The Right Word

There was a word, for this. Dean wasn't quite sure what it was, though. He stared at the devil's prone body—Sam—and tried to feel something. It was a victory. They had been fighting for this for so long, and—

The body twitched.

Dean raised the Colt again, ready to fill the devil with as many bullets as it took.

Hazel eyes met Dean's. Filled with tears.

As far as Dean knew, the devil wasn't one for crying.

"Well." Castiel had snuck up behind him, and was staring down at the devil's body. "This is surreal."

That was one word for it.

Before Dean could even think about doing anything, the devil's meatsuit had prostrated itself at his feet, a warm hand curling around his ankle.

Castiel whistled. "Can't believe Sam made it out," he murmured.

Dean resisted the urge to kick the man groveling before him. Just a second before, it had been Lucifer in that body. "Let's get him back to the camp, we'll decide what to do with him there," he said tightly. He and Castiel each levered one side of the guy up. His eyes rolled alarmingly, and a comment about Sam throwing up in the Impala was on the tip of Dean's tongue.

He swallowed it.

Somehow they managed to get Sam back into one of the few remaining vehicles. The gas level was just enough to get them back to camp.

"Sam, do you know why you're alive?"

For once, Castiel seemed actually interested in something aside from drugs . . . that something being the devil's old meatsuit.

Dean waited for Sam's response, but nothing was forthcoming. He glanced in the mirror, the way Sam ducked his head and kept his hair in his eyes suddenly flinging him back to times he hadn't thought about for years. Dean swallowed, looking back at the road. They just needed to get back to camp. That was the most important thing right now.

"Maybe you're mute," Cas ruminated aloud. "After the amount of trauma you've undergone, that would make sense."

"Cas, shut up," Dean growled. "What answer is the guy who ended the world going to have?"

Cas fell silent, and Dean felt guilt, a familiar friend, pressing against his shoulders. He hunched them and pressed down on the accelerator.

Sam was broken. Sam was silent. Sam was who-on-earth-knew. Dean figured being the devil's suit—and wearing awful suits—was excuse enough for that.

"Dig here," he commanded.

Sam took the hoe, awkwardly wielding it and attempting to work at the ground. A little part of Dean had hoped that at Lucifer's death, the world might miraculously fix itself.

Yeah, as if.

Dean grunted, yanking his own hoe through the tough ground.

"Dean."

He blinked, wiping sweat out of his eyes. Several of the camps inhabitants were watching them, for some reason.

When he looked closer, he saw they were watching Sam.

"Yeah, Cas," he responded absently.

Castiel tossed his own hoe down. "The sun is setting."

"Right."

A hand brushed Dean's arm. Dean nearly lashed out, but he realized in time that it was Sam.

"Sam?"

Sam's hand dropped, and Dean sighed.

"We need to get you some more clothes," Castiel said.

Dean snorted. "Yeah, let's waste time on finding Lucifer's vessel some more clothes. Maybe we could get him another white suit."

Sam shrank back from him, arms wrapped around himself.

Castiel glared at Dean, and carefully guided Sam away.

Dean swallowed back bile. He was justified, being angry. No one could blame him for that.

When he made it back to the cabin, Cas was just leaving. Sharp blue eyes pinned him down.

"He's asleep," was all Castiel said, but Dean could hear the recrimination behind it.

"Good," he said shortly. He didn't give Cas time to get into a lecture, slipping inside the cabin quickly.

Sam was curled on the cot, limbs drawn in so he was impossibly small. Dean sank onto the edge of it, noticing how Sam immediately stiffened.

Any kind thoughts he might have been harboring disappeared. Dean stood, going over to his own bed and dropping into it. Sleeping was his only escape, most of the time.

"You have to eat," Castiel coaxed. He prodded the spoon into Sam's lax hand. "If you don't eat, you'll die, and frankly I don't think that would be a good idea."

Dean watched Cas's attempts with a mix of amusement and frustration. Sam had yet to speak, mostly following Castiel or Dean around like a silent shadow. A silent, guilty shadow. Yeah, Dean could still read Sam, so what? Kid ended the world, and Dean could see the living apology in his eyes every frickin' morning. Didn't mean he had to be charitable and forgive him.

"Sam, please, eat."

Dean sighed, heavily, and shoved Cas's useless hand aside. He gripped Sam's wrist tightly in his own. "Sam, you eat this now, or so help me I will shove it down your throat."

Sam's slender fingers picked uncertainly at the spoon. Unwilling or unable? Dean didn't know, and he didn't care.

"Fine," he growled. "We'll do this the hard way."

Dean violently scooped some of the gruel onto the spoon, lifting it to Sam's mouth. "Open."

The line of Sam's mouth trembled.

Unbidden, the words came to Dean's mouth. "Open for the airplane."

Sam relented. They got through half the bowl before Dean noticed Castiel's gaze.

"What?" he bit out. "Want to take over?"

"I would like to see you and Sam," he said, "in a time where the axis was not skewed."

Dean squinted at him. "Are you high?"

In answer, Castiel stretched out a hand, briefly touching Sam's forehead. Sam flinched once, which turned into a minute trembling. As if he was expecting the touch to hurt.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" Cas asked him.

"He ain't gonna respond," Dean muttered. He shoved away the pathetic breakfast. "I have work to do."

"Come on, Sam." Castiel took Sam's hand, leading him out of the cabin like a lost puppy.

Dean snorted at the image before returning to his planning efforts. The croats had disappeared, after Lucifer had been destroyed. It made scavenging easier, but trying to rebuild was still hard.

He was in the middle of drawing up a new structure for a med station when Castiel burst into the room. Dean's gun was immediately in his hand, pointed between Cas's eyes.

He swore, shoving the gun aside. "Don't do that, Cas."

"Sam, they had Sam, and he, and he—" Castiel had a black eye, and was favoring his right side.

Dean's insides froze. "Cas, what—"

"They burned him."

Sam's screams died into whimpers. The doc working on him was efficient, but ruthless. The burns deserved skin grafts, at least. They covered most of his body, heavily concentrated on his left, where Cas said they had splashed most of the gasoline.

It probably would have been better if he had died from it.

"He said my name," Cas whispered. His hand reached out towards Sam's face before pulling back. "They took him from me, and he told me it was okay, and he said my name."

"Pull it together, Cas," Dean said.

"Screw that! He was burned alive, Dean," Castiel hissed. "Why aren't you freaking out?"

Dean raised a shoulder and dropped it. "They knew what he was, before. It's not surprising they wanted to punish him for ending the world. I'm just surprised they wasted fuel on it."

A fist slammed into Dean's face, sending him sprawling. He stared up at Castiel in shock.

"Get out of here," Cas growled. He wasn't exactly intimidating—eyes bloodshot from whatever crap he was in his system, clothing ragged, face dirty, but Dean found himself slinking out anyway.

Another scream rent the air, and he picked up his pace. It was better that he wasn't around.

Sam hadn't said another word, since he was burned. Dean tossed back another shot of whiskey as Sam whimpered, shifting on the cot. His wounds were mostly covered with dressings, not that they were doing any good.

Cas opened the door, ignoring Dean and dropping down next to Sam. "Sam, I need you to take these pills, okay?" He gently opened Sam's mouth, getting him to swallow down the pills.

"He isn't going to get better," Dean said.

Cas's shoulders tensed. "You don't know that."

Dean laughed, the sound bitter, as it always was. "Unless Lucifer has been hiding in him the whole time, I don't see any way he's getting an out-of-jail card this time."

The stench of rotting flesh and pus hit him as Cas peeled away one of the older dressings. Castiel was pretty good with the gore and nastiness of real life, nowadays, but some things were still too much. He reeled away, putting his head out the door and vomiting. Dean sighed, getting up to take care of Sam's wounds. Feverish, muddy eyes met his, roving over his face like they were looking for something.

Whatever Sam might have been looking for, Dean was pretty sure he'd never find.

Most of the other survivors were ignoring Dean, Castiel, and Sam. Probably some of them were expecting retribution for burning Sam, others didn't want to deal with them.

Either way, Dean was sick of it all. Sick of dealing with everything. Sam fluctuated between awful infections that brought him close to death, and the in-between periods where he seemed almost lucid, but constantly in pain. Dean shouldn't have to put up with this. Sam had no claim to brotherly affection, after what he had done. There was no point to any of this.

"Dean, I need your help changing the bandages."

Castiel stood to the side. He had stopped doing drugs, had taken over most of Sam's care, but he still wasn't good at the first aid. Dean sighed heavily, going over and beginning the disgusting process.

Dean peeled back a pus-filled bandage, and threw it away.

"Should put a bullet in your brain," he muttered. "Put you out of your misery."

"That's enough!"

Dean turned, sneering at Castiel's slightly greenish complexion. "What, have something to say to me?"

"You know I do."

"Tell me it isn't true," Dean challenged. "Sam's barely alive as it is, and nothing he does is going to make up for what he's done. So, why not, huh? Why not kill him?"

"Get out."

"This is my—"

"Yeah, well once you're done wallowing in self-pity, you can come back," Castiel snarled. He got in between Dean and Sam. "Sam doesn't need to hear you and your issues."

Dean scowled. "You have no right—"

Castiel drew his gun. "I said. Get. Out."

A whimper from Sam distracted both of them.

"D'n."

One syllable. Only Sam had ever been able to shorten Dean's name into something smaller.

Dean looked past Castiel's gun, to his brother.

A trembling arm, covered in open wounds and twisted burns, stretched out towards him.

Guilt, a familiar friend, showed its face. Dean . . . Dean ignored it. He had better things to do.

Moving past Castiel, he dropped down next to the bed.

"So you—" Castiel awkwardly shifted, gun lowered by his side.

Dean's eyes burned, as Sam continued to watch him patiently. Accepting whatever Dean wanted to do to him.

"I'm staying," he said gruffly. He reached out, carefully folding Sam's arm in to his body.

"S'ry." Sam's voice was painful rasp.

Dean's own apology sat heavy on his tongue, but he couldn't quite get it out. "Sammy," he said. Sam's entire face opened, softness and affection shining out.

It was the right word.

A/N: I have been simultaneously working on nanowrimo (so much harder than i thought it'd be) and a the samwinchesterbigbang, so I haven't been able to work on any other things. However, the sam-centric h/c challenge on ohsam livejournal grabbed me, and this prompt happened so I had to write something. Not my best, but at least it's something, right? I miss writing other things, so hopefully over december I'll be more active here.

This was the prompt:

The End-verse AU, gen or slash, art or fic: Dean's assault with the Colt works and somehow, Sam survives...mostly. Dean and Cas take s silent, shellshocked, and guilt-ridden Sam back to camp. Dean alternates between grateful for his brother's survival and resentful of Sam's role in the apocalypse, leaving Cas stuck picking up the pieces of both brothers. The thing is though, Dean isn't the only one harboring some bad vibes toward Sam's survival and the not everyone in camp is willing to follow his example and just sit back and drink their feelings. Cas says he tried to stop them from taking Sam, but there were too many. He says Sam went willingly, breaking his silence for the first time in months to tell Castiel it was okay. Cas says the worst part was that Sam resumed his silence when they beat him, when they doused him with precious fuel, even when someone finally tossed a match and let the flames consume him.

He survives- somehow- but there aren't exactly trauma centers at the end of the world and his injuries are grievous. Dean's drinking and angsting spirals as Sam's care consumes them. Castiel grows sick of watching this drama play out and demands that Dean either be there for Sam or GTFO.

It's not perfect after that, but somehow, it gets better.