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There is a heaviness in the bathroom that can't be shifted. It blankets the room and its two occupants, wrapped around their shoulders, threatening to coil around their necks, suffocating them.
Dean turns the tap off once the basin is full of hot water, collecting the flannel and squeezing out the excess. He takes longer than needs be, letting the beads of water drop over his bruised knuckles, hears them cascade back into the sink, ripples spreading out within the porcelain walls.
Sam's sat on the edge of the tub, hood up, head down. The hood hasn't come down once since they left, hiding a multitude of sins forced onto her. The sight breaks Dean's heart. He drops down to one knee, looking up at her. "Ready?"
Sam's slow in raising her head, showcasing the array of injuries against her pale skin. Her eye has darkened greatly over the course of the three hour drive, now black and purple where it was previously pools of red. Her bottom lip is busted, bloody and swollen. She shrugs her shoulder, neither a yes nor a no.
The first contact from the flannel to her skin provokes a hiss and she moves her face away, eyes squeezed shut. Dean watches as his sister tries to calm her breathing, her hand pulsing, fingers folding inwards, then stretching outwards.
She is far too young to feel this pain, to experience this.
Dean has failed what he promised himself; that she would never suffer at the hands of their father like he had.
"Kay," Sam's voice is small, "go on."
Dean starts the cleaning again, his guilt worsening with every stroke against Sam's skin. He can't get the scene out of his head. Dean should've known. Should've taken Sam sooner. But their father was meant to be gone for a week, not just two days. Every other time has been fine. Sam hasn't had to be someone she's not.
"All done," Dean announces, heart somehow heavier than it has been all night. The flannel is retired to the sink, towel taken from its holder and gently, cautiously, ran over Sam's face.
"Do we have any painkillers?" Sam asks as Dean snaps an ice pack, taking it from him to apply to her eye.
"Yeah, in my bag. Come on." Dean stands, putting a hand to Sam's shoulder. He guides her into the bedroom, lets her sit on her bed as he gets her some pills and some water.
The silence returns as she takes the pills, finishing the water with another sip, the glass tinking as it's placed on the side table. Just as Dean is slipping back into his thoughts—back into guilt and remorse, Sam speaks again.
"What happens now?"
Were Dean not able to see her, from her voice alone he'd think her a young child. There is a vulnerability and… Dean can't identify what the other one is for a moment, what else lurks in her voice, and then it hits him.
Trust.
As always.
"We'll get to Bobby's by noon tomorrow," Dean explains, finally sitting beside his sister on the edge of her bed. "We've got three weeks until the semester starts, so I reckon-"
"Dean."
"We aren't going back," Dean says, an air of finality about it. "We're done. He's done."
Sam shakes her head, only to whimper at the pain it causes her eye. She brings a hand up to it then, fingertips gently prodding the sensitive skin as if checking it's still there, before her ice pack is reapplied. Not by herself, but by Dean.
He slips a hand around her back, resting his hand on her hip and has her lean into him. For a moment he thinks she'll fight it, but that's quickly proven wrong as she fully leans her weight into him. "You can finish high school," he says, the cold of the pack biting into his hand. "We stay with Bobby for a bit, and then I'll get us on our feet. Bobby's already said I can have a few hours a week with him. Hey, maybe we can get a dog. I'll even let you name it after one of your book characters."
The response Dean wants Sam to have is simple. A laugh, a snort, hell, he'd even be pleased with her rolling her eyes (well, eye) at him. Unfortunately for him, what he gets is,
"He's going to follow us, Dean. You took Baby, you punched him, you-"
Dean is more than well versed in his sister's panic attacks to spot oncoming ones. "Hey, hey." He slips onto the floor, looking up at her as his knees dig into the floor through his worn jeans. Dean takes her hands, running his thumbs over the back of them. "I've always looked after us, haven't I?"
"That's not the point, he-"
"Sam," Dean interrupts, ignoring the glare she gives him. "Answer my question. Have I, or have I not, always looked after us?"
Sam adverts her gaze to their hands, inhaling through her nose. "Yes."
"Correct. So, what makes this time different?" Dean waits for a beat to pass before he continues, "Nothing. Nothing is different, Sam. I've looked after you my entire life, from that night back in Kansas, to right this moment, and beyond."
"It doesn't mean he won't try and find us," Sam whispers. "He's probably pissed, Bobby's is the first place he's gonna look, he'll find us, I'm only seventeen Dean, I can't legally-"
"Hey," Dean cuts her off again. "Listen to me, Sam." He waits until she finds the courage to look up from her lap, greeting her with a reassuring smile when she does. "You're never going back. Not to that motel room, or on a hunt, or anywhere with him. If you want to make things legal, if you want to go down the emancipation route, then we'll do that."
Sam swallows thickly. "I've turned our lives upside down."
"You've done no such thing." Dean stands again, resuming his position beside her, arm slipping around her waist once more. It pains him to think, much more to say, but he's known this for a while—couldn't ignore it any longer, "What we were doing, I don't think it can be described as living, anyway."
Hunting had given Dean a thrill like no other. Ganking monsters, finding cases, he loved it. But with every year that past from the age of fourteen—seven years ago—it grew more and more obvious that what he was doing, what he and Sam were forced to do, was surviving. There was little joy, little lightness. There were hunts, injuries, close calls too many times for Dean to ever let his guard down. Maybe Dean could've stuck it out if it was just him. But Sam had been dragged into it, and from that hot night back when she was thirteen, when Dean had found mascara in her duffle bag and she'd broken down and then came out, Dean knew. He knew this life wasn't for her—and by extension, him.
Sam sniffles, pressing her fingertips to her collarbone. Dean knows what she's doing—what she's mimicking. Playing with her hair has always been a soothing motion for her, but most of her brown locks are left back on the floor of that motel, alongside a pair of scissors and their father.
"You should get some sleep," Dean says, pressing a kiss to the hood covering her head still. "You want this bed?"
"Couch."
Before Dean can stand, Sam's hand is wrapped around his wrist, her doe eyes looking up at him. "You too."
Dean gives her a small smile, "Sure."
It's the same setup from their childhood. Dean sits on the left of the couch, legs stretched out as to rest his feet on the coffee table. Sam lays beside him, her head resting in his lap. Usually Dean would rake his fingers through Sam's hair—it was a foolproof way to get her to sleep, but given that's not an option right now, Dean opts to draw nonsensicle shapes over her shoulder, just as he'd done back when she was a baby.
"Sammy, you still awake?"Her deadname hadn't allowed for any variations (well, it had, but she'd loathed them), but Samantha does, and whilst Dean's fairly certain she'd bite anyone else who tried to call her that, she doesn't mind so much with him.
"Yeah. What's up?"
Dean lets the words formulate on his tongue, his mind working overtime as to put them together correctly. "I'm proud of you."
"What? For getting beaten up by dad?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "For being yourself," he explains, voice taking on a softness. "I know you're hurting in every sense of the word, but it won't be like this forever. It's going to be all right, Sammy. I promise you."
Sam's voice is suspiciously thick when she asks, "What happened to our 'no chick flick' rule?"
"Ah to hell with it," Dean says dismissively. "They're allowed every so often, especially when it's my little sister." He remembers the first time he'd referred to her as such—the smile on her face, the red of her cheeks. "But I mean it. I know it hasn't been easy, but I'll always do whatever I can to help."
He's surprised when Sam sits up, and he barely gets a glance at her wet cheeks before she's throwing her arms around him, sobbing into his neck. Dean doesn't hesitate to hold her, just as he has many times before, and rub her back.
"It's all right," he whispers. He doesn't mean what's happened, or the countless obstacles that lay ahead for them—for Sam specifically. No, what he means is, "I've got you." Just like he always has, and always will.