ohsam | comment fic meme!

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&comment-fic meme

comment fic meme!

It's the week leading up to Sam's birthday, which means *drumroll* pain! Pain and horror and terror and illness - and ~~a wee bit of~~ comfort too!

SPREAD THE WORD

THE RULES

→ Leave a comment here with your prompt. This is a Sam-focused hurt/comfort community, so Sam should be the one in the hurt/comforted role. Your prompts may involve sick!Sam, hurt!Sam, angsty!Sam, basically anything that results in Sam being on the receiving end of hurt/comfort. (No rules against whumping other characters as well, of course, but you have to whump Sam first. ;) )
→ In your prompt, please state your desired characters or pairings. All genres/pairings welcome, but no real-person (RPF) prompts.

Example A: “Sam, Dean, gen, set in season 2. Sam has a vision and passes out. Cue caring!Dean and limp!Sam.”
Example B: “Sam/Dean, trauma. Sam is injured on a hunt, Dean freaks out when he thinks Sam might be dead.”

→ Post as many prompts as you like - but one prompt per comment. If you've got a couple, comment with each separately.
→ Prompts can be as short or detailed as you like. Remember though - more detail means less wriggle room for the writer, which might lower the chances of someone picking up your prompt.
→ Go through the prompts! If you find one you like, write a fic for it. There's no limit to how many users can reply to a prompt, or how many prompts someone can write for.
→ When replying to a prompt with your comment-fic, put ‘filled’ in your subject line and then anything else you want, like a title if you have one/part numbers. It’s not a big deal if you forget this step, but it will make it easier for people to find your fic.
→ Anon posting enabled.
→ NO SPOILERS FOR UNAIRED EPISODES.
→ Play nice - no flaming and no character bashing, period. Any comments that break this rule will be deleted without warning.
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→ Contact one of the mods if you have a question.
→ Spread the Sam love - pimp this meme!
→ Have fun!

THE MASTER LIST
(with shortened prompts - full prompts at link)

Back to Where We Were by

authoressnebula
After Sam gets his soul back, Dean's become even more mother hen than usual ... Sam can't understand why Dean's so, well ... brotherly, after their downhill relationship the last couple of years...

Creepy-Ugly by

glovered
Sam now has a Thing about cages. A jail cell is a cage.

And In My Soul, An Icy Dread Remains by

authoressnebula
Sam gets himself locked in a freezer. The memories of Hell's frozen lake. Lucifer's icy touch, all those fun things, are banging on the wall and Sam? Sam's not coping too well.

Which Way Do I Steer by

mercuryblue144
Jess was a vegan and Sam has some trouble readjusting to the hunter diet of Mountain Dew and Burger King.

Fire and Ice by

weesta
Sam gets himself locked in a freezer. The memories of Hell's frozen lake. Lucifer's icy touch, all those fun things, are banging on the wall and Sam? Sam's not coping too well.

I'll Be There For You by

cherry916
Sam has nightmares. Dean comforts him. Slash or gen.

Untitled by

erisinia
Gen. Sam is stranded in the middle of the desert. Heat stroke, dehydration, mirages.

Same Time, Same Place by

twoskeletons
Highlight to Reveal Summary - Spoilers for 6.18 [Sam & Castiel... Cas desperately needs to power up a lot and often to fight his war, and the soul of Lucifer's vessel is the most powerful one around. Sam helps him willingly, but it's still extremely unpleasant and draining.]

And Thus Was a Giant Felled by

running_hot
Tall guys constantly get roped into changing light bulbs when shorter humans would need to get a ladder -- like the bulbs in the twelve-foot kitchen ceiling at Jess's parents' house. Sam really should have known better than to stand on a swivel chair to do it.

A Sore Topic by

phx69
Highlight to Reveal Summary - Spoilers for 6.18. [Sam, who is the very definition of a novice rider, had to ride 20 miles to Colt's and 20 miles back. I would love me some saddle sore, limping Sam.]

Here It Comes, There It Goes Again by

lavishsqualor
What with detoxes and resoulings, Sam's memories of the panic room can't be good. So it's unfortunate that they are under some supernatural siege at Bobby's and retreating into the panic room and closing the door is the only way to be safe.

Better On Our Own by

si_star_x
Small fracture in a limb--not OBVIOUSLY broken, but hurts like hell, and no, you really can't use the limb. Sam gets it checked, but the first x-ray misses it.

Carried Home by

samidha
Highlight - Spoilers for 6.18. [Dean, after hearing how soul juice helps Castiel, gets the bright idea to use his own soul to help Sam with the whole wall thing ... And if that isn't Sam-hurty enough for this comm, make the process of healing Sam's soul involve remembering hell. Bonus points if the fallout from this involves le classic telepathic soul-bond.]

Visible Evidence by

authoressnebula
Sam's always spent a lot of time online, researching this and that, even when there's no immediate hunt. Dean doesn't think there's anything significant about it now. Though Sam's getting obsessed. Dean wakes up at three, four in the morning to the glow of the laptop screen and the tap of the keyboard. exhausted!sam

A Certain Beginning by

mimblexwimble
AU Pilot. As horrible as the situation is, Dean's still sort of glad to know that 22 years later he can still carry his baby sister out of a burning building, even if she's now a heavily pregnant amazon.

Shot Down in Flames by

winchesterhaunt
Highlight to reveal - spoilers for 6.18. [In the final shootout, both guns were fired. Dean's shot found it's mark. The Phoenix's shot went wide...and hit Sam.]

Hell Shall Not Wash Us Away

brosedshield
The problem with permanent damage to the soul is that death does nothing to fix it. The wall lasts through Sam's life, and he and Dean are in their shared heaven, but there begin to be cracks and fissures. Sam stumbles from happy memories into memories of hell. And because this part of heaven is actually constructed of memory, this is shaking the fabric of things. Just Dean and Sam's heaven for now, but it's going to spread. Cas has a responsibility to heaven; he's going to have to seal off this part and set it adrift. Dean has the choice to leave if he wants to before that happens, but do we really think he'll take it? Cue Dean and Sam in their own bubble apocalypse, where the islands of sanity are fewer and farther between every day.

Panic by

ratherastory
What with detoxes and resoulings, Sam's memories of the panic room can't be good. So it's unfortunate that they are under some supernatural siege at Bobby's and retreating into the panic room and closing the door is the only way to be safe.

Daydreams You Have in Hell by

wave_obscura
Sam now has a Thing about cages. A jail cell is a cage.

balance good, everything good by

de_nugis
Sam and Dean are sparring and Dean slips/misjudges and cracks one of Sam's ribs. Sam doesn't mention it.

Unravelling by

emmram
Highlight to read - spoilers for 6.18 [Castiel has become addicted to the whole soul-touching thing, and Sam's soul? That's something special he can't get enough of. That doesn't make it any more pleasant for Sam.]

Along Every Horizon by

twoskeletons
If Dean were to die on Sam now I don’t think Sam would ... fade, get killed by some random monster, not out of any suicidal drive, but just because he was having trouble paying attention to details like food or sleep or ravening creatures with lots of big, nasty teeth.

Kiss it All Better by

sakura_no_mi
Sam and Dean are having sex and it goes all wrong. Sam falls off the bed and then manages to slam his head against the head board when he and Dean try again. Dean feels guilty and goes overboard in trying to help him recover.

You Have One Saved Message by

killabeez
After Sam gets his phone back, it's time for a new one. The phone company's awesome enough to retrieve his contacts, his address book, his games, his photos, oh, and one voicemail he's had saved for what's now going on almost three years. Dean gets a hold of the new phone with all of this stuff first. Dean hears The Voicemail first. Dean is so not cool with it. Because to keep an email for beyond fourteen days, someone's gotta keep listening to it and making it fresh and resetting the delete date. Which means Sam's still been listening to it.

nothing left to lose by

sikeminatural
When Sam is pulled from Hell by some unknown force (up to the author) a year after the showdown, he has his soul and goes to find Dean who is not living with Lisa but alone, and still hunting. Dean takes him in but its easy to see that Dean depsises Sam, he beats him, verbally abuses him, uses his memories of Hell to hurt him and blames Sam for everything that has happened. Sam becomes brainwashed and at first fights back but then starts to accept it. Would love if Cas or Bobby come and save Sam and make Dean see the error of his ways!

Never Buy Yellow Shoes by

tversan
Sam buys a pair of cursed shoes that squeeze his precious little feet. He hobbles around, unable to take the wretched things off and they seem to get smaller and smaller the more he tries.

Heart of Stone by

mamapranayama
A curse slowly turns Sam into stone. Frist his feet, then his legs - working its way up until he's completely motionless, cold hard rock. Your descision whether or not he's accompanied, whether the curse is broken, or whether he's simply left to turn to stone alone.

Some Guys Have All the Luck by

si_star_x
Gen. S1-S3. Sam passes a Kidney Stone... or a series of them (your choice whether there's only one or several of them) -- and possibly has a kidney infection on top of it. Just give me whimper-y, tear-y Sam trying to piss and failing and the little he manages to pass is bloody and feels like shards of burning glass.

Let it Bleed by

sakura_no_mi
Sam got into a fight (with a person or a monster), he's roughened up a bit, sore, bruised, scratched and dirty, and he really, really doesn't have any strength left. Dean drags him (carries, really) to a motel room, undresses him, grabs a wet washcloth and starts to clean him up in silence. His touches go from caring to sensuous to heated while all the time being very slow, deliberate and careful. Sam lies there and takes it, mesmerized by his brother's touch, his breath catching and heart beating faster.

To Die For a Memory by

authressnebula
Season five. Sam is captured by a Djiin or some similar creature that keeps its prey docile by trapping them in a mental prison. Whatever the brain spits up as a treasured, wonderful memory becomes the gilded prison that keeps you docile and too happy to fight back. Dean saves the day and kills the creature, but Sam won't wake up. Desperate, Dean whips up some dreamroot tea and goes in after him.

Out of the Dark by

samidha
Sam accidentally gets trapped in the panic room for reasons up to the author. Dean doesn't find him until Sam's in the midst of a flashback with Accusing!Dean and doesn't recognize real!Dean. Dean has to talk him back to reality.

Fade, Far Away, Dissolve, and Quite Forget by

minviendha
Gen or Wincest AU of "The End"- In "The End" when Dean tells Sam that they should stay away from one another, Sam takes it to heart. He cuts off all ties with Bobby and any other mutual acquaintances in order to avoid inadvertently having contact with Dean. Not because he doesn't WANT to see Dean (he does) but he knows that Dean doesn't want to see HIM, and he's pretty sure he's a curse to anyone who cares about him. So it's just better that he disappear.

All is Fine by

moviegeek03
Teen!Chesters. Dean's away on a hunt with Caleb and with Dean gone there's no buffer between Sam and John. Sam isn't meaning to be all angsty and rebelling against his Dad but the new school he's in he's having a hard time because he's getting bullied almost constantly and it's hard hiding bruises and cuts from his Dad but he manages somehow. He didn't want to tell Dean because he doesn't want to appear weak in his eyes and he sure as hell doesn't want to tell his Dad because he knows what his Dad will say No son of mine just get's bullied. Cue John not being a total dick but somehow finding out what Sam's been going through and comforts him/takes care of the problem.

He Ain't Heavy by

beamin_sunshine
After getting his soul back, or maybe after a couple seizures, Sam wakes up in Dean's bed, which is definitely not where he was when he went to sleep. Sam is embarrassed, even though Dean doesn't really mind all that much. But then it keeps happening, with Sam never remembering getting up. Now Dean's starting to get a little annoyed because, as much as he loves the kid, Sam is not the best person to share a bed with, he moves around and makes noises and clings, so Dean gets him his own hotel room, just so he can get some sleep for once. But even that doesn't keep Sam away. As mangled as his soul is, once the brain is shut down, it's going to go find it's mate. Gen, please.

Big Things, Small Packages by

winchesterhaunt
2.06, No Exit. H.H. Holmes doesn't usually take men, but he is getting dangerously close to his lair. Sam's trapped in a space nearly to tight for him to turn his head. His knees ache from being crammed up against the top, his scalp is bleeding, he's pretty sure his wrist is messed up worse, there's a hysterical woman with him for company, and all he can do is wait and hope for Dean and Jo to find him.

Points of Authority by

kiscinca
So the boys have just gotten back together after taking a break, and they're already arguing with each other, or really, Dean's arguing with Sam while Sam's attempting to not argue but still getting pissed off at Dean. Then Dean throws down the trump card: that Castiel was the one who saved Dean, not Sam. Sam was obviously too busy screwing Ruby.

Really Bad Day at Black Rock by

gwendolynd
Dean has to cut off one of Sam's limbs.

Just One of Those Weeks by

authoressnebula
Sam is having a really, really, really, crappy week and just needs a hug...

To Die for a Memory

authoressnebula
Sam is captured by a Djiin or some similar creature that keeps its prey docile by trapping them in a mental prison. Whatever the brain spits up as a treasured, wonderful memory becomes the gilded prison that keeps you docile and too happy to fight back. Dean saves the day and kills the creature, but Sam won't wake up. Desperate, Dean whips up some dreamroot tea and goes in after him. He finds Sam reliving the same memory over and over again - the two of them as kids, playing hooky from training, laying out in a field of grass on a summer day watching clouds and wrestling and just being BROTHERS.

Until Death Do Us Part by

phx69
I don't care what the situation. I just want Dean carrying Sam bridal style.

All Waters Have the Color of Drowning by

minviendha
Meg captures the boys -- somehow -- and decides to have some fun with them -- because she's crazy. And as she goes to work on Sam, she somehow accidentally triggers a Hell seizure. Her reaction: Ooh, Sammy. Twice the bang for the buck. Let's do that again!

Aim, Shoot, Repeat by

authoressnebula
"There's a pattern in the system,
there's a bullet in the gun.
That's why I tried to save you,
but it can't be done.
It can't be done."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

By the time they got to the station the cop was shaking his head. “I’ll convince Junior to drop the assault charge,” he told Dean, because Sam was supposedly incoherently drunk. “You keep your brother out of trouble from now on, ya hear? Tell him his twins need him. Bottle ain’t gonna solve none of his problems.”

The cop had them processed and thrown in the drunk tank together until morning. It wasn’t perfect, but it beat being stuck in separate cells for 24 hours or more.

In the drunk tank, Dean beamed with big-brotherly pride. “Excellent performance, dude. Well done.”

Sam smiled, but it was a smile like something hurt. He crossed his arms and sat down on the bench so close to Dean that their shoulders and knees were touching. A drop of sweat fell from his hairline.

The drunk tank was thankfully fairly empty, just Sam and Dean, some guy sleeping on the floor under the opposite bench, and a young kid spitting bile into the floor drain. A loudly ticking clock hung on the wall outside the cell.

The bile-spitter eyeballed them. “You got any smokes?”

“We don’t smoke,” Dean said.

“Assholes,” the bile-spitter replied.

Dean opened his mouth, closed it again. He felt Sam’s hand around his wrist, trembling. “What’s wrong?” Dean pushed Sam’s hair out of his face. His skin was clammy.

“When are they gonna let us out of here?”

“What’s wrong? That fucking guy hurt you somewhere?”

Sam scrubbed his face and dug two fingers into his temple. He took a long breath, straightened up and looked somewhat normal again. “I just wanna know when we get outta here.”

“Round eight o’clock would be my guess,” Dean said. “Few hours.”

“I don’t wanna be in here.” Sam knocked his knee against Dean’s, swallowed, arched his back. The gesture reminded Dean of all those times-- too many times-- Sam had been injured without proper pain medication. Sitting around all night helpless while his little brother writhed in pain.

He patted Sam down for injury, starting with his belly where he was hugging at himself. Sam let him, but maybe because he wasn’t all there. He had his chin to the ceiling, head rolling slowly from one shoulder to the other. His eyes were just barely open, just enough for tears to leak under his lashes.

“Sam,” Dean demanded, “tell me where you’re hurt.”

“Nowhere you can touch,” Sam muttered, and surprised Dean by smiling. The tears dripped into the corners of his mouth.

And then it wasn’t a smile anymore. Dean didn’t know what to call it, but it was vastly, terrifyingly miserable. Icy despair flooded his insides. “Sam? What...?”

“I’m never gonna get out of here,” Sam said. His eyes rolled to the ceiling, then into his head. One hand reached out at nothing. His chest heaved, too fast, too fast. “Never. Dean. Never.”

Dean tried to catch his brother’s arm; Sam tugged it away with a whine. It was noise almost from his performance has Sam-the-failed-car-salesmen-with-cheating-wife-and-autistic-twins, and for a fleeting moment Dean thought maybe-- hoped, even, that Sam was playing some kind of fucked up joke.

“What the hell are you talking about? Sammy? Tell me what’s wrong.”

Sam began to shiver. The sweat disappeared from his body and his teeth were clattering.

“What’s wrong with him?” The bile-spitter in the corner said.

“Shut up,” Dean snarled. He ran his hands up and down Sam’s arms. “I need help.” He raised his voice to roar. “I NEED SOME FUCKING HELP IN HERE.”

He shouldn’t be calling for help. They’d want to put Sam in the hospital, his symptoms were unexplainable, they might make Dean stay here in this fucking cell while they rushed Sam off alone.

The cop, the same cop who brought them in, came sauntering into the room. He was obviously used to hysterics. By this time Sam was convulsing with shivers, he had his face in Dean’s shoulder and was muttering into his sleeve. He kept wanting to flail his arms; Dean kept them pinned in his own lap.

“He needs out of this cell,” Dean said to the cop. “Please-- being trapped... he can’t handle...”

Dean trailed off. It was an explanation that made sense to him, of course, but to a cop? Probably the stupidest thing a man ever said to try to get out of jail.

The cop put his face closer to the cell and raised his eyebrows. Off in the corner, the bile-spitter heaved and vomited loudly into the drain. “Your boys gotta a flair for drama, don’t ya? You keep him calm or I’ll have to isolate him.”

He disappeared again. Sam’s lips were turning blue. He skin was cold. His shivering shook Dean to his bones.

“I’d get so cold in the cage, my body was all ice,” Sam whispered. His eyes rolled in his head. “Crumble apart if I moved too quick. Scratch my head? All my fingers would break off. Then my whole hand. They’d laugh, while I crumbled like that. They laughed, I crumbled.”

He freed his shaking hand from Dean’s grip and held it up for Dean to see. “Melting was bloody,” he said, and his face collapsed. “Dean, I need out. I need out. I need out.”

“Shhh,” Dean said. He wrapped himself around Sam. Sam was big but he had a way of disappearing into Dean when he needed to, he would shrink right up. He fit just right against Dean’s chest and stopped shaking just a little bit. “This isn’t the cage, Sammy. You know that. And I got you, okay? Not him. Me. Dean. Okay? Me.”

Sam moved against Dean’s chest in what he guessed was a nod. “Not as cold as I feel.”

“No. Just a little while, Sam, and we’re free, okay? Just a little while.”

Dean held his brother, and tried not to think about what he said. The cold. Body turned to ice, crumbling. Probably while Michael and Lucifer stood over him, laughed at his fear. Dean knew better than anybody that being in agony was one thing-- having it mocked, having someone reduce your fear to a game-- that was entirely different. Entirely more terrible.

Beneath him Sam jumped. He fought his way out of Dean’s grip. His eyes were wild, but tired. “I feel like it’s gonna happen again.”

“What?” Dean said, but he already knew. A seizure. A hell memory. Minutes like weeks.

“No. No no no... look at the clock,” Dean took his brother by the jaw, maybe less gently than he should have, and point his face to the clock outside the cell. “Watch the second hand. It’ll keep moving. And then we’ll be free, okay? Just a little while, Sam. You can hold on.”

Sam laid against Dean once more, kept his sagging eyes on the clock. “I need out, Dean,” he whispered.

“I know. I know, and we’re gonna. Just a little while.”

They watched the clock. Dean counted the seconds. Sam shivered until his muscles jumped and spasmed with fatigue. Dean burned with rage. If that fucking cop-- any of these fucking cops knew what Sam had done for them, for all of them, if they’d ever experienced the sound of laughter mixed with indescribable pain, watched in abject horror as their own flesh rotted away from their bones--

“HEY,” Dean called. He rested a hand over Sam’s ear. “OFFICER FRIENDLY!”

The cop came back, blank-faced, chewing on a ballpoint pen. He wasn’t a bad guy, Dean could tell. Just bored with an endless parade of drunks. He looked at Dean with fatigue, and Dean looked at him with desperation.

He had no plan. He stared at the cop, Sam shivered against him, and he had no plan to get out.

“He went to hell for you,” Dean found himself saying. He sounded insane. He knew he sounded insane, but he kept talking, “He burned, froze, bled in hell for a hundred years.”

The cop sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “Are we gonna have a problem?”

Dean tried several scenarios in his head. He could lure the cop closer to the bars, break his fingers or knock him out. He could try to convince the cop that Sam was having a medical emergency and needed an ambulance, break the EMT’s fingers and knock him out. He could threaten to kill the bile-spitter unless the cop let them free.

But there would only be more cops, more guns, more cages.

“No,” Dean said, “We don’t have a problem.”

The cop looked relieved. He gave them one last suspicious glance, then turned and left.

Dean pulled Sam a little closer. “Just a little while longer, buddy, alright?”

Sam moved so his face was buried in Dean’s neck. His breath was cold. His fingers clutched painfully at Dean’s bicep.

“Lucifer was good to me for a while,” he whispered. “Almost twenty years. He held me too. He said the punishment was over. He said it was over and when I finally relaxed... I almost believed him, Dean. And then he ripped me open. He made me slurp the bile out of my intestines. I know the flavor of my own guts.”

“So do I. Don’t. Sammy. Please.”

For so long Dean had wanted Sam to talk about it. But he couldn’t handle it, he knew that now. Because in the back of his throat he could still taste his own insides. It would taint anything he put in his mouth for the rest of his life.

“You’re okay, Sammy. And I’m okay. And tomorrow morning we’re gonna walk and then no more cages, okay? Ever.”

Sam took a rattling breath. He was trying hard to hold on. “Don’t let me pass out, Dean. I’ll go there.”

“I’m not gonna let you pass out.”

“How much longer?”

“Just a little while. It’s okay. We’re okay. You’re with me, Sammy. Not him. Not him. You’re with me. We just got in a bar fight, and you were awesome, Sam, you totally saved my ass, and that performance you gave that cop? That was--”

That was it.

“Tell me about your made up wife, Sammy,” Dean said, his heart pounding with hope. “Tell me about your cheating, made up wife.”

He thought maybe he saw Sam smile. “She cheated on me.”

“What else? Come on, Sam. What else?”

“She has a blond perm. I hate it. I think she did it for her boyfriend.”

“Who’s her boyfriend?”

This time Sam definitely smiled. “My brother. My no good brother.”

“Really? Come on, man--”

“--not you. You’re my good brother. His name is Dave. He’s a total dick.”

“Tell me more about Dave.”

And on and on they went. Sam met his wife at a farmer’s market one fateful spring afternoon. There was a cloud burst and she offered to share her umbrella. It was love at first sight. She adored football and he was a fanatic. They dressed like Lois and Clark for Halloween.

But everything changed when the twins were born. She didn’t want to believe they had a condition. She didn’t want to believe they were anything less than perfect.

“I told her,” Sam said sleepily, his forehead still pressed against Dean’s neck, “I told her ‘they are perfect.’ But they also need help.’”

It destroyed their marriage. She slept with his brother. He slept with a woman he met in a support group.

By the time the jail cell gate clattered open, Sam was closing down his car lot and declaring bankruptcy. Dean looked at the hanging clock. They had made it. He couldn’t fucking believe they made it.

He helped Sam stand. He was white like death and his knees were shaking. He regarded the bars of the cell like they might eat him alive. Dean kept an arm around his back.

“You did awesome,” he told Sam. “I don’t know where you come up with this shit.”

Sam looked very, very tired. But he smiled. “Embarrassing, what you daydream about in hell. The more mundane, the more cliche, the better.”

Dean nodded. “Dude. You don’t even want to know what I daydreamed about in hell.”

They stepped out into the sun. Sam sighed with vast relief, and Dean sighed, too. They just stood. Dean had a million things he wanted to say, didn’t want to say, didn’t want to think about.

“Maybe we’ll stay outta jail for a while, huh?” he said to Sam.

Sam laughed, or maybe burst into tears, Dean couldn’t tell which.

“Yeah, maybe so.”

:::

The end.

There’s a reason you aren’t supposed to hit a guy in the jewels. Sam develops a hernia after the events of Changing Channels and Dean thinks it’s hilarious…until it requires surgery.

Eee! \o/

Sam came back from the library as the sun sank low over the trees. He crossed the motel parking lot without watching where he was going, head bent over his printout, and almost took a header on the two-inch-high sidewalk that ran in front of the door to their room.

He regained his balance and let out a sigh. The Impala was parked right next to him, covered in a thin layer of road dust, and what were the odds Dean hadn't seen that? The way Dean had been watching him lately, probably about as good as the odds that Sam would grow a third head overnight.

Sam paused, and mentally took that back. The way their lives tended to go? That was definitely not the kind of thing you wanted to think lightly.

He steeled himself to be mocked as he walked through the door, so it caught him by surprise to find Dean sitting at the table staring into space with something clasped between his hands, a look on his face that was anything but mocking.

* * *

"Hey," Sam said, a question in his voice as he stopped on the threshold. Dean blinked, for what might have been the first time in a while. He'd been zoned out, going dark places in his head for long enough that the sun was almost down, and he was sitting in the near-dark.

"Hey," Dean said, his voice hoarse from disuse. He swallowed. "Picked up your new phone," he said.

"Thanks," Sam said, but hesitated. Dean could tell he knew something was wrong, but he hadn't figured out what; he stood inside the door, holding himself like he might have to defend himself, but from what, he wasn't sure. It broke Dean a little further, made him want to put his head between his knees and scream, or punch himself in the forehead, or something drastic.

"Think I got something on how we can summon her," Sam said, testing the waters. It was the queen bitch of all that was evil in the world he was talking about, but at the moment, Dean couldn't bring himself to care.

Dean's eyes fell to the brand new smart phone in his hands. It was state-of-the-art, all the bells and whistles. His geek brother was probably going to have a nerdgasm over it. Dean could picture it; it was the main thing he'd been thinking about the whole time he pretended to listen to the sales guy give him the spiel. Sam's old phone was past due for an upgrade, anyway, and by the time they got Samuel Colt's care package, it had been a hundred and fifty years out of contract.

* * *

"Good news," the guy had told him, while Dean half-listened and smiled at a cute brunette he'd seen checking him out from across the store. "Looks like your brother backed everything up recently. I can restore his contacts and voicemails, text messages—"

"Awesome," Dean told him, thinking that Sam only had two numbers in there that mattered, three if you counted Dean's backup phone, and it wasn't like his brother was getting a lot of texts from hot chicks these days. But whatever, Sam would probably be thrilled not to lose the half a hundred numbers of victims who'd helped them out and friends from Stanford he was never gonna call.

That thought put Dean off flirting for a minute or two, and by the time he looked up again, the brunette had left. Too bad, Dean thought without much regret, and left with Sam's new phone, all loaded up and ready to go.

He'd wandered the mall for a few minutes, half hoping to see the girl again, but his heart wasn't in it. Malls were to Dean Winchester the way the desert was to a shark—which was to say, alien and suffocating after more than three minutes or so. He felt about a hundred percent better when he got back to his car, the afternoon sun streaming in as he slid behind the wheel.

That was when Sam's phone had chimed, syncing up to his account and doing its thing. Dean glanced at it, a thought half-formed about loading the thing up with dozens of ridiculous ring tones before he handed it over. It was what he would have done, before, and lately he'd been realizing that there was nothing stopping them from getting as much of that back as they were willing to try for. Anything seemed possible, now, for the first time in longer than Dean cared to remember.

That's what he'd been thinking about when his eyes fell on the alert that had popped up on the screen: one voicemail. Play?

Dean put the key in the ignition. But for some reason, his eyes stayed on the phone. He reached out and turned it toward him, so he could read the screen better.

The number looked familiar. Dean frowned a little, trying to place it. Wasn't Bobby's number, not with that area code. Wasn't Dean's either—except, yeah, that was it. It had been one of Dean's, but a couple years back. Before Lisa and Ben. Before everything.

That was weird. Dean sat still, staring at it. His heart had started to beat heavily in his chest, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up for no good reason.

He thought back to what the sales guy had said. They'd restored everything from a server somewhere, some account Sam kept to back everything up to because he was just that OCD. Which meant Sam had saved this on purpose, whatever it was. Not just once, but every time he'd done a backup in the last—what? At least two years? Dean had lost that phone some time after he and Sam had hooked up again in Missouri, after Dean spent three months trying to pretend they were any good to anyone apart.

Why would Sam keep a voicemail from Dean from back then? he wondered. Dean had thought about calling him a hundred times during those months they were separated, but he'd never done it. He remembered that much. He would have gnawed his hands off before he'd have dialed Sam's number in those days, no matter how bad he wanted to. Because of how bad he'd wanted to.

The phone was in Dean's hand, his thumb hovering over the button. Sam would be pissed, if he knew what Dean was about to do, and it was probably nothing. Dean told himself that, and tried to believe it.

But Dean knew Sam, knew this was one of his little secrets, and he'd lived a lifetime of knowing when Sam was keeping something from him. It didn't matter how trivial it was, he couldn't take it, not now. Not when things had been good between them for the first time in so damn long.

Alone in the car, sweating in his jacket, he pressed the button, and held the phone to his ear.

"First saved message," a recorded voice said. And then Dean heard his own voice, so harsh and unforgiving, he almost didn't recognize it. "Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam. A vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back."

A beep sounded. Dean found himself staring at the phone as if it were poisonous, as if he'd somehow picked up a snake by accident. Or a grenade.

Save? Delete? it asked him.

"What the hell?" Dean said aloud. But staring at the phone didn't make things any clearer.

He'd never said that. Never. Not even at their worst would he have—

Dean's stomach heaved. He pressed the back of one fist to his mouth, breathing deep through his nose to keep from losing it. He was shaking.

Save? Delete?

"You gotta be kidding me," Dean said, but as much as he wanted to believe this was some kind of a sick joke, the screen stared back at him in calm black and white. "You gotta be fucking kidding me—" Every instinct he had told him to hit Delete, but he had to know. He chose Save, and then touched the icon that would show him the date of the message: May 1st, 2009.

Dean stared at the date for a moment, then closed his hand around the phone in a fist and slammed it into the steering wheel in futile, impotent fury, three years too late. "Fucking angels," he swore, and at the moment it was the worst profanity he could think of. If he could have, he would have killed Zachariah all over again, fed him piece by piece to a pack of Hellhounds, or worse.

* * *

"Dean."

Dean came back to himself with a dull jolt, realizing he'd been staring at the phone in his hands for far too long.

"Dude," Sam said, "you're scaring me. What is it?" He came a step closer, but didn't turn on the light. He moved like Dean was a wild animal he was afraid to spook—a rabid dog who might turn on him at any moment. How many times? Dean wondered, the same thing he'd been asking himself for two hours, now. How many times had Sam played that message and believed it was real? How many days had they sat beside each other in the car from morning to night, bitched at each other and eaten every meal together, joked together, hunted together, had each other's backs—and then spent the night in some motel where Sam had sat ten feet from him and listened to Dean threatening to kill him? Calling him a monster and a freak with nothing but loathing and disgust in his voice?

Dean didn't know how to fix this. It was damage three years done, scored over and over into Sam's psyche, and somehow Sam had reconciled it with the fact that he had to keep going, keep hunting, keep watching Dean's back like it was some kind of freaking penance—

"It wasn't me," Dean said, and his voice came out stilted, as alien-sounding as the recording.

"What?"

Dean reached out without looking at him, offering him the phone like it was burning him, and all he wanted was for Sam to take it out of his hand. Sam took it. And finally Dean looked up, suddenly needing to make Sam understand this one thing more than he needed air to breathe. "Sammy. It wasn't me. I know—" His voice betrayed him, but he rushed ahead because he had to get this out. "I know you got no reason to believe me, after all this time, but you have to, okay? You have to."

Sam got it. Dean saw when it happened, when Sam took the phone and made the leap of understanding. Of course he did. He was a smart guy, and this was his thing, getting his geek on for technology and the way it made life so easy these days. The way it made sure you never lost anything important, even if you left your phone in 1861 and had to replace it a hundred and fifty years after the fact. The way it made sure you could save a recording of the one family member you had left threatening to kill you—for all eternity, if you wanted to. If you were Sam, and you thought you deserved that.

Dean was on his feet, then, because he couldn't sit still for this. He couldn't. "Sam. Look at me."

And Sam did, but Dean could hardly stand the look on his face. "Dean, you don't have to—"

"Shut up, okay?" Dean said, and he thought he might break apart if Sam didn't believe him. He took a breath, and it felt like there were shards of glass in his chest. "It was a trick. That voicemail, that wasn't me." Sam shook his head, falling back a step, like he'd rather be anywhere but here, but Dean moved with him and grabbed hold of him, holding him still. "No. You look at me. If you ever trusted me, if you only ever believe one thing I tell you again, then believe this much. I could never say something like that. Never. Okay? Not even when I was so pissed at you I couldn't see straight. You're still my brother. You always will be."

GAH. Really?
You are as of this second my favorite person.
I definitely WILL stay tuned.
I did something vaguely similar in a story that is as of now unposted that I wrote for a prompt for hoodietime where both the boys wind up in the hospital, but obviously the prompt asked for more of a focus on Dean, so I couldn't go too far with the Sam whump and confused doctors....but that's why I prompted it, right, so I could get my fill of Sam whump.
Anyway, can't wait! ^__^
Is it okay for me to still leave the prompt up though? I understand if you want me to take it down.

Sam stared at him for a long, awful moment that felt like being under the knife. It still happened like that sometimes. Not nearly as bad as when it was Robo-Sam looking back at him, but the wall in Sam's head wasn't just a metaphor. Sometimes Dean looked in his eyes and was reminded all over again that there was so much Sam didn't remember. Sometimes, he thought it didn't stop at the moment Sam stepped into the Pit. He'd more or less accepted that, because it was so goddamned worth it to have the real Sam back, whole and alive and at his side, but that didn't mean it didn't squeeze at his guts sometimes, knowing Sam could slip away from him at any moment. That Dean might never know just how much of himself Sam had sacrificed that day. That maybe it was too good to be true.

This was one of those moments. Dean laid the truth out for him and Sam looked at him like he was possessed, like this was the trick, and he couldn't let himself believe it because if he did—

Sam's eyes shone suddenly, in a way Dean hadn't seen since that year after Dean made his deal. "Really?" Sam said in a small voice.

Dean wanted to shake him. Like it wasn't enough that Dean had sold his soul for him, that he'd made a wager with Death to get him back, that he would walk through Hell and Heaven and every place in between to keep Sam with him, Sam still couldn't believe he deserved to have anything good. To have anyone love him.

"Really," Dean told him, putting all of his conviction into it, every mile of the hard road he'd taken to be able to say that and mean it without reservation. "And if you think otherwise, then you're as stupid as I always said you were."

He meant it to come out pissed, to let Sam know he didn't appreciate his brother being so goddamned thick in the head, so Sam wouldn't ever believe some bullshit trick like that again. But the small, desperate, hopeful look on Sam's face undid him. It'd been so long since he'd seen Sam want anything like that, never mind something for himself. Sam had been honest to a fault since he'd gotten his soul back, and he'd been trying, God knew, to be there in every way that mattered. Dean knew he had. It counted for a lot. With Dean, who would have been happy to have him back even if he lied and faked it till the cows came home, it counted for almost everything.

But it wasn't the same as having Sam look at him like Dean was everything he'd ever wanted, like hearing Dean tell him they were still brothers was some kind of miracle he could barely believe in.

"Jesus Christ, Sammy," Dean heard himself say, and before he knew he meant to, he reached out and pulled Sam into his arms. "Don't look at me like that. Seriously. You're gonna piss me off."

Sam didn't fight it. He bowed his head and held on tight, a sob breaking out of him that gutted Dean to the quick. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft and high with feeling.

"And don't say you're sorry, for fuck's sake. Jesus."

Dean shut up, then, because if he kept talking, Sam wasn't gonna be the only one making a mess of things. There's nothing you could do that would make me not love you, he wanted to say, and he wished like hell he was the kind of guy who could say things like that, just once.

Instead, he let Sam do his thing, holding on like a freaking giant octopus and getting Dean's neck and shoulder wet, until it was long past the point of embarrassing and well into unmanly, in a permanently ego-damaging sense.

The last of the day faded out of the sky. It was getting dark in their motel room, the shadows deepening, but the thought that came into Dean's head wasn't that this was weird, or that they should stop, but that no one could see them, here, in this nondescript room in the middle of nowhere. It was just him and Sam, like it always had been, and as many times as they'd clung to each other literally and figuratively when there was nothing and nobody else to hold on to, this didn't feel like that. It felt instead like all those other times were practice for this, for the moment when they were allowed to acknowledge everything they were to each other, everything they'd been through and everything they'd fought for, and believe it was real.

~ end ~

So I did a quick-'n'-dirty fill for you. Hope you like it. :)

Panic (http://ratherastory.livejournal.com/164779.html)

Thank you so so much! Love that you enjoyed the subtleness of the Wincest... :)

Really, thanks a ton! <3

In the Ancient Greek Underworld, bad people (or people who offended the gods) were tortured forever in Tartarus (which wasn't a demon factory, you have to give it that much); good people (or people the gods liked) lived it up in the Elysian Fields; everyone else wandered around aimlessly in the Fields of Asphodel. Said wandering aimlessly was facilitated by giving them water from the River Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, which made them forget they had anything to do but wander around aimlessly.

So... Lethe makes you forget, or at least forget to care about, the past. And it's meant for use on shades, not living people, so it might not even have an effect on a living body.

Sam's body was only in Hell for a few days, Earth-time. Giving his soul amnesia might (according to theory) not affect his memory of anything his body experienced. It might or might not (no one knows) muck up some of his reactions a la Souless Sam, but his soul would be intact so he'd be able to feel and able to learn. It might or might not have who knows what other side effects -- but it would erase the suffering and crazymaking material behind the Wall.

Of course, it's from a river in the Greek underworld, and the more things that leak past the Wall to be experienced whilst embodied, the less effective it will be...

Er... long prompt. Sorry.

OMG, I didn't think anyone would pick this one up. I have a morbid love for death fics and aftermath of death fics. The bleakness here is perfect, the way Sam is trying to keep himself tethered to reality, to his promise to Dean, to life, but he just keeps drifting off. And the empty, desert space where Dean's ashes aren't as the empty center of Sam and of the story, just perfect.

=D That was awesome! Thanks so much! Oh the hilarity!

Thank you! I'm so happy you liked it =)

THANK YOU! One thing I want in canon, so, so much, is for someone to shake Sam (like, literally) and remind him that he did a whole hell of a good thing and saved the world and that they're proud of him. Telling him the bad stuff wasn't all his fault isn't going to help him as much as reminding him that some of the good stuff WAS his fault.

Also, exhausted Sam with circles under his eyes will never not be a good thing.

One morning, when ~~Gregor Samsa~~ Sam woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

I think Paul had a hernia when he was younger, I could get some inside-info. LOL.
Somebody should write this. *nod*

I'm glad you liked it. I feel bad for hurting Sam, but... he's just too adorable and pouty not too.

*Dances, smooshes Sam*

Oh, please. Please.

Aw!!! I will NEVER tire of The Voicemail fics, and I love how perfectly saving this voicemail of guilt works with a Sam doing penance.

Also, thanks for making a gen version!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW that adorable :D

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Filled: Panic (Sam, Dean, others, totally gen.)

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Use Water of Lethe

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