There's No Such Thing As Monsters

Chapter Eleven

A million doubts crowded to the surface as soon as the bullet left the chamber. He wouldn't have hesitated to take out Mas if it weren't for Sam's reasoning. Should he be killing the demon's kids or saving them like Sam insisted? What if Rosalie used her mojo to stop the bullet? What if she didn't?

Sam was still in her head. What if taking her out took out Sam as well?

Damn it, the whole shoot first, questions later route was a bitch, but he couldn't take it back, no matter how much he suddenly, desperately wanted to.

The bullet found it's mark, rocking Rosalie back as it slammed into her chest. For an impossible few seconds, she managed to keep her feet under her and Dean watched the shock and horror fade from her eyes before she went down in a heap.

The knife thudded harmlessly to the floor beside him but he barely registered the neutralized threat as he scrambled to his feet. A constant stream of curse words, mingled with prayers aimed at anything that would listen, surged through Dean's head as he lurched towards Sam.

The seizure had halted abruptly with the gunshot. Sam seemed to wilt into the mattress, blankets half tossed off, hair a ruffled mess falling limply over his closed eyelids. So quiet. Dean didn't know if he should be screaming or thanking whatever that he wouldn't have to witness Sam's open eyes glazed over with death.

"Sammy." It came out as a half-strangled growl as he pawed at Sam's neck, dizzy with panic. His little brother's head rolled bonelessly at his ministrations.

Dean's hands were shaking and he swore his heart had stopped as he fumbled for Sam's pulse – please let there be a pulse – his whole body trapped between one moment and the next.

Finally, after far too long and what Dean suspected were now a series of near-fatal heart attacks, his fingers found the right place. He pressed hard, probably harder than necessary, and held his breath.

There. Erratic and stuttering, but there, thumping away.

Dean sagged, hands moving to Sam's chest, feeling for the rise and fall.

Missouri appeared suddenly on the other side of the bed, seemingly in a blink of the eye. Dean wondered vaguely, half-crazily, if that was part of her gift or whether he'd just been so focussed on Sam that he'd neglected noticing her approach.

She laid a hand gently on Sam's forehead and Dean bit back the urge to tell her to back off. Irrational, definitely, seeing as she was the only one who could tell him whether Sam was actually in his alive – thank whoever – body, but there all the same.

Missouri sent him an amused look, as if she knew what he was thinking – she probably did, of course, and okay, Dean liked the woman, of course he did, she helped them out and was grateful, sure, but he liked to keep his thoughts private, thank you very much. The whole mind-reading thing was creepy and kind of irritating, not to mention a total invasion of his human rights or something.

Missouri looked even more amused, which Dean figured was good in the grand scheme of things, because she was obviously checking Sam for something (his soul) and it couldn't be too bad if she could smile.

"He's in there, right?" Dean asked, just to make sure, because he wasn't exactly going to take Missouri's facial expression as confirmation.

"He's resting," Missouri said reassuringly, taking her hand away. "Boy's tired as anything. Now don't you go trying to wake him up, Dean Winchester. He needs his sleep."

Dean halted his hands progression towards Sam's shoulder.

Damn mind-readers.

XXX

Missouri had retired to her room by the time Sam returned to consciousness.

Despite Dean's earlier desire for Sam to wake the hell up already, he had decided, in retrospect, that he was glad Sam had slept through the disposal of Rosalie's body and Dean's attempt at cleaning the blood from the carpet. There was still a damp, rust-coloured stain that stubbornly refused to come out but it was better than nothing.

He spent the rest of his time pacing and channel-surfing, half-heartedly searching Sam's laptop for porn (until he got paranoid that Missouri might be tuned into the Dean Winchester channel), and obsessively checking that Sam was still breathing. Screw Missouri's assurances, he had to make sure.

So, for all his hovering and, uh, mother-henning as Sam would put it, it just figured that Dean would be in the bathroom when the kid decided to surface. Sam had always been difficult like that.

He was blinking hazily at the ceiling when Dean emerged, prompting a small startled flinch from Dean. It had been starting to look as though Sam was going to sleep right through the night (again). Kid had come pretty close. There was only the barest hint of light visible though the mandatory gap in the motel curtains.

Sam's head rolled on the pillow to look up at Dean.

"I'm me, right?" he asked wearily, before Dean could say anything. He lifted his hands up to look at them briefly before letting them drop down as if holding them up was too much effort. "I'm not...?"

Dean felt himself break out in a relieved smile. "Yeah, you're you. Stupid hair and all." He sat down on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, revelling in the sight of his brother, finally awake.

The teasing slipped past Sam as he closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief. He looked back up at Dean. "Thank God."

Dean quirked an eyebrow. Time for the whole 'what, me? Worried? As if' routine. "I don't know, Sammy, you were rocking the whole chick thing for a while there."

Straight away, Dean knew he's said the wrong thing (damn him and his habit of using humour to avoid emotions), brought the conversation too close to the crazy girl too soon. Shit. Maybe he should concentrate more on not being an idiot rather than trying to convince the kid that he had everything under control.

Sam pushed himself up on his elbows to look around the room. "Where's Rosalie?" he asked (of course, stupid Dean, stupid.) "And... was Missouri here?"

Dean tackled the easy one first. "Missouri's in a room a few doors down. Probably still sleeping. It was the craziest thing, man, she just turned up out of no where. I didn't call her or anything. She just knew."

But Sam wouldn't let himself be distracted. "Is Rosalie with here?" he asked slowly. Yeah, kid wasn't fooled by his stalling at all. Dean saw Sam's eyes flick over the rusty stain on the carpet.

Dean looked away, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Sam..."

Sam's jaw clenched for a moment, sucking in a breath through his teeth before letting it out shakily. For a second, Dean thought Sam was about to cry, which was kind of horrifying because as much as Dean teased him about that sort of thing Dad had drilled it into both of them that teats were only meant for broken bones and stitches, but Sam just kind of deflated.

"What happened?" he asked finally. He wasn't looking at Dean now, damn it, was there any way Dean could have screwed this up more?

Dean was gripped by the sudden urge to move. He pushed off against his knees and took a few steps away before he realized that it really wasn't cool to walk away from Sam when the kid couldn't follow. It was also kind of risky 'cause the kid could be stubborn and try to follow anyway.

"Look, Sammy, you're still... sick or whatever. You just woke up. I'll explain everything later." It was a cop out that he knew Sam would recognize but maybe, hopefully, his kid brother wouldn't push.

"Dean."

Yeah, right.

"Tell me what happened, I – whoa..."

Dean turned in time to see Sam slump back on the bed. Idiot must've tried to get up, of course.

"Sammy?" He took a few steps closer.

"'m 'kay," Sam muttered, but he'd turned a lighter shade of pale (almost grey) and didn't look like he was going to try moving again any time soon.

"Okay as in you feel like you haven't eaten for nearly a week?" Dean hazarded. "Let me tell you, protein shakes and comatose little brothers are a messy mix."

Sam crinkled his nose, reaching up a shaky hand to inspect his unwashed hair. "I wanna shower."

Dean snorted. "The only way you're getting in the shower is if I'm in there holding you up."

He snorted again at the horrified look on Sam's face. "Yeah, thought so. Just wait and I'll fix you some soup, okay? You can do the shower thing later."

"Don' want soup," Sam muttered around a yawn, but he stayed put, grimacing slightly as he shifted slowly, seemingly checking that everything was still in working order.

Dean grinned as he got to work heating up one of the cans of soup they kept around for situations like this. He faltered. Maybe not exactly like this, but there'd been plenty of times when injury led to a queasy stomach or they hadn't had the chance to hustle pool and couldn't afford to go to a diner.

Sam was blessedly silent behind him. Dean wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep but didn't dare check. It might be a trap, Sam had always been sneaky like that. Waiting until Dean let his guard down, finding just the right moment or just the right words to somehow manage to twist Dean around his little finger and get exactly what he wanted, every damn time.

"It was like I was her," Sam murmured, suddenly and vaguely miserable, and shit, of course Sammy wanted a chick flick moment. "At first, at least. After a while I kind of got shoved off a bit, but at first... I didn't even realize that we were separate people."

Damn it, Sam. Dean took the mug of soup from the ancient microwave after it finished with a shrill beep and grudgingly brought it over to Sam. Sam grasped it absently, scratching a fingernail lightly over the red and white design.

"She was one of the demon's kids." Sam looked up at him, almost as if for confirmation. "She said, or thought, I dunno... there was a yellow eyed man in her dreams."

Dean rubbed at the back of his neck, a nervous habit that one day he was going to work on avoiding. "Yeah, she was. I looked into it. Her parents were killed in a fire when she was six months old."

Sam's knuckles were starting to turn white around the cup. "So let me guess," he said, the attempt to sound casual overshadowed by far more intense emotions, anger, fear, maybe even grief. "She turned dark side and you had to take her out."

It's not even a question. "Sam, that doesn't mean that you-"

"Don't tell me that," Sam cut in, eyes fixed on the slowly forming skin on the top of his soup. The emotions faded now, leaving only a tired resignation. "Just... don't, okay?"

Son of a bitch. Fine then, if Sam wanted a chick flick moment, then Dean was going to chick flick the shit out of this moment. He leant forward and locked Sam in with his most serious gaze – which was kind of pointless really because Sam still wasn't looking at him, but whatever, it would come through in his voice, right?

"Sam... Sammy, Rosalie had no one. I looked into her, remember? She was living on the streets before they committed her. Her parents were dead and the rest of her family turned their backs on her apparently. Plus, you know, she wasn't exactly of sound mind. You're not like her, or like Max or Andy's evil twin. They had nothing to stop them."

"Yeah, and what's going to stop me?" Sam asked bitterly, "And don't say you will. It's a demon, Dean. Dad couldn't stop it and he'd been tracking it for 23 years. He said-"

"Damn it, Sam, I know what Dad said!" Dean couldn't help the rise of his voice or stop his fists from clenching, but seriously, Sam? You lie around in a coma for a while and come back just to tell Dean that he's a terrible big brother and there's no point in trying to help you? "And I don't give a shit. You think I can't save you? Fucking watch me!"

Sam flinched back, mouth opening slightly in surprise and stared at him until Dean cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to think of some way to break the silence.

"Okay," Sam said finally, before Dean could come up with anything, so quietly that he did a double take, unsure if he'd heard correctly.

"What?"

Sam glanced away, then seemed to make an effort to look back up. "Okay," he said again, not quite meeting Dean's eyes. "Save me. Please."

It was Dean's turn to be stunned into silence. It took a moment and a few rough swallows before he could speak without sounding like someone was strangling him.

"You got it, kid."

The End