Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Drama
Pairing: Gen.
Rating: Teen+
Word Count: 2300+
Warning: Stroke, mental disability, cursing.
Prompt: For Triple Play at ohsam at livejournal. Takes place during Season 6, when Sam's wall seems to go wonky. Something bad happens, and Dean wonders if Sam's still Sam. Man, I just noticed I have a lot of brotherly, snotty hugs in all of my spn fanfiction. What's up with that? Oh well, ain't changing it now. :^| Apologies for how choppy and 'meh' it is, I didn't beta or spell-check much for this one.

Sam's brain could only take so much.

Dean knew it, had known it for a very long time; you don't deal with that amount of crazy without some real complications, and though Dean knew he had been harsh about the Wall and everything surrounding it, he was just... terrified for the safety of his brother. Terrified like he'd always been, whether it's a knife plunging into Sam's back, Sam detoxing off of concentrated unholy evil shit, Sam jumping into a Pit, or Sam collapsing and seizing in front of his eyes... Dean's always ready for Sam to worry him. He knows his little brother doesn't want to, doesn't mean it, would rather not — but it doesn't change the fact that, sooner or later, Dean would be watching the one person he was willing to do anything for fall on his face again. And it hurt. God, it hurt. Sam felt the shame of it, but Dean just wanted him to know that his big brother was there for him to collapse into.

Sam had gone to bed in Bobby's place with bad vertigo, a killer headache, and a stiff back. Dean threw him a bottle of painkillers and assumed it was the usual issues they (mostly Sam, these days) dealt with. Sam may have been risen with a clean, new body as well, but it didn't really change the way the hunting life beat the tar out of you. And besides, Sam had been having headaches off and on for a while now (since he was out of college, remember, Dean?).

Dean had done his morning hop up to the room Sam was occupying when he hadn't gotten up at the ass-crack of dawn like usual, and —

— and found Sam tangled in his sheets on the floor, back arched and body writhing against the wooden floors in a way that made Dean's stomach lurch in instant horror. It was familiar enough. Sam has writhed too many times in Dean's life not to know what was happening here; seizure, his mind supplied him. But this time Dean's read up on seizures and how to handle them. He doesn't shove open Sam's mouth or clench his wrists too tightly backward, but holds him carefully, making sure he doesn't slam his head back into the floor, or into Dean's skull. He holds him and stares, his heart pounding wildly, the glass of water he'd planned on shoving into his brother's long hands smashed to pieces in the doorway. Sam's eyes shoot open and they're searching until they meet Dean's equally petrified stare — there's a strangled, clipped noise of horror, a garbled sound, like his mouth blew a fuse, and Dean just wants Sam to keep his focus on him, to not close his eyes, because right now... after everything that's happened to Sam's head —

"Sam, what is it?! Is it — " He was going to ask about the Wall built in Sam's head, like Sam would fucking know, like Sam could even speak coherently. But Sam does try to talk through it all, and when he talks — tries to tell him something's wrong (so, so wrong) — he can't talk straight, like something is smacking his vocabulary around and leaving it scattered on a scrabble board. His words blend and slur and he's clutching his head with his left hand, like spikes are being drove through his brain and maybe his fingers can palpate them violently out.

Sam cries, "S'no — cahn — " and that's all, that's where he cuts off. His eyes widen, as he grabs at his brother's collar and chokes on a sob. Bobby's there dialing for paramedics, and Dean just puts his hand on Sam's cheek while Sammy grabs fanatically at his own leg and arm. Not moving, they're not moving, help me. Dean reads it in everything his brother does, even if the words don't form right on Sam's tongue, while he hushes him and tries to relax his younger brother. Sam looks at him like he's layered in a thick, cold frost. Looks at him like he's hard to understand, like it's all garbled bullshit to him. Maybe it is. Maybe it's a litany of Dean begging into a frenzy for Sam to hang on, to not give in, to please hold onto his sleeve and just look at him. As long as he's looking at him, everything's alive and worth living for.

Sam had said two words (groggily) upon waking up in the hospital, in unison: No, sir.

Sometimes just 'no'. Sometimes just 'sir'. Those are the only words Dean had heard from him since he woke up, with Dean at his bedside. Sam had said it five times, fluctuating from relieved to confused to scared, and then he'd began thrashing, and Dean had to move away for the nurses to contain him. Or... contain one side of him. The doctors had told him that a stroke (stroke, a fucking stroke, Sam had a stroke) causes a lot of problems that they'll need to assess Sammy for; the list had done little to ease the clenched fists at his sides. The whole 'he's paralyzed on one side' issue came up pretty damn early, though they weren't sure what was permanently (permanently) effected.

One doctor (who was kind and sympathetic, but Dean didn't give two shits) said that it was all too possible that Sam wouldn't be Sam anymore. Not as he had been. Physically... mentally. They couldn't tell, so long as Sam was unable to properly display how functional he was, truly. As it turns out, communication is a very handy way of seeing if someone was mentally disabled or impaired. In the ways doctors don't outright say.

Dean refused to accept that, so he'd jumped the guy and shook him and needed to be pulled off. Bobby wasn't too thrilled with needing to convincethe doctors to let Dean stay. Luckily enough (yeah right), Sam freaked out again and Dean convinced the staff to give him a second chance, after he easily calmed his brother back into laying down.

Yeah, they had said he wouldn't be Sam-Sam, not 100%. But Dean had looked into his eyes and saw Sammy there, isolated in his own thoughts, confused and reaching out. And Dean wordlessly reached back, putting a heavy palm over Sam's hairline as the other drawled, no, sir, no, sir. He couldn't help but flash back to a twelve-year-old Sam, telling those very words to his father. Hushing him, he left his hand over his chest like an anchor and hoped his brother didn't feel so lost with it there. Sam gripped at him with the left hand, because the right refused to listen. Couldn't listen. Dean clutched the trembling fingertips and could almost feel the cracks forming in the content little world he'd built around hunting, Bobby, and Sam. And then the cracks began to form across his heart as well at the sound of Sam sobbing, strangled and defeated.

Sam wasn't mentally broken. Sam wasn't mentally broken. Sam wasn't handicapped, or impaired, or any of that. Sam wasn't a drooling mess.

Dean thought these sorts of thoughts for days, weeks, after bringing Sam home. Sam's leg worked decently enough — arm was still about as useful as a wet noodle, but they had therapy planned out for months in advance; anything to get him back to what Sam would want. Dean swears it on his fucking past graves, he saw all of Sam when he looked into those eyes at the hospital. Lately, though, they're dull and listless and never looking in his direction. Sam doesn't talk, either. They said that, really, his ability to understand him and Bobby was scrambled by the blood clot. It killed important spots, drastically hurt his ability to digest words and sentences as they're fed into his ears. Dean feels like a fucking asshole, looking into the back of the Impala and helping Sam out the door, because he's speaking long and carefully like his brother's two years old.

The doctors said he might not be the same Sam. They said he could have lost more than just his language skills, his ability to understand.

But he's not broken. He's all there. He has to be. He has to be.

But Dean can't tell what's lost and what's simply left behind purposefully. He can't tell if Sam's trying. There's no vibrancy to anything he does — no glimmer to his stare, no fond dimpled grin that Dean can read better than anything else. He's just... a slack doll based off his brother, eating mechanically, not speaking except for mumbledsirs, maybe a no or two. He bathes by himself, can dress with some difficulty — Dean tries to cheer him up while he helps work on his brother's pants or sleeve for him. He cracks jokes. Sam just looks at his own feet and crawls into bed... and sleeps. And sleeps. And eats so little, he might just start shriveling. Worst of all, he acts like Dean's reassuring touches scald him and he pulls away with a louder NO. It's after the third or fourth time — as Sam retreats into his room — that Dean thinks he doesn't have all of his brother anymore.

Eventually, it overwhelms Dean. He grips Sam's shoulders and shoves him back down hard into his chair at the kitchen table, glaring at him over barely-touched food; Sam's lost twenty pounds and counting. He can't afford to lose anymore. "Are you even fucking trying, Sam?" Dean says, voice growing louder, and then he drawls out slow, slow, so slow, "Are you even fucking trying?! Are you even fighting this?! Can you even fight this?" He shakes him, and goddamn it he knows it's wrong; he knows if Sam's not all Sam anymore, it's wrong and he deserves to burn in hell for it, but he can't stop, so he just shakes by the shoulders and hopes his brother will jingle around until something fixes. "Are you really not there, huh? Where's my little brother — are — you — even — Sam —anymore?!"

Sam's stare is suddenly fixed on him, viciously indignant, horrified, angry. It throws Dean off, because it's the first emotion Dean's seen in weeks and weeks, ever since Sam had screamed and sobbed in the hospital. Dean's so thrown off by it, he can't stop Sam from leaping up and flinging back his chair in the process, slamming all his weight into Dean's body. They crash to the floor in a sloppy uncoordinated mess of limbs and Sam yells, punching Dean hard with the only hand he can move. He punches him twice, choking out angry, miserable no, no, no, no's, and even with the vertigo and ache in his jaw, Dean can see tears falling away from his brother's face. It's just two punches, though, the strength in them weak from Sam's own doing; from making himself sick and weak. Dean catches his wrist easily and stares up at a flushed face, snotting and red-eyed, and suddenly Dean sees him — right there. Weepy but overwhelmingly devastated, not so much with himself but with Dean. He sees his brother crystal clear.

Sam's not gone. He understands enough.

Sam's just mourning.

Dean hadn't ever considered that perhaps — perhaps — Sam was just bereaved, all of the words he's ever spoken lost in some mental fog. Because he can't talk normal anymore. Because his fucking vocabulary is two words, literally two fucking words that he can't control. Because no matter what Sam wants to tell Dean, it comes out insirs and negatives. And worst of all, unless he's talked to like he's a mental patient, Sam hears nothing but the water-muffled garble of words he can't mentally process. His brother's slower, like he's half-frozen in a violent winter storm, but he's fine. He's him. He's just hurt. He's been hurt for so long, and this on top of everything else? Well, it's sure as hell not easy. He should have known that.

Blood trickles down Dean's nostril and Sam snaps out of it, wiping his own sleeve over his brother's nose, while he's still straddling his ribs.

"I'm sorry," Dean says, slowly. It makes Sam struggle to hold in more tears; he turns away and drags himself off of Dean, and Dean in return yanks him back into his arms and hugs him there on the floor. Sam returns the hug with his one arm and wheezes heartbroken noises, but despite everything, Dean finally knows. Sam's 100% there. Maybe a little baked, a little loopier, but when was the last time Sam wasn't loopy? They're all a little weird in the head. All of them. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he repeats, full of regret, and sways them back and forth like his brother is just a little kid who needs comforting. Seems like no matter how old they are, that's exactly what it is.

"Nh — Nnn — " Sam tries, "No, nono..." And he lets out a wheeze of frustration. It must be so overwhelmingly rage-inducing, to never say the words you want to say. To know they're all wrong. To feel like an idiot, when not so long ago you were reading heavy lore and teasing your family and consoling victims from monster attacks. A voice is so important. Even after everything they've been through, they've always had a voice, always spoke their minds, said what finally counted.

Dean puts his hands on the sides of Sam's face, looking him in the eye.

"... It's fine, okay? We'll work on it."

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. But he nods. Dean pulls his baby brother's face toward his shoulder.

Muffled: "No, no, no sir, nnnn — "

"We'll get you writing again, you'll get real help. I got enough words for the both of us, huh? If we're lucky, your speech chick'll be hot. I'll get you free treatment sessions."

Dean's eyes well with tears when Sam chokes on a laugh.

"Good, Sam," the therapist says slowly, tapping the paper.

Sam's chicken scratch is sort of legible; he's sitting next to his brother, fidgeting with his hands, crossing long fingers.

The therapist continues, "Yes or no, Sam — You are fifty-seven."

"Nno."

"He is your brother. He — is — your — brother?"

"N — Nn, yesss. Yes."

"Good, that's good. Let's try newer exercises, alright? Can you tell me what color your hair is?"

"..."

"Color of — your hair."

"Br — Brnnnoonono —" A frustrated growl. Something along the lines of a whispered curse. "Brnosir, no. Brrr...owngh."

"Mmm, good. We'll do objects. What is this?"

"Mirror," Sam says quickly, and then confirms, "Mirror."

"And this?"

"Wa — wah..r. Sir."

Water.

"That one's a little tough. Who's this?"

The therapist points to Dean in the seat beside him, patient as Dean is. Sam's past the point of turning red with shame.

"Nn — "

Dean smirks, all confidence. Not in himself, of course.

"Dean."

There's a smile in the name.

"Good job, Sammy."

Sam writes to him every morning and night. It's shaky and illegible, but Dean can read every word just fine.