sighed. "Maybe. But, you know, maybe we shouldn't. Just because we might be able to doesn't necessarily mean we ought to."
"Bobby, come on! We could do a lotta good," Dean reminded him, crossing his arms over his chest. The potential opportunity was huge! He shook his head. "We could stop things before they even get going. I could kill Ruby. I could save Sam. Don't you think we shoulder at least consider changing the past? Because it ain't all that great, from where I'm standing."
Bobby sighed heavily. But then his tired eyes bypassed Dean and landed on Sam and got stuck there. Oh Dean was so stupid. Dean closed his eyes for a long, stupid moment before he also looked over.
He hadn't meant to change the past like this: unintentional and sloppy.
Sam's eyes were so large and wet as they stared at Dean, and then Bobby, and then back to Dean. "What do you mean?" He asked but seemed to have already worked out. "What, that I go darkside? C'mon that's - that's crazy." Sam desperately glanced from Dean to Bobby, from Bobby to Dean.
When no one said anything, his face fell, losing a hope that Dean hadn't even known was there until it vanished. "...You mean I really do it." No one refuted him. He chuckled in resigned despair. "I really do go darkside."
There were so many things that Dean could say, and yet he couldn't think of a damn one. He swallowed the lump that felt ever-present these days. The one that grew in size whenever he thought of the things Sam has done.
Sam nodded. Taking it for fact and quickly acclimating to his apparent doomed fate. "I didn't think I would do it," He admitted quietly. "Yeah, I knew it was possible, but - " He lowered his head, his bangs falling over his eyes and almost absconding his tears. "I guess Dad was right about me after all." He chuckled, and that sad sound was enough to make Dean's fists and heart clench.
Continuing to say nothing felt like the coward's path, but Dean was damned if he didn't do exactly that.
His brother was beginning to look more and more alike to the current Sam, which hurt something fierce.
Sam cleared his throat. Lifted one hand to brush away his hair and his tears both out of his eyes. Denial hit him as it bypassed his grief straight to bargaining. "Well, when - when does it happen? You know, maybe I can - maybe I can stop it. Maybe I can change things."
"Sam," Dean said. So tired.
His brother matched his resigned disposition. "You don't think I can." He took that in and took in a large breath. "Dean..." He spoke so softly, and it was only the sadness entrenched in his voice that kept the words from seeming accusatory. "Why didn't you stop me?"
"I tried, Sammy," Dean replied. Honest to God truth. "I tried."
Their eyes met. Dean felt ancient where he stood, felt so old in his bones and soul. He was so tired. And Sam, God, Sam seemed so young. But the pain was fresh for him, Dean knew. He wasn't like Dean, who could scarcely have the energy to feel how upsetting this was. He wasn't like Dean, who considered this yesterday's news and just had to live with it. No, the hurt was fresh for Sam; his fate distant and not just another weight on Dean's shoulders that he'd grown used to carrying. The burden was new to Sam - or if, perhaps, not new then more prominent, more heavy than he'd ever felt that yoke to be.
"Dean, why didn't you kill me?" Sam asked, full of incomprehension. Incomprehension not at how his fate could come to pass at his own hands, which he easily accepted as doomed, but at how his fate could come to pass at Dean's hands, which he had forever thought would save him no matter what. Dean had thought that about himself too, once, until he held Sam's back with bloody hands and realized that, no, he couldn't protect Sam from everything. But he damn well would die trying.
Until even dying wasn't good enough any more, and it was Sammy's own hands that Dean was fighting off; and Dean could save Sam from everything, maybe, but certainly not from himself. And Dean didn't think he had it in him anymore to even try.
He tried to remember what it was like, back before it had happened. Tried to wonder if he could have mustered up the energy to kill Sam after all when even caring about all Sam's lies and secrecy had been too draining on him. The problem hadn't been that he couldn't bring himself to kill Sam; the problem was that he couldn't bring himself to kill Sam. He'd just been so tired and, God, he was still so tired.
"I don't know, Sam," Dean answered with a sigh that didn't fully encumber how tired he was. "I don't know."
He probably should have felt guilty about saying that. Should have definitely felt guilty at the way Sam seemed to absorb that information and then nodded, his mouth an unhappy life full of the grief Dean should have had instead of his numb exhaustion. Dean sighed again. He needed a respite from this.
"Listen," Bobby said, "It ain't like that, Sam. You don't - " He paused, unable to continue that sentence. Multitudes of what it could have been ran through Dean's mind.
You don't go darkside. You don't have to worry about that. You don't mean anything by it. You don't know what you're doing. Yeah, none of them true and all of them possible in the bitten off fragment left hanging in the air like a deadweight.
Another tear fell from hazel eyes like Sam too could fill in those unfinished sentences.
"Ah, hell," Bobby said. The pain and regret heavy in his voice. He tried again. "C'mon, kid, things ain't all bad."
Dean disagreed. Sam did too, by the looks of him. A set of tears fell, two more shooting stars with none of the wishes.
Sam spoke but it came out too small, too quietly, smothered by his larger, louder grief.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"You need to kill me!" Sam pleaded, distraught and begging. His shouted words unmistakable.
Bobby inhaled sharply. And it was funny but the air tasted stale to Dean as he too inhaled.
The wrung out feeling was more than familiar to Dean as it settled over his already burdened shoulders like just another added weight. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay."
"Okay?" Sam asked. His eyebrows lifted and fell in a series of incomprehensible confusion.
"Okay?!" Bobby asked, a hell of a lot more demanding that Sam's inquiry. "What d'you mean 'okay'?"
Caught in the middle between them, Dean squared his shoulders. "I mean okay. I mean, okay, yeah, we should at least consider it."
The was tremendous relief in his eyes as Sam stared at him, but it was twisted by minute expressions of confusion. The confusion overtook the relief, and Sam stared at him like he was something unfamiliar and strange instead of his brother. Dean could relate; he'd given the same look to Sam so many times in the past month.
"Now just wait a minute," Bobby protested. "Sam, first of all, we don't even know if that'd work. No one is gonna be killing anyone - but especially not before we figure things out." He turned his glare from the younger brother to the elder. "And you, Dean, just calm down for a damn second and stop jumping the gun - especially if you're just gonna jump the gun with stupid ideas." Bobby exhaled heavily. "Boys, we are smarter than this. Now let's act like it."
"If there's even a chance, Bobby," Sam continued, relentless and desperate, "You have to. Dean, you have to do it." His mouth pursed in a thin, stubborn line like he was mentally preparing himself for the long argument up ahead.
The thing was, Dean thought he agreed. There wasn't going to any need for an argument; Dean was already convinced.
It'd be harder, sure, because this was a younger Sam that pulled at his heart because he trusted Dean so damn much. But it'd be easier too, conversely, because he trusted Dean to save him by killing him. And seeing this younger Sam and having the current Sam fall so much shorter by comparison - yeah, it put things into perspective a little of how far older Sam had fallen. But this Sam - this Sam could be saved from himself. And, selfishly, Dean could be saved from him too, could be saved from experiencing everything the modern Sam was turning out to be, everything he had done, and all the distance between them might never come to pass if he stopped it right here before to ever began. Dean could fix things by wrecking them.
Sam could die innocent, could die beautiful and untainted, instead of living to become the culmination of awful choices that he was now.
He used to never imagine he'd be at this point, the point where he thought it might be better if Sam had died. But with time and mistakes heavy in the rear view mirror, Dean found that he accepted it just as easy as the rest of the crap he'd had to lately. There used to be a time when he'd never have permitted Sam to lie to him. There used to be a time when he'd never have allowed Sam to make such bad decisions. There used to be a time when Dean and Sam were on the same team, with no dirty secrets to come between them, and they had each other's backs. There used to be a time when Dean would rather die - or worse - than even think about the words 'dead' and 'Sam' in the same goddamn sentence. There used to be a time when Dean hadn't believed in angels but he sure as hell had believed in his brother.
And that time, it wasn't now. It had long come to pass. It was just the way things were now.
Whatever expression was on Dean's face clued Bobby in to where his thoughts currently were. "You can't be considering this," He said, aghast.
He met Bobby's incredulous gaze. "It might be our best choice. And we've made a lot of bad ones lately. Sammy especially."
"Like hell it is!" Bobby snapped. He raised an angry finger to jab the air. "I don't know what's going on in that damn brain of yours, but this Sam hasn't even done one thing wrong. It wouldn't be a choice; it'd be murder, plain and simple. You know it and I know it."
Quietly Sam voiced the same thought as Dean. "You mean I haven't done anything wrong yet."
His anger bled out at the truth of those words and he found himself unable to argue with the truth. Bobby closed his mouth.
"I appreciate it, don't get me wrong," Sam continued. "But I think we all know that this - Bobby, this is our best choice. And it's our only chance." He shook ahis head and then beseeched the older man with his large, weepy eyes. "You have to stop me. You can stop me. Please, I-I want to save me."
The older man didn't say anything and neither did they. The silence hung over them like an execution's axe. One that Dean needed to sharpen before the occasion but until then fell raggedly upon them.
At last, Bobby repeated himself, this time only far more gruff, "You don't even know if this'll work."
Sam's smile looked almost as tired as Dean felt. "It's worth a shot."
Dean simply looked to Bobby. Waited.
Bobby's shoulder slumped. Finally, he looked away from them both. But he acquiesced. "At least give me a few hours of researchin' just to make sure we won't be screwing ourselves worse than we already are."
"You won't stop us?" Sam verified. Unaware of the fact that Dean and Bobby had already said as much about their Sam, that it'd have been better if they had killed him before everything. Guilt and grief be damned, getting the chance to do so was like winning the lottery.
But Bobby stared at the younger Sam like he'd never agreed to a worse fate than this. "Yeah, kid. I won't stop you." He said in his softer tone he'd use when he was trying to be gentle with them. Like Sam was someone that could still be hurt by them when in reality Sam seemed to care less about Bobby or Dean's view of him. Or at least he was nowadays. This Sam, Dean reminded himself, still cared about their opinion, their advice.
Maybe Bobby, too, felt emotions he hadn't in a long time when he stared at this younger Sam so full of innocence that it was hard to even see how he could ever get to where he was, who he was, in the now. Maybe Bobby, too, felt those emotions and had to fight past the bittersweet aching of seeing someone so good who was destined to turn out so bad. Because Dean couldn't be alone in this drowning sorrow. It wasn't possible.
But Bobby at least was trying to tread those waters, unlike Dean.
"But, Sam, you gotta promise to wait," he said. "Just until we figure out what's going on."
Sam frowned but nodded. "Okay," He agreed.
Later, Dean will have to question himself. Had he known that Sam was lying? Had he ignored it? Had he just not cared?
What, was he so sick of Sam's lies - even though this Sam hadn't lied to Dean - that he just didn't care? It seemed impossible. Did the concept of Sam's death feel too hypothetical of a concept for Dean to really consider what it would mean? Had he suggested it as some sort of private revenge but never really had intended to go through with it? Because why else wouldn't he have cared to tell that Sam was lying? Or had he not been able to tell, had he thought Sam was telling the truth? But Dean could always tell. So why then? Why - ?
Dean had sworn to himself that he would never again have to hold the weight of his brother's body in his hands as it died. At this point, it wasn't even a sick cosmic joke that such a thing would happen to him yet again.
But after, when the blood dried tacky on his hands, and Sam rested lifelessly on the bed, after - Well. It seemed exactly like the fucked up shit that those angels would laugh at. Maybe even God.
A divine etching on their living gravestone lives. (Life, not lives, fuck.)
Here lies Sam Winchester: both of his deaths have been in his useless brother's arms.
Yeah. Maybe it did seem like a fucked up joke from God after all. If God was even real, then, yeah, maybe he was somewhere out there doing nothing to save the world and laughing at them, the biggest joke in the damn universe.
But to Dean, it wasn't funny at all. He discovered something he thought not possible. He discovered what the only thing worse than Sam dying was. And it was Sam killing himself because he thought that Dean would want it, would be better off for it.
If Dean sold his soul now, would there be any takers? When they knew he would renege on the payment? When the demons knew that the angels would pluck him out like he somehow deserved that instead of rotting?
He hadn't had to bury Sam, that first time. But Sam - their Sam, his Sam, that might never come back now - he'd had to bury Dean. He buried Dean in his brown jacket in exchange for taking his pendant and draping it over his own neck. Dean's not even wearing Sammy's pendant.
In the end, Dean does the only thing he can do. He buries Sam in Bobby's lot and then parks a truck over the fresh dirt to protect Sam from the rain or hell if Dean knows. And he lays down in the bed of that truck and stares at the sky that seems too damned big when he feels this small. And Dean -
Dean waits. He waits to see if their Sammy comes back home.