Heading out to case the promise land

Near Miss
by laurificus, PG, Sam/Dean, 1355 words
There's no one he trusts more than Sam; no one else he wants at his back.

Written for the ohsam commentfic meme, and glovered's prompt, "Sam does not want to be comforted. Dean is like, yeah, well, I don't want to make you feel better." My tendencies for comfort might have won out, a tiny bit. :)

Thanks to mollyamory for looking it over. Any remaining mistakes are, as always, entirely mine.

***

Near Miss

"Next time, I'll ease us back in with something less deadly," Dean says, mostly to break the silence. "A pack of demonically possessed werwolves at the full moon, maybe."

It's a sign of how quiet Sam's been since everything went south that even getting a grunt of acknowledgement is a relief. Hard to tell if it's a grunt of pain or amusement, or some other mysterious Sam thing that Dean's not catching right now. He's busy trying to stitch Sam back together before he bleeds out, or one of the giant cockroaches in the room crawls in and makes himself at home in the gaping hole in Sam's side; he can't be on perfect translation duty, too. especially when the cut on his own arm has started clamouring for attention. It's an ugly, ragged mess, oozing blood and pain at a steady rate, and it's still got nothing on the clusterfuck Dean's trying to fix. As smooth hunts go, this one failed miserably. About the best Dean can say for the night is that he can't see any of Sam's vital organs, and honestly, the lighting in the room is about as bad as the motel's infestation problem. It's possible Dean's night vision just isn't up to the job.

"You'd mention it, right? If you thought your lungs or something were falling out."

"Pretty sure my lungs aren't even in the vicinity," Sam says. Every word is bitten off and sharp, his voice shot through with pain and maybe annoyance. Dean can't exactly blame him. He won't take the good pills; won't even let Dean dose him up with alcohol, and Dean can't much blame him for that, either. There's a hundred and eighty years of hell lying in wait all over Sam's brain, attacking at random and at will, stealthily or with an arrival parade. If Sam doesn't want to let his guard down and make it easier for them, Dean's not about to argue. Still makes him feel pretty helpless, though.

"Be done soon, Sammy," he says, and gets a glare for his trouble. Not quite a death glare, not when Sam's face is already drawn tight and there are beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, but it's definitely got aspirations in that direction. Little fucker always was a lousy patient. Dean gives up on trying to be comforting and glares right back, even though Sam's staring at Dean's hands again, mouth set, and fingers knotted in the threadbare towels they keep on hand so they don't leave rooms looking like crime scenes. Dean mutters about ungrateful bastards and needles slipping; he hums a little, soft under his breath in a way that's absolutely not designed to be soothing. When he's finished, Sam's rocking a the kind of paleness actual dead people can only dream of, and he's bitten his bottom lip bloody. But he tells Dean to shut the fuck up when Dean says he can take care of his own arm, and his hands are steady while they apply the last of the butterfly stitches from the kit.

He's still not looking at Dean, though, no more than he has to, still not talking much, and Dean's days of letting that kind of thing go are a failed apocalypse and another trip to hell behind them. Sam's got his back to him now, pretending like he's not struggling to get a t-shirt over his head, and somehow, that makes it easier for Dean to start.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Sure," Sam says, sounding perfectly sincere but for how Dean's met him before. "I'm just distracted planning my victory dance. Because, you know, I look like Frankenstein on a bad day, and we both nearly died tonight. What's not to celebrate?"

"The part where we didn't die is pretty good." Dean goes to Sam, then, yanks the shirt out of his hands and guides him into it. Even after that's done, he doesn't pull away. He likes being in Sam's space these days; there's been too much space for too long with no Sam at all. "It wasn't your fault, if that's what you're thinking."

That should go without saying; if it was anyone's fault it was Dean's--for hesitating, for not being quick enough--but Sam's had some pretty fucked up ideas about what he's responsible for for a while now, and reliving hell hasn't exactly helped. Dean figures it's best to make sure they're both on the same page.

Weirdly enough, Sam jerks back out of Dean's hands. He promptly looks like he regrets moving so fast, but it doesn't stop the death glare this time. "Of course it wasn't my fault," he says, sounding more like Sam than he has since the wall came down. He gestures at Dean, irritation writ large in every line of him. "It was yours, you moron."

So. Definitely on the same page. Dean nods, no hesitating now. It takes the edge off Sam's anger, but that just gives that God-awful, miserable look Dean's been seeing for too long a chance to sneak in, and that's infinitely worse. He doesn't step any further away from Dean, but Dean can feel him withdrawing, after weeks and weeks of bringing him back. Dean grabs for him, like he might actually be trying to leave, wraps a hand around his shoulder and squeezes.

"You didn't--you didn't think it was really there," Sam says. "When I yelled at you, you didn't. That's why you didn't get out of the way in time."

"Maybe I'm just old and slow."

Sam doesn't smile, and Dean didn't expect him to. He can't even say Sam's entirely wrong, because, yeah, Sam's spent a lot of time recently freaking out about shit no one else can see, hell twisting up reality as efficiently as it does everything else. Dean would never have taken a job if Sam hadn't been doing better, but it should've been the kind of thing they could do in their sleep. A few overly active house sprites, that was all he had in mind; when they'd cleared them out and Sam had started yelling about fiery spirits and axes, Dean had looked over his shoulder instead of moving. He's in one piece now only because Sam's weight crashing into him shoved him aside.

"I was an idiot," he says. It's a terrible apology, but it's no less true for that.

Sam shrugs, winces. "I don't blame you," he says, and the bitch of it is, he doesn't. "It's just. We'd just gotten to be--you know. Us again. If I'm not reliable, you can't hunt with me. It'd be--"

"Dangerous?" Dean says. "In the first place, a spirit on fire came at me with an axe tonight. Danger isn't a dealbreaker. In the second, you're getting better. In the third--" He stops. In the third place there's no one he trusts more than Sam; no one else he wants at his back. That's true no matter how messed up Sam is, and it's still not even the important thing. If Sam couldn't hunt, if he gave it up tomorrow to open a cattery, that'd be okay. Dean would deal; hunting isn't why he needs Sam with him.

Fuck if he's saying that out loud, though. This self-doubt thing Sam's got going is coming to an end, one way or another; Dean's going to make sure of that. He's got form for saving people, after all, and when Sam's gigantor ego is fully operational again, he's going to be insufferably smug if Dean pledges undying devotion here and now.

"In the third place," he says, "I totally want you as an alternative target when I fuck up. You're bigger and slower. Like I'm letting that go."

Sam's smile takes its sweet time showing up, but it eventually does, spreading as Dean slides is other hand around the back of his neck and leans in. "You're so fucking stupid," Dean says, and maybe Sam's gonna get to be smug anyway, because when Dean kisses him, it's full of all the promises he's never stopped making.