Title: What He Could Do

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 7x16 tag. Maybe Dean couldn't shut Lucifer up and get Sam to sleep. But he could turn off the radio.

Notes: I've always loved exploring the relationship between the Winchesters and the music woven into their lives on the road, so it didn't surprise me that I latched onto Sam's line about Lucifer's repeated renditions of "Stairway to Heaven" in 7x16. I immediately thought of Dean turning off the radio when that song came on, to spare Sam the pain of that memory and/or discourage Lucifer from starting up again. As I sat with that idea, I thought back to one of the opening lines in 4x05, with Dean focusing on what they could do, while surrounded by the looming Apocalypse and a ton of things they couldn't fix right then. This is such an inherent part of Dean's character as a "fixer" - finding something, no matter how small, that he can fix, even while drowning in what he can't – that I found myself bringing that into this story: a little piece with Dean the fixer, researching the most important subject in his life, and figuring out a way, no matter how small, to save his brother. I truly hope I did the characters and emotions justice. Thank you for reading.

Sam: "It's just...The world is coming to an end. Things are a little complicated, you know?"

Dean: "Yeah, well, we can't save the world, not today anyway. But what we can do is chop off some vamps' heads."

~ 4x05 (Monster Movie)

When it came to researching the intricacies of suffering little brothers, academia had nothing on Dean Winchester. So when Sam started the whole "not sleeping because Lucifer won't shut up" thing, Dean started like any other job: with research. Figure out what they were dealing with.

Right. The Cage. Lucifer. A shattered Hell-wall due to an angel of the Lord being less trustworthy than Death himself. The thanks they got for saving the world from the damn Apocalypse while it merrily moved on to its next suicide attempt.

So…..situation normal for the Winchesters.

Sometimes Dean felt like they had made a wrong turn a few years back and just kept getting stuck on the same stretch of "World Ending Road" over and over again.

Seriously, the friggin' Apocalypse wasn't enough? They really needed demons popping Purgatory and releasing the Leviathans too?

Anyway…..Sam.

As with most of their research, Dean started with observation. The increased coffee consumption, with dulled reflexes and difficulty concentrating where all that caffeine should have had Sam on a twitchy, heart-about-to-explode edge. The dim, hooded eyes shadowing Satan's darker gleam. The occasional flinch that rocked ancient mattress springs late at night as Sam sat stiffly on the edge of his bed, staring at Dean as if desperate for a visual touchstone, yet never quite managing to actually see him. The way the abnormally long limbs suddenly seemed too much for him to handle; too heavy to coordinate. But worst of all was the leaden, empty exhaustion in Sam's voice – one Dean recognized from his own worn throat over the last few years. The voice of a man resigned to dragging one foot in front of the other because it was all he knew how to do, stumbling toward a hopeless end that just wouldn't come soon enough.

No.

"Don't get killed" went both ways, dammit.

And after researching what long term sleep deprivation did to the human body…..well, Sam was not going out that way.

So Dean moved to researching solutions. What Sam really needed was for Lucifer to shut the hell up, but the only way medicine touched on that subject was with words like "schizophrenia" and "antipsychotics" and just…..no. So he moved on to the next best thing: getting Sam to sleep. His first thought, after finding out that the hand thing wasn't working anymore, was to crush sleeping pills in Sam's coffee, but with all that had happened over the last year or so, drugging Sam without his knowledge risked breaking the fragile trust they had rebuilt; a risk that, as much as Sam needed sleep, Dean wasn't willing to take. There had been enough betrayal in their lives lately. So, figuring Sam was just too exhausted to have thought of it himself, Dean went to a local drug store for options he could bring back to his brother instead. But a look at the warnings on the sleeping pill boxes, combined with years of late night TV advertisements for the prescription stuff, started to make Dean worry that he might actually do more damage to Sam with the meds than Lucifer was already doing on his own. He had started with the herbal and hormonal stuff, but valerian root and melatonin were more for jet lag, and less for Lucifer screaming in your ear, so he moved on to the others, surprised to find that most of them were just diphenhydramine. He guessed it kind of made sense since Benadryl usually made Sam a sleepy, incoherent, uncoordinated puddle of limbs, but the listing of possible side effects quickly sent him from curious to completely freaked out: severe anxiety, seizures, hallucinations, fast or irregular heartbeat…oh hell no. Sam's heart was probably already galloping with all that caffeine, so it certainly didn't need another medicinal push toward destruction. And Dean had seen enough seizures in his little brother to last several lifetimes, so he'd be damned if he'd give Sam something that could actually cause them. Oh, and hallucinations – yeah, great, like Sam wasn't already having enough of those 24/7. Doxylamine, the alternate option on the shelf, promised the same potential nightmares.

Dean still didn't really get how Lucifer worked in Sam's head, beyond knowing that it could be really friggin' bad…..but if part of Lucifer really was in Sam's brain somehow, he probably wouldn't let the drugs work in the first place, since he obviously had enough power to keep Sam awake and override all the body's normal responses to lack of sleep. And if he was "only" a hallucination based on Hell memories….well, there was no guarantee the meds wouldn't just leave Sam defenseless, too out of it to move or think, unable to fight back against a mental manifestation of the Devil himself, one who would be sure to take advantage of Sam's medicated state. And who said Lucifer couldn't pick and choose which side effects Sam would suffer and twist it to his own gain? What it all really came down to was that the whole not sleeping thing was a side effect itself; the result of a soul mangled by Lucifer and a brain short circuited by the Devil's malice.

And no drug in front of Dean could even remotely hope to treat that.

Which left Dean driving with Sam in yet another piece of crap that wasn't his baby, wincing when his little brother's head bounced off the window with a violent flinch as he was forced awake for about the fifteenth time in the last hour. An uncoordinated hand flailed toward the radio, an unconscious, ingrained reach for distraction, before falling back to Sam's lap with a sound that could have been a ragged sob before it was hastily covered by a breath of weary resignation.

Music filled the car.

Dean had been in enough hopeless situations in his life that he practically considered it his default setting. But he'd learned to transform that sickening helplessness into some semblance of control, by focusing on what he could do, even if it seemed insignificant in the bigger picture. "Journey of a thousand miles" and all that crap. But it had worked. Still worked.

Back during that monster mash case in Pennsylvania, with Lucifer risen and the Apocalypse underway, Dean knew they couldn't save the world that day, but they could and did save a town from a movie-obsessed shape shifter. When Sam was lying broken at Bobby's, drowning in Hell memories after Cas's betrayal, Dean couldn't piece Sam back together and save the world from a new, power-hungry God, but he could, and did, work on the Impala until she was mint. And right now, as Sam was being tortured to death right in front of his eyes, Dick Roman smirked, unpunished for Bobby's death, from every news station, and the Leviathans continued their grand plan toward Apocalypse Part Deux…..well, Dean couldn't fix all of that. Not now. Couldn't save Sam from Lucifer and what Cas did. Wasn't sure anyone could.

But he could save Sam from something.

From what the song filling the car now meant.

Part of Dean was pissed that Lucifer had marred such an awesome song. Zeppelin was a classic Winchester lullaby – one guaranteed for years, even under all the bitchfacing, to ease Sam to sleep. But, dick that he was, that was probably Lucifer's point. The whole damn world seemed to be conspiring to take everything away from them the last few months, to destroy an already critically inadequate support system. Shouldn't really surprise him that a hallucinated version of Lucifer would screw with something as basic as musical comfort too.

But that's what they did for each other now. Enjoyed the music that still wasn't corrupted by memory, and turned off what was. Dean had been switching the station every time "Wanted Dead or Alive" came on since the night the hellhounds dragged him downstairs, because whenever it came on, Sam looked like he was about to cry and throw up at the same time. And Sam turned off "Rock of Ages" ever since the Stull boneyard, because the film of tears over Dean's eyes couldn't hide the memory of watching Sam fall into the Pit; the darkness their lives became.

So Dean reached over and turned off the radio, the lingering strains of "Stairway to Heaven" trampled by the rough sound of worn tires over pockmarked asphalt. As the foreign mechanics faded out and the car settled into the familiar lull of late night driving, Sam still didn't sleep. But he relaxed into the passenger seat a fraction more, limbs loosening and body slouching in a way that wasn't just the result of days without sleep.

Sam may have been studying Dean since he was four, trying to be like his big brother, but Dean had been studying Sam since the kid had been born, in the hope of being the kind of brother worthy of such devotion. He didn't even have to try to translate Sam's subtle shift – the true meaning came instantaneously: relief, gratitude, love. A break in the darkness. A glimmer of Sam.

The one thing in Dean's life that would always be worth saving.

So yeah, maybe Dean couldn't figure out the Leviathans' plan and save the world right now. Couldn't shut Lucifer up and get Sam to sleep. But he had saved Sam from reliving Lucifer's repeated mauling of "Stairway to Heaven" earlier that night.

And that was something.

Sam turned his head wearily toward his brother, eyes shining through the exhaustion.

No, Dean realized, dropping a hand to Sam's knee…..

….that was everything.