What Doesn't Kill You

Revelations

Sam stood in front of the door, a fist in the air, trying to work up the courage to knock. He dropped his hand for the fourth time in the past minute and took a few steps away from the door and back again, pacing. It wasn't like he was at a stranger's house, so why was he so anxious? This was Dean's apartment. He was safe here.

Gaining some resolve (for the fifth time in the past minute and a half), he tugged at his sleeves to make sure they covered his wrists, and firmly knocked on the door. No turning back now.

A woman opened the door, dressed in an oversized T-shirt, clearly meant for a man, and very short shorts. When she saw him, her face lit up in a bright smile before she said, "Well, hi there! Are you with the boy scouts?"

Sam, concerned he had the wrong apartment for a moment, nervously smiled back and peeked through the door.

"Uh, no. I'm actually looking for Dean. Dean Winchester. Does he live here?"

"Yeah, he does. How do you know Dean?" she asked, seemingly surprised.

"Sammy?"

He heard his brother's voice before he actually saw him, but when Dean rounded the corner and came into view, Sam's breath picked up. Fuck, he was terrified. Dean was shirtless and wearing jeans that hung low on his hips, unbuttoned as if he had just thrown them on.

"Sammy, what are you doing here? Where's dad? Are you okay?"

Well, that was one too many questions.

"Hello to you too, man," Sam said, only half joking and attempting to keep the smile from his face. "We were just in town for a... err -" he hesitated looking over at the girl still holding the door open. "A car convention. Anyway, dad dropped me off and said I could say hang out for a bit if you were okay with it." Yeah, John so did not drop him off.

Dean stood there for a moment, seemingly skeptical, or maybe Sam was just reading into it because he didn't want Dean to be skeptical. Either way, he hesitated and it was only making Sam more skittish.

Dean eventually took a step aside to let Sam into the apartment as he said, "Well, a heads up would've been nice, but it's good to see you, man." Dean turned to face the girl who was still holding the door open, unsure of herself now.

"Um, well, I guess I'll just go then. Wouldn't want to intrude on you guys."

"Heh, yeah, sorry about this," Dean said, obviously not too torn up about it.

"No, it's fine," she said leaning into Dean's body. "So I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, of course," Dean purred. Satisfied with his answer, she got dressed, quickly gathered her things, and scurried through the door.

Dean apologized for the mess and started moving around the room to clean up as he spoke, but the words didn't register. Sam was too caught up in his own thoughts, too self-conscious to really understand what he was saying. He could feel the onset of a panic attack coming.

He'll never understand. He'll never feel...

Sam's thoughts were interrupted by a wave of nausea and pain.

"I gotta go to the bathroom."

Dean, too distracted by washing up some dishes, didn't turn around, just gave some directions and continued with his task.

Sam hurried up the stairs in a race against the clock before he would inevitably pass out, the pain too much for his body to handle. As soon as the door shut behind him, he dropped to the floor, almost in relief, darkness taking over.

-

Dean stared at his phone, the contact number mocking him for a few minutes before he hit the call button. He really didn't want to talk to John right now, but he needed to know what the hell was going on. Sam had been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes now and wasn't answering Dean when he knocked, and the kid had been terrified walking in. He was on edge, but trying to hide it and not doing a great job of it. At least to Dean. Anybody else probably would've brushed it off their shoulders as just an introverted kid, but Dean knew his brother and something was up.

"Hello?"

"Dad, it's Dean. You with Sammy?" Dean asked, testing John.

"Dean. No, he ran off this last night. The little brat, this is the fifth time in two weeks. You see him, you call me immediately. That's an order, ya hear?"

Dean bristled at the tone in his father's voice. Something was definitely going on.

"Yeah, you got it." He hung up quickly and went for the bag he saw Sam bring in with him and had dropped before bolting up the stairs.

Rifling through the contents of his brother's bag, he paused as he found his phone in a side pocket. If anything was going to clue him in on what the hell was happening, this would be it.

He hit the power button and the screen came to life, only to have a five-digit passcode required for entry. Well, shit. Maybe this wouldn't be all that helpful at cluing him in. He tried a few different random passcodes like birthdays or just random numbers, but eventually he locked himself out of the phone for 45 seconds.

Giving up, he moved on to look in the bag again for... well, just anything at this point. After a few more seconds of rummaging through Sam's bag, he found a spiral-bound notebook with "AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism" written on the front. Totally something Dean would have skipped over and disregarded completely because, hello, science. But. His brother was clever, sometimes too clever.

Honestly, he probably would have rather this notebook actually contain notes from some stupid science class over what he actually found. Not that what he found was near as boring as class notes.

Apparently, Sam was... in love with Dean. Yeah, that was new information for sure. It took him a few minutes to actually process that information before he continued looking through the notebook. Most of the entries at the beginning were more innocent and talking about Dean, but the farther he got into it, the more things turned sour.

He turned page after page, skipping most of it having to do with him, until he got to a particularly jarring one. It was a mostly blank page except for one sentence at the top right after the date.

Dad taught me what sex is today.

He turned to the next page.

I don't like it when dad comes home drunk. He's kinda scary.

Dean dropped the notebook and ran a hand over his face and through his hair. This was so not good. He looked at the clock on the wall and realized that Sam had been in the bathroom for well over half an hour now. He took the stairs two at a time and banged his fist against the bathroom door a couple of times.

"Sammy?"

Nothing.

Dean tried the door handle, but it was locked so he took a step back and took a breath. He kicked the door using all of his body weight twice before the door slammed open and hit the sink behind it.

Sam was lying on the floor, unconscious with one strip of blood sliding down his forehead. Dean walked over to his side and bent down to check for a pulse. Once he found a pulse, he moved his brother's hair out of the way to see where the blood was coming from. He had a small scratch high on his forehead, likely from hitting the edge of the sink when he fell. Dean looked up and saw a bit of red on the edge of the sink just to be sure, and thank fuck he didn't hit the sharp edge.

Sam was pale and sweaty, and it looked like he wasn't gonna come to any time soon. Dean cleaned up the blood, picked him up bridal style, and carried him down the stairs slowly, laying him on the couch in the living room and putting a blanket and frozen pack of peas on his head.

He was so gonna kick John's ass.