Fic: Walk Into Splintered Sunlight

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Title: Walk Into Splintered Sunlight
Author: i_speak_tongue
Recipient: nativestar
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including 4.16, On the Head of a Pin
Warnings: foul language-you know how it goes.
Author's Notes: the prompt asked for a season 4, Dean-centric episode tag. Thanks to the wonderful murielle and quirkies for the quick beta work!
Summary: The brothers struggle to come to terms with their fate and each other in the aftermath of Dean’s grievous encounter with Alastair.



There are orange plastic chairs in the visitor’s area, in remarkably good condition considering they’ve probably been there since the Nixon administration. There was a grade school he went to that had the exact same chairs, and he keeps trying to remember the name of it. What state it was in. Anything more than the orange chairs and brown cinder-block walls and a girl named Missy who let him use her crayons on his first day, even though he knew he should have had his own. Everyone else did. He remembers how horrifying it was at the time. Suddenly aches with nostalgia for a time when his biggest problem was not having crayons.


He and an obese woman with blonde braids crowning her head have the little nook on the third floor of the hospital all to themselves. She’s knitting. Or crocheting. Sam can’t differentiate between the two, thank god. He smiles at her and she nods. She’s here almost as much as he is. Was here knitting away, before Sam was, and said hello to him when he came to get coffee that first night when Dean was still unconscious, and all Sam wanted to do was be there when his brother woke up. There were many, many coffees that night.


That was three days ago. Now he and Knitting Lady are used to each other’s company. They haven’t really had anything that could be considered a conversation, just exchanged a few polite words. Something about how all the coffee vending machines in America seem to have been built in 1972 and never been replaced since. And then yesterday, a joke about one of the doctors looking like the guy from Welcome Back, Kotter.


Sam doesn’t know her name. She looks like an Olga or Ingrid. Something Swedish.



He flips through a year-old issue of Field and Stream—to the back where all the hunting equipment ads are—and thinks that if Dean were here he’d make some quip about Olga needing to cut down on those strudels.



You know, if he were here in this alcove, and not… down the hall in his room. Fully conscious.



It was easier before he was awake. Not better, obviously. Obviously, Sam wanted Dean to be okay, to wake up. But staying by the bedside of his unconscious brother Sam felt needed, felt necessary. If Dean didn’t look at him, it was because his eyes were closed, not because he chose not to. Not because it was too uncomfortable.



With Dean awake, staying with him is awkward. Tense. Conversations feel forced and stilted. Especially since Castiel came, ratted him out for finishing off Alastair, and said who knows what else that made Dean go quiet for hours. Dean’s barely eaten anything since that visit. And Sam doesn’t know who to be more frustrated with—Castiel for leaving Dean feeling so crappy, or Dean for being so hard to look after. God, sometimes Sam thinks the only way to possibly take care of the guy is for him to be unconscious. Yeah, Dean’s rigid in his ways even now, after the most devastating of life changing experiences. And it doesn’t surprise Sam at all.



So, yeah, maybe a lot of shit has happened. Maybe both of them will never be the same. But there are some things, no matter what, that are just… fundamental. Necessary. Crucial. Unalterable. Things that make Dean Dean, make him Sam, and make them… brothers.



“Screw it,” Sam mutters, and tosses the magazine he’s forgotten to actually look at aside and heads for Dean’s room.



==============O







The concussion is bad, and it still hurts for Dean to move his head much. Sam had been there when he woke up, and at first they’d kept the lights dim, asked Sam to try and keep his brother calm, keep him from trying to move at all.



It had been easier than Sam thought it would be. Dean seemed more than willing to just lie there passively and do as he was told as the doctor de-intubated him, asked him questions about the president and what city he was in and checked his pupils with a pen light. He looked miserable, defeated, resigned to the fact that this was just business as usual: his life sucked and there was nothing he could do about it.



He’s got that look on his face now, too.



God, it kills Sam to see him like this. Makes him want to rip Alastair apart all over again. And in the same breath, makes him wish he couldn’t, wish he wasn’t such a freak. Because maybe then he could bring his brother a modicum of comfort. Instead, he seems to be the one reliable source of stress in Dean’s life.



Maybe that’s the problem: Dean’s so busy worrying about Sam, he forgot to worry about himself. Jesus, who is Sam kidding? Of course that’s the problem. When has that not been the problem?



“You get any sleep?” Sam asks, poking with a fork at Dean’s untouched breakfast- two pieces of toast and some scrambled eggs that look pretty unappealing to begin with and aren’t helped along any by the pea-green TV dinner plate. If he’s going to get Dean to eat, he’ll have to go pick up a breakfast burrito or some biscuits and gravy from the IHOP down the street. Though he gets the feeling even that will be a tough sell.



“Not really. I dunno,” Dean says. His voice is still gravelly from the tube they shoved down his throat. Or maybe it’s from being strangled by a demon.



“Headache still bad?”



“Yes,” Dean says, with his eyes closed, like he can see the throbbing on the back of his eyelids.



Sam rolls the little trolley of spurned food away from the bed, takes a deep breath and pulls his chair in closer.



“Dean, you need to take care of yourself,” he says, careful to sound concerned and not angry.



Dean shifts his eyes over, still reluctant to move his head around unnecessarily, and glares at Sam.



“I’m not the one who fucked up back there, Sam.”



“That’s not what I’m talking about.”



Dean’s gaze falls to the floor. Apparently the “and you know it” part is implicitly understood.



“Why?” Dean asks in a quiet breath.



“Why what?”



“Why should I take care of myself?”



“Why should you take care of yourself? Why do you even need to ask that question, Dean?” A question, which Sam doesn’t even know how to begin to answer. Because his big brother being okay only means… well… it means everything to him.



“Oh, right. We don’t want the old revolver jamming up before the big showdown, do we?” Dean says, rubbing absently at a sore shoulder. Man, he’s got to be sore everywhere. He’s got to be feeling completely thrashed. Like just the idea of getting on with his life is painful.



Sam wishes he knew how to fix that. Wishes, oh so secretly, that Dean could feel like he did after a few sips of Ruby’s blood.



Dean stares at him with a blank look on his face, and Sam quickly tries to think of anything but Ruby and her ….sweet…..hot--stops thinking about it. Stops. What, as if Dean might read his mind? Just know somehow?



Either way, Sam’s learned it’s easier to keep secrets if you pretend they aren’t there. And besides, this isn’t about that. This is about him wanting Dean to be Dean again.



“Hey... you aren’t just a weapon to me,” Sam says. “You’re my brother. And I just… I just want you to be okay. Apocalypse or no Apocalypse.”



“Are we playing that game where everything you say has to be a question?” Dean means it as a joke, but it comes out completely flat, and it sends a chill down Sam’s spine. “’Cause if we are, I just kicked your ass.”



“I’m worried, man. I’m really fucking worried here,” Sam says, running his hands over his face, leaving them pressed against his temples.



“What do you want me to say?” Dean barks. “That I’m cool? Don’t worry Sammy? All that junk I fed you when we were kids? Screw that, Sam. I’m not okay. I’m very much not okay.”



“I know, man. I get it.”



“You don’t get it!” Dean yells suddenly.



The yelling takes a toll on Dean’s concussion, and before Sam has a chance to decide how he feels about being yelled at he finds himself hovering nervously as Dean groans and clenches his jaw while his eyes start to water.



“Hey. Hey. Are you—“ Sam catches himself before he says the O word. “What’s wrong?”



Dean’s hand cupped over his mouth muffles it, but Sam makes out the word “puke” in there for sure somewhere, and he thinks for a second and grabs the little plastic trash can next to the bed. As soon as it’s in eyeshot, Dean reaches needfully for it and hunches over it, hugging it over his lap. Sam watches his brother heave into the thing, his disgust outweighed by his concern, and seriously considers running down the hall to get a nurse.



But Dean is a quick and efficient puker. After less than a minute, he slides back down onto the pillows and holds the container out with a shaky hand. Sam catches it just before it falls and slides it to the far end of the room.



“Jesus,” he sighs, sniffing the air a little to determine if the other end of the room is far enough away.



When he turns back to the bed, Dean already has his arms strewn protectively over his head. “You need the nurse?”



All Dean can manage is a low, primitive, groan.



“I’ll take that as a yes.”



==============O







He wishes he’d found a nurse. The nurses here are all much cooler than this asswipe of a doctor Dean’s stuck with, Doctor Thorne. The guy does look like Mr. Kotter with his big eyebrows and wavy black hair. He’s blunt and honest, which Sam could appreciate if not for the fact that he doesn’t seem to care as much about his patients as he does about being a total smart-ass.



“I’m glad you’re here, actually,” he says, writing something on a clipboard at the nurse’s station. “I’d like to send for a psych consult for your brother.”



“What? Why?” His reaction is instinctive, bred into him by John Winchester himself. Therapists, guidance councilors, social workers—anyone in a hospital who wants to “talk” is dangerous.



“Mr. Armitage, is your brother taking any medication? Zoloft? Lexapro? Prozac?”



“Prozac? What? No.”



“Well, maybe he should be.”



“My brother isn’t… I mean what you’re implying is… crazy.”



“Crazy? Crazy isn’t PC anymore. Look, from what I’ve seen since you brought your brother in here, he’s showing all the signs of a major depressive episode. Now, unless there was a recent death of a loved one, I’m strongly recommending he speak with one of our in-house psychiatrists.”



A recent death. Right. Does your own count?



“I’m sorry. You’re wrong. He’s okay. I mean… he’ll be okay.” And god, there are those words again. Sam feels like a complete dick just for saying them out loud. Even if it is just to get this douche-bag off their backs.



“Of course. He’s your brother. You know him better than anyone, right? So clearly you’d know if he was suffering from Clinical Depression because you also happen to have a degree in psychology and be completely scientifically detached. Right?”



“Look, I just—“



“You look. Your brother,” Thorne says, like he’s trying to teach him the word, pointing down the hall towards Dean’s room, “is seriously distressed. And you want to deny him the opportunity to get better? Because what? You know him? How is that fair?”



“Just listen to me. You don’t know my brother, what he’s dealing with. We… we’ve had a really rough year. If you’d been through what he… you wouldn’t have gotten through it. You’d be dead.”



“Mr. Armitage, are you telling me that your brother experienced a severely traumatic near-death experience, and he hasn’t had any professional help to cope with that trauma?”



“Well…yes.”



“Alright. Just so we’re clear,” Thorne says casually, scribbling something incomprehensible down on his notepad. “I’ll make sure we get someone down here by the end of the day.”



Sam sighs. He’ll just have to give Dean the heads up. Help him come up with some bullshit story.



Thorne hands a nurse the note, and she disappears through a door behind the station. “Cheyenne may be a small town, but I’ve been working in this hospital for almost 10 years. I’ve seen people like your brother come in here before. Usually they don’t have anyone sitting up all night with them,” he says plainly, then takes a small tray of medical supplies from the nurse who re-emerges from the back room.



They start down the hallway towards Dean’s room, and Thorne squints at him knowingly and adds, “So he’s got that going for him.”





==============O







“Help me with this thing, would ya?” Dean asks, peeling back the tape that’s holding his IV in place on the back of his left hand.



“Dean, stop it,” Sam sighs. “You need to stay here. You’re still recovering, man.”



He stands with his hands in his pockets at the foot of Dean’s bed, and shakes his head. He should have predicted this.



“I’m not talking to some head-shrinker, Sam. No way.”



“Why not? What’s the big deal? I mean, it’s just for show. To get your doctor off our case, remember?”



“That prick? Asking me all those questions. Did you hear him? Asking about my… about the… the scar,” Dean mutters, glancing down at his shoulder, both of them picturing the hand shaped burn beneath the bleach-white cotton. “Everyone is too fucking nosey around here. I don’t like it.”



Sam’s pretty sure that not asking Dean about his big nasty scar would probably constitute a violation of the Hippocratic oath, but he keeps it to himself, and rolls his eyes.



Oblivious, Dean shakes his head, readies himself to yank the IV from under his skin and takes a deep breath. But Sam quickly intercepts, lays a hand over Dean’s and feels how cold his brother’s skin is, feels the slight tremors that seem to radiate from deep in his bones. Dean glares up at him, bitterly frustrated.



“Sam…”



Sam looks into Dean’s eyes and his hand doesn’t budge. “Hey. They’re just trying to help you. And maybe… maybe you should talk to someone.”



“What?”



“I know you can’t really tell them the truth, but it might still help if you could, I don’t know… talk about what you’re going through… sort of.”



Dean snorts and finally shoves Sam’s hand off of his own.



“If I talk to anyone about it, it’s gonna be you, Sam. Not-not-not some stranger in a tweed sports coat.”



“But you don’t, man! You never talk about it!” Sam exclaims, spinning away on his heels, his arms flailing out, exasperated, sick of trying to make his brother understand that he’s as much a fragile human as the folks they want to save from this stupid apocalypse. Maybe even more so now that he…



“Bullshit. I’ve talked about it more than I ever intended to. I’m done talking about it.”



“So make something up! Tell them you were abducted by aliens. I don’t care. Just don’t leave this fucking hospital yet. You aren’t ready. Just a couple more days, Dean. Please.”



“Sam, I fuckin’ hate this….” Dean growls, but seems to run out of steam quickly. He closes his eyes with his head pressed back against his pillows, probably the softest ones in the building, but judging from the pained expression on Dean’s face, they may as well be a slab of concrete. “Fine. Whatever. Fine.”





Sam lets himself breathe again. He takes his brother’s left hand, and presses the tape around the IV against Dean’s skin, his fingers rubbing the corners down carefully, his free hand finding its way onto Dean’s shoulder which he gives a quick squeeze before he heads toward the door.



“Get some rest, alright?” Sam says, his fingers wrapped around the top of the doorframe. “Can I get you anything?”



“I don’t know.”



==============O





On his way back from the cafeteria, Sam has his wrist grabbed by a nurse who gently pulls him aside, between a trolley of folded sheets and a poster on the wall of smoker’s lungs.



“Don’t go back in there right now,” she says, shaking her head, a high ponytail of thin blonde hair flicking behind her like a horse’s tail.



“What’s wrong? Is my brother alright?”



“He pulled his IV. Tried to leave. Didn’t get far. He’s agitated.”



“Christ. Agitated?” Sam stretches his neck out, searches for some sign of movement near his room just a few feet behind her. “You need to let me in there,” he says, already pushing past her.



“Wait!”



But Sam doesn’t.





He passes through the door just in time to see Doctor Thorne rubbing a spot on Dean’s forearm, an empty syringe hanging from the fingers of his other hand. Dean is limp on the bed, his head lolling to the side and looking right at Sam with as much anger as his heavy eyelids allow. This is his fault. Somehow.



“You shouldn’t be in here,” Thorne says without looking up.



Sam steps closer to the bed, takes in the restraints on Dean’s wrists and ankles.



“Are those really necessary?”



“You weren’t here before I gave him the sedative.”



No he wasn’t. And he’s a little bit grateful for that. Sam crouches down so that his head is level with Dean’s. He takes a fistful of pillow in his hand and shakes his head.



“What the hell, Dean?”



“Not even close,” Dean mumbles, like he’s talking in his sleep, and not long after his eyes fall shut, and he is.



==============O









When Dean wakes up, the sun is already setting outside, and Sam is picking at what’s left of the fries from his hastily rustled up dinner.



“Want some?”



Dean lifts his arm up the three inches off the bed his restraints will allow and shrugs.



“’M not really hungry anyway.”



“Right,” Sam sighs, tossing the greasy bag in the trash.



“What are we doing here, Sam?”



“What are you talking about?”



Dean stares up at the ceiling, lets out a heavy sigh. “These…these assholes don’t have a clue. And fine, I’m in bad shape. But it’s nothing life-or-death. I can sleep this off just as well in a motel. Fuck, I can sleep this off in the back seat of the Impala.”



“Dean.”



“You know I can, Sam.”



“Dean, you can’t even make it down the hall without falling on your ass.”



“Not without you,” Dean replies pointedly.



“Yeah, well….”



“We’ve got bigger fish to fry than my case of the fucking dizzies.”



“Yeah?”



“I’m not saying I like it. But… this?” His eyes cast an arch over the room and then slip down to the psych-ward straps, unimpressed. “If I’m… you know… the guy. The guy who’s supposed to save the world and shit? It sure ain’t gonna happen while I’m trussed down here, getting my head shrunk by Nurse Ratchet.”



Nurse Ratchet wasn’t a shrink, Sam thinks. But he says “What’s one more day?”



“I don’t know, Sam. Do you?” Dean asks, with that smartass right eyebrow raised. And to see that…. to see that simple, familiar gesture gives Sam such hope somehow, such enormous confidence. Like in this tiny moment, he has his brother back. Whole and well.



Sam nods and then takes Dean’s wrist in his hands and releases the first restraint.

Walk into splintered sunlight,
Inch your way through dead dreams to another land.
Maybe you’re tired and broken,
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do,
to do for you, to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain,
and love will see you through.


--The Grateful Dead, “Box of Rain”