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“All right, so, I think if we head in that way, it should be about a four-mile trek to the cabin,” Sam says, looking down at the map in his hand. “You know, we always talked about taking a break, going camping. This could be like camping. It could be fun,” he tries to reason.
“Yeah, which part?” Dean asks. “Hmm? Freezing our nuts off in the middle of the woods on a thin lead?”
“Yeah, that part!” Sam laughs. “Oh come on.”
Dean pulls the rest of their gear out of the Impala and closes the trunk with a huff. “Okay.”
Sam lights up their path with the flashlight in his hand and follows Dean into the dark.
Dean's right, it's a thin lead. But they’ve driven farther for less, and if Sam’s being honest with himself, he needed this; even if it turned out to be a bust. A guy can only stay holed up in an underground bunker for so long before he starts to go stir-crazy.
They walked in near silence with the sounds of birds, crickets, and a light breeze filling the air around them until Dean came to a stop, signaling that they'd reached their destination.
“Alright, we’re here,” he said quietly. Dean walked a few yards closer so he could get a better look into the cabin's window.
“Got a couple of warm bodies in there. Can't be a hundred percent certain it's not just some random hikers, but it looks like you were right, Sammy,” Dean says once he's made his way back over to his brother. He picks their bag up off the ground and pulls his gun out, loaded with silver bullets, and hands a silver stake to Sam.
“I'll take the front, you go around back. Try not to get yourself bitten, alright?”
“I don't think you're one to talk about not getting bitten by things,” Sam sasses, remembering the time all those years ago that Dean was bitten and turned by a vampire they were hunting. Nonetheless, he nodded in agreement to the plan.
After giving Sam a moment to walk to the other side of the small cabin, Dean burst through the door, followed a moment later by Sam on the other side. There were two werewolves and two victims, both on the floor in such a position that neither Dean nor Sam could tell whether their hearts had been ripped out yet. Their stillness even amongst the commotion, however, gave Dean a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It took the werewolves a moment to register that two hunters had just clocked their hiding spot, but once they did, they were on Sam and Dean with the ferocity of wild animals.
Dean managed to dodge the first punch from his attacker and met him with a palm to the nose followed by a punch to the throat with his opposite hand. A few feet away, Sam punched the other werewolf square in the jaw but it only threw her off balance for a second before she was standing up straight again and going for Sam's torso.
Dean dropped his gun in the struggle but was still unwaveringly fighting with the monster. Sam, having fought his opponent to the ground, ran over to Dean to help him fend off the other werewolf, and just in time, too, because it was right as Sam hit the werewolf in the side of the head that Dean groaned and keeled over in pain. After hesitating for only a moment at the sound of his brother’s cursing, Sam elbowed the werewolf in the chest and only cursed frustration when it got an ironclad grip on his arm. He put all his strength into a kick to its knees and in the monster's moment of weakness that followed, wrenched himself free from its claws. He turned on his heel to plunge the silver stake held in his other hand into the werewolf’s heart.
Sam dropped the knife and right as he was about to check on his brother, the formerly passed out werewolf on the other side of the room picked up Dean's gun, which had been only a foot or two away from her, and shot Sam in the stomach while still lying injured on the ground. Before she could get off another shot, Dean grabbed the stake Sam had dropped and rolled on his side with a choked noise of pain, stabbing her in the chest. When she fell limp a moment later, he crawled over to Sam to start patching his wound. Ignoring his own nauseating pain, Dean scrambled for the first aid kit in one of his oversized pockets and began pressing gauze to Sam’s stomach.
“I- I got it, Dean. Go check on the couple,” Sam said, taking the first aid kit from his brother. And when Dean opened his mouth to protest, Sam kept insisting, “Dean, go.”
Dean half-crawled over to victims, and as he was expecting, both of them were dead; hearts ripped out of their chests and made into meals for the werewolves. With how cool and pale their bodies were, Dean guessed they’d been dead for a while before he and Sam got there, a few hours at least.
He crawled back over to Sam and tried to speak, but words failed him and he coughed instead, a small puddle of blood landing on the floor in front of him.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked, remembering how Dean had fallen to the ground after being hit a few minutes prior.
“It's- it's fine. I'm sure it's nothing,” Dean said, but even he knew it was a lie.
Dean sat against the wall next to Sam and peeled his blood-soaked shirt away from his skin to reveal three gashes across his abdomen. He winces at the sight of it; he wants to say it looks worse than it feels but that'd be a lie, too; he's pretty sure it feels worse than it looks.
With a shaking hand, Dean pulls his phone out of his pocket. It isn't getting any bars, but that's irrelevant right now either way. He may not need cell service to call 911, but there's no way they'd be able to find him and Sam in time, especially with how deep in the woods they are and how dark it is right now. They're on their own.
Dean would like to be optimistic. He would like to keep the hope for both of them right now, but things aren't looking good. Sam at the very least needs the bullet removed and his wound stitched closed. Dean needs the gashes on his stomach cleaned and stitched; he’d probably need antibiotics too because there's no way these aren't getting infected. But it would take a miracle for them to get those things right now, and miracles haven't really been their strong suit lately (or ever).
So Dean does the only thing he can think to do. He scoots closer to Sam, lays down next to him, and grabs his hand. He turns his head to face him and smiles; it's a look of reassurance, and Sam knows it’s fake, knows they’re screwed, but that doesn't matter. Dean is here, so it’ll be okay (it always is).
Sam coughs and chokes on something, blood, Dean is guessing, and lets out a raspy, pained sigh.
Dean brings his hand that isn't holding Sam's up to brush the sweaty hair out of his brother's face “It’s alright, Sammy. We're gonna be okay, alright?”
Sam nods. “Yeah,” he lies. They both know that even if Dean stands a chance, Sam doesn’t. He’s dying tonight.
They sit in silence for a while, and it makes Dean’s mind wander. He thinks of all the times there was an unsaid I love you, an unspoken I need you, an unrealised you’re a part of my soul and I am nothing without you.
He thinks of all the times Sammy was braver than him, stronger than him, better than him. How he was in Hell for god knows how long and came out the other side just as warm and kind and forgiving as he was before he jumped in the cage; if not more so.
He remembers a motel room, two slices of bread, and the last of the peanut butter. He remembers giving the single sandwich to Sam, fully willing and prepared to go to bed hungry so his brother could eat dinner. He remembers a ten-year-old Sam, who was now old enough to start catching on to Dean’s habit of starving himself so Sam could eat, ripping the sandwich in half and giving one piece to Dean. He had told his older brother to eat it, and when met with resistance and an attempt to give the other half of the sandwich back, said he wouldn’t eat until Dean did. That shut Dean right up.
Dean is pulled back to the present by Sam squeezing his hand. He looks over and Sam looks so pale and distant it makes Dean feel sick. Sam’s breathing is ragged and uneven, but he stays looking his big brother in the face, tears in his eyes, squeezing his hand over and over, a note of urgency in his expression.
It takes Dean a moment, but he realises there’s some sort of pattern to the way Sam is gripping his hand; one, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause.
Dean’s eyes well with tears to match Sam’s at the realisation. “It’s okay, Sammy, I got you, I got you. I love you, too. I love you, too.”
He pulls Sam close, rests his brother’s head on his shoulder, and combs his fingers through his too-long hair, shushing him and whispering reassurances. Sam lets himself relax because Dean got it, even though his body was too spent to let him speak, Dean understood (he always will).
Dean presses a kiss to Sam’s temple, just like he always did when they were kids and Dean was putting Sam to bed. That’s all this is, he tells himself. They’re just going to sleep. They’ll be okay; they’ll wake up together.
“Goodnight, Sammy,” he says, still stroking his brother’s hair. Sam doesn’t respond, his lifeless eyes closed. He stays still and silent, doesn’t whisper anything back using his last ounce of strength or move a muscle in acknowledgement.
Dean falters; it knocks the breath out of him and his heart stops because this can’t be happening, not yet, not this soon, not before Dean. Sammy was always supposed to be the one to grow old, or at least live a second longer than Dean so his older brother can hold on to the fact that he didn’t fail Sammy, that Sammy got to be bigger and taller and older than him, so that must mean Dean did something right in raising him. But he doesn’t get to have that right now. He’ll never get to have that.
“Sammy?” he chokes out, tears rolling down his bloodstained face. He presses a hand to Sam’s neck, his chest, his wrist; he listens for the sound of his breathing. Nothing. He’s gone. He’s really gone.
Please, God, he prays, clutching his brother’s hand, though he doubts anyone is listening. Please, God, let my wounds be fatal. Let me die here.
And as Dean takes his last breath, his final thoughts are of a universe so cruel he must go through the unimaginable pain of losing the person he loves most before being granted the mercy of death himself.