Title:  Death of a Brother

Author:  Ice Cube

Rating: T

Spoilers:  For Supernatural’s episode Asylum…major spoilers if you haven’t watched it…but this is definitely…most likely…AU…so yeah

Disclaimer:  Right, if I owned them anywhere outside of my dreams, the characters that are forthwith mentioned in this story would be making me a lot of money and very happy…so no, they aren’t mine, and I’m a broke college student who has no money, so if you’re going to sue, feel free, you won’t get anything.

Characters: Sam, Dean

Archives:  Feel free; just let me know where so I can find it again.

Summary: After Asylum, the brothers reflect, and the consequences that come from it…first two chapters happen at the same time, and then the rest is the result…

Warnings:  I do not now, nor will I ever condone what is spoken about in this fic, but the plot bunny bit, and so I had to answer.  Suicide is a sensitive topic, and if it is going to affect you negatively, I am warning you now that it is discussed in here.  I would prefer not to be flamed about using it in a story; if you feel that it was ill-done then please let me know privately and I will be happy to discuss that with you…

To those who think that I am capable of writing a fic that is torture free…I can’t, and thus, if you don’t want to see h/c, various possible tortures, and other forms of angst, find another story. Also, to those of you looking for slash, when I mean friendship and brotherhood, I take that in the trust you with my life and have no problem telling you about my current crush who is of the opposite sex way. In other words, if you’re looking for slash, you won’t find it here.

I don’t have my stories beta’d, I’m too impatient to wait for someone to proof it after I’ve written it, so I apologize for any mistakes, and if you email me to tell me that they’re there, I’ll fix them later.  Reviews are always a plus, it’s great to know that people are reading my stories and like them, but as I’m a horrible reviewer, I won’t hold my breath for them. Flames, however, will be treated with the utmost respect they deserve…they will be ignored completely or poked fun at with friends.

 

That said, on with the tale…

**~**

Chapter 1

I killed my brother today.  I stuck two separate guns in his face and pulled the trigger.  The first one was filled with rock salt and must have hurt him like Hell, and the second one…well, the second one I was pretty sure somewhere in my head that it was empty.  Dean wasn’t dumb enough to give someone he had realized was possessed a loaded pistol, especially after he had been the one to find out what Ellicott had been doing to his patients.  So I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to inflict any more damage on his chest or face when I felt myself pull the trigger.

So no, I didn’t kill my brother like that.  I am fully aware of the fact that he is still alive and breathing, probably slamming his fists on the steering wheel of his precious Impala outside to AC/DC or Motorhead.  No, how I killed him was worse.  I ripped open his chest with my bare hands and the hatred seeping out of my eyes and very being; ripped it open and pulled out his still-beating heart.  I broke my brother and there is nothing I can do to fix him up again.  The cuts from the rock salt I can clean, the broken ribs from flying through a rotting door I can bind, but breaking my brother’s spirit?  That I can’t mend, not yet anyway.

There is something about being a younger brother that shields you from what it is like to constantly be the protector.  I can’t fully understand why it is that Dean always feels the necessity to keep me from falling flat on my face, from getting myself hurt.  He did it when we were kids and I tried to take on bullies at least twice my size, he did it against the Wendigo this past year, he did it every time Dad and I fought.  Well, at least every time except the one time it mattered, but I was hurting him as much as I was hurting Dad when we argued about me going to Stanford, and I can see why he wouldn’t have backed me there.

See, Dean has always been afraid of being abandoned.  He’s been like that my entire life, probably since Mom was ripped away from him when he was four-years old.  He lost his childhood and his mother that day, and since then he’s been afraid to lose anything else.

I know all this, and yet I still killed him today.  I stole myself away from him when I betrayed him like I did.  Sure I didn’t want to kill him, not more than any little brother wants to kill their older sibling.  I knew as soon as I felt Ellicott’s electricity surging through me that something was wrong, and I could feel all of the anger that I had bottled up against everyone, not just Dean, coming to the surface.  I think I would have lashed out at anybody I came in contact with, but someone once said that it’s easiest to lash out at those you love, and Dean happened to be the first in my path.

In my head, I’ve always meant every single thing I said to him when he was lying there, but they came out so wrong.  It’s not that I’m sick of taking his orders; I just wish he didn’t have to give the orders all the time.  I wish that I was well-ingrained into this life enough that he didn’t have to spend all of his time making sure that I knew enough of what we were doing to protect myself and watch his back.  I had felt the blood come pouring out of my nose as I raised the shotgun to aim at his chest, and I knew that this was not going to turn out well.  Then I shot him, and something that Ellicott had done to me skyrocketed to the surface.  I could no longer control anything I was doing, anything I was saying, and he twisted them so that each cut killed my brother a little bit more.

I told him I was normal, and was telling the truth for the first time, but it sounded like another jibe against him.  I know that I am far from normal, Hell I have visions of what happens to people I either care about or don’t know.  I abandoned my brother and father to go to college, knowing full well that they still needed my help.  I spent my teenage years wanting more and more to be an orphan.  Dean…between the two of us, I’m starting to see that if you look at him in a general sense, he’s the more normal one.  He idolizes Dad, he wants to find the man, and he listens to his elders.  He may be the good little soldier that I taunted him with, but that makes him the good son, unlike me.  I yelled at him for always following Dad’s orders, for always doing what he said, but the man had never really given either of us reason not to.  He wasn’t the sweetest man you could have for a father, but he went out of his way to make sure Dean and I could protect ourselves and each other, and had never knowingly put us in harm’s way.  It was usually me being obstinate and not listening to him that had gotten me and Dean in trouble, but he was never one to lecture us over our mistakes, just made sure that we had learned from them. 

I asked Dean if he was that desperate for Dad’s approval that he followed him blindly, but it was never Dean that was desperate for that.  It was me.  I was always looking for Dad to tell me how good of a job I had done, how good I was at getting an A on a paper, how good it was that I had done some extra research and found out what spirit was attacking us.  Dean was always content to know that what he had done was right, and didn’t need anyone to tell him that.  It was me who needed the approval.

I told him I had a mind of my own, and that I wasn’t pathetic like him.  I couldn’t have been more wrong, and the more I thought of it, the more I could see that he was willing to strike out on his own and was comfortable enough with what he did to do so with confidence.  Me?  I was so scared of being different than the majority that I made sure I wouldn’t be accepted as different.  So I went off to college and look where it got me.  Right back where I had started with some kind of complex that I could have gotten out of this mess.  None of this mess would have happened if I had just been glad to have a roof over my head most nights and that I still had a family to speak of, one that cared about me.  I needed to abandon all of that and set out with nothing, sure that I could start over and always afraid of my past catching up with me.  So who was the pathetic one?

Then Dean gave me the real gun, asked me if I hated him that much, if I could kill my own brother.  He was lying on the floor with holes in his chest from rock salt, and had the courage to see what his little brother truly thought.  If only Ellicott had let me speak plainly, and hadn’t twisted around every one of my thoughts.  I’m starting to see now where the good Doctor’s treatment had failed.  He had been trying to get his patients to express their rage with everyone else and therefore get passed it, but he had failed to let them express their rage at themselves.  All of this is my fault, I can see that now.  I have hurt my family too many times, and I don’t know why.

I hung my father and brother out to dry when I left for Stanford, didn’t care what I was doing to them, and what did it get me?  Even there I didn’t really feel like I belonged, and in the end I just hurt all of them too.  I hurt Jess the most of course, but I also hurt Zach and Becky and everyone else who got close to me and I had to abandon when I felt the need to make something up to my brother.  I’ve cut them all out of my life for their own safety, but it still hurts.  Them and me.  And there’s nothing I can do about it now.  And they seemed to be able to put that behind them.  Becky kept emailing me after I left, and I’m sure even after dragging her into the paranormal, she doesn’t blame me, and still emails me.  I haven’t checked; I’m too afraid of what I’d find.

So Dean gave me his gun and told me to pull the trigger.  He goaded me to do it, knowing that he could get me off-guard and save us both.  I pulled the trigger three times, and I could see the hurt increasing each time I did.  Each pull of the trigger made me hate myself more and more, and then he reacted.  He pulled the gun away and knocked me to the ground.  I tried to get up, didn’t know what I was going to do, but Dean saved me there.  He saved me from my own rage by knocking me out.  And then he apologized for it.  He even called me Sammy, not Sam like when he’s mad at me.  He didn’t care right then that I had tried to kill him, that if he didn’t find Ellicott’s bones, I would probably try again, he just cared that he had punched me in the jaw and knocked me out.

So which one of us is more in control?  What gave me the right to think I was resentful of him and his relationship with Dad?  Anything that was ruined in my life was because of me, and everything was all my fault.  And everything that was happening was only getting worse as time went on.  But I know how to fix it now.  I know how to stop everyone getting hurt because of me.  The only one this would hurt is my brother, and he’s already dead.  After all, I killed him.

~*~

Sam closed the journal he had been writing in since college had started.  He let out a shaky breath and tucked the pen carefully into the spirals.  Dean was just outside in the Impala, but Sam knew that he wouldn’t come in for some time still.  He had seen the carefully checked tears in the corners of the older Winchester’s eyes, and knew that he was going to be out of Sam’s sight for a while.

Tears fell down Sam’s cheeks as he thought over what he had written.  He was worthless, he had been so angry with himself that he had hurt Dean more than bullets or buckshot wounds ever could.  There was no reason for him to be around his brother anymore, Dean had said that in fewer words.  Sam knew that if Dean didn’t trust him to have his back in a hunt, then Sam was a liability, and it could get Dean killed. He wouldn’t do that.  He had already killed Dean’s spirit; he wouldn’t rip him from the land of the physically living too.  Too many people needed Dean around, not that they knew it.  So there was only one way he could ensure that he wouldn’t be the cause of Dean’s death.  And if it got rid of his own pain at the same time, well then that was an added perk.

Sam could see now that his life was meaningless now that he had stooped so low as to kill his brother.  Thoughts of Ellicott’s meddling slowly leaked from his brain and he was left with the self-loathing at all of the things he had said to Dean, all of the things that he had hurt his brother with.

Sam toyed with the gun in his right hand.  It had been a present from Dean on his fifteenth birthday, and although he had appreciated the gesture, Sam could remember yelling at his older brother for giving him something related to the ever-present hunt.  He laughed grimly now as he realized how many times his brother’s gift had saved his life.  And now it was going to take it away from him.

Sam raised the gun to the side of his head, shocked at how cold the steel muzzle was against his temple.  The bed creaked under him and he closed his eyes, squeezing a few more tears from them before taking a deep breath and starting to pull the trigger.

~~**~~

TBC…

Chapter 2

I killed my brother today.  Not in the sense that I put a gun to his head and blew his brains out, but in the fact that I refused to talk to him, refused to even look at him after what happened in that asylum.  I had found all of the information Ellicott had written on his freaky experiments and I still led Sam back into that room, not making sure that the spirit hadn’t gotten hold of him before I did so.  I should have known better, and by forgetting to put Sam first…again…I killed him.  I could have stopped him when I had the chance, when he threw down the shotgun, but I didn’t.  I could have stopped him before that; didn’t have to give him the gun and let him tear himself apart, but I didn’t.  I watched to see what he would do, knowing full well that he wasn’t completely in control, and I saw the twitches every time Ellicott twisted his words around.  I saw the hatred in his eyes, and that cut me to the core, yes, but I also saw the pain and fear there, and I exploited him.  I had to see how badly he could be affected, and I tore his heart out doing so.

Sam was always the sensitive one, I knew that, but I still let him suffer.  Not just then, but afterwards too.  He’s always needed to talk about things to make them better; I’ve always just put them passed me.  It’s a difference that I don’t think either of us understands, but it’s one that we’ve both tried to accommodate over the years.  I knew that he needed to talk about what happened, but I was too angry with myself, and I guess with him too, to talk right then.  Hell, I’m still to angry about it now, but I’m not sure who I’m more annoyed with.  Sam because he shot at me four times, and was too weak to overcome Ellicott before he could take over completely?  Or myself because I’m the older brother and I’m still hanging him out to dry? 

Everything Sam said today was the truth.  I am pathetic, I do act like Daddy’s good little soldier; I don’t have a mind of my own.  I’ve been so caught up in John’s crusade for so long that I forget what it can do to you if you don’t take a step back for a moment.  Even Dad takes a break now and then, but I’ve been so wrapped up in finding him that I’ve forgotten to stop and remember that Sam and I are both only human, we both need to see something natural every once in a while.  Especially Sam.  He’s had a taste of the ever-elusive normal lifestyle, and coming back to this must be a bitch to him.  And I never gave him a chance to re-acclimate himself to it.  What kind of big brother am I that I pushed him so hard until I killed him?

I don’t know what had ever possessed me to carry the gun empty, I suppose that I knew somehow that it would go after me or Sam, and I couldn’t take the chance that real bullets would fly from the gun if I couldn’t control Ellicott, if I couldn’t control myself.  So I left the bullets in his office, and went to find Sam.  I thought I could keep him safe that way, but instead I managed to kill him.  I tugged on his very heartstrings, battling against the knowledge that he might very well remember all of this, and I goaded him on.  I yelled at him to pull the trigger, knowing that he could never go against what I yelled.  It was something Dad had instilled in us when we were just little kids, and I knew that Sam would react to it still.  I needed him off-guard so I could knock him out, needed to let unconsciousness claim him so that I could protect him.

None of it mattered.  It didn’t matter that I had found and killed Ellicott, didn’t matter that I had protected Sammy.  The damned doctor got to me too, and though he couldn’t finish his ‘treatment’, I could still feel his anger coursing through me.  This was only a glimpse of what Sam must have been feeling, but it was enough to drive me mad.  I knew this, and I still didn’t care when he tried to apologize.  I knew that he wouldn’t really know what to say, how do you apologize for doing something beyond your control, but I didn’t make it any easier for him.

Hell, the first thing I said to him was to ask him if he was going to try and kill me.  I don’t know why I said it, don’t know what good it would have done, but for some God-forsaken reason, I felt the need to try and be humorous.  It fell horribly flat.  And I was mad.  Damn it if Sam couldn’t realize that I needed some time to calm down, but all I could think of was that my baby brother had shot me, and now he couldn’t even share my joke.  I saw him rubbing his jaw, saw that he couldn’t even close his mouth because of what I had done to him, and still I was more annoyed that he couldn’t find some humor in the situation and make me feel better.  Damn, I didn’t realize I was that selfish. 

So when he quietly asked if I could re-set his jaw, I did so more forcefully than I needed to.  I stood in back of him and pulled the bone back into place.  I had done my job, and I knew it was back where it belonged, so why the Hell did I feel the need to keep yanking on it until it almost slid back out, until Sam was almost crying in pain?  I can’t tell you, but when he stood up, I could see that I had ripped open his chest with my bare hands and the hatred seeping out of my eyes and very being; ripped it open and pulled out his still-beating heart.  I broke my brother and there is nothing I can do to fix him up again.  I don’t know how to do the mushy stuff, and damn it if that’s what Sam has always needed.  I’ve always known that he needs to spit out everything and hear that it’s all right, I know that, but I don’t know how to do that.  It’s the most infuriating thing in the world, but a simple conversation would always make him better and I don’t know if I can figure out how to give that to him.

I could look back on all the times I’ve failed him over the years; being the older brother kind of makes you the sworn protector.  But I’ve never really been good at that.  I’ve almost gotten him killed by a Woman in White, a pissed off poltergeist in a plane, Bloody Mary, and…myself…although that was a shapeshifter.  And those are just in the past few months.  There was that Wendigo when we were kids, and the car, and the black dog thing; I could go on forever.  And every time something’s happened like that, the kid just keeps coming back for more.  All he wanted in return was the occasional hug when we were smaller, and for me to know that it was okay, that nobody was perfect.

And how do I repay him?  I cut out his heart by telling him that I’m not in the caring, sharing kind of mood.  I blew him off for a few hours of sleep.  And have I gotten that sleep anyway?  No, of course not.  I took a shower and bound my ribs.  The scars that the rock salt is going to leave are the least of a plethora of punishments I deserve for what I’ve done to my Sammy.  He’s my little brother, was my little shadow.  He looked up to me and expected me to know all the right answers.  And all I could ever manage to do was use him as bait.  Even when he thought he was coming up with the idea, it was in the back of my head first, and I had to let him do it.  I had to use my baby brother to keep on killing the evil sons of bitches that my father made my life’s work.  What kind of a brother am I?

One that kills his baby brother.  Over and over, a little bit more each day.  But this time I didn’t just take a chunk of his ‘normal’ life away, didn’t pull on a little bit of his soul just that much more.  No, I betrayed him for my own sake and mutilated him.  I refused to look at him, or let him apologize, or even let him talk to me.  And I wish I could have taken that car ride back the minute I walked out the door of the motel, leaving him to his own devices so that I could sit out in the Impala and beat my fists on the steering wheel.  I needed to inflict more pain on myself to convince myself that everything would be all right.  I’ve never been one for crying, Dad made sure of that, but as I sit here now, tears are pouring down my cheeks and I don’t know what to do about it.

Sam should have gotten away from me when he had the chance.  He tried to when he left for college, but I had to go and drag his ass back into the game.  I had to feel like I wasn’t truly alone and so I went and practically begged him to leave behind his apple pie life and follow me.  I knew before I’d even gotten there that he would try to say no, but he could never really say no to me, not and mean it.  He always was able to get Dad to relent on something, so whenever I needed to get out of trouble with him, I’d ask Sam.  And even if he’d agreed with Dad, when I asked him to, he couldn’t agree with the man.  I wondered often when Sam left if I had caused that too.  Dad argued with Sam so much on my behalf that I think it was all they knew how to do after a while.  And then Sam left to get away from it.  Another thing to chalk up to my list of mistakes.

So I went to Stanford and got Sam to come help me find Dad, and he didn’t say no.  Then he tried to go back to his life, but whatever evil thing latched onto Sam when he was a baby wouldn’t let him, and killed his girl to make sure that he couldn’t get away.  I watched as he tore himself apart those first few hunts, trying to get himself killed so that he could join Jess, but I was his older brother and couldn’t let that happen.  And slowly the guilt started to fade into the background of his mind, letting him settle back into this life.  He should have gotten far away from me then, should have stayed in East Chuck, with that girl we saved from the Hookman.  He could have died there too, but if anything, my brother’s a stubborn son of a bitch, and nothing like that could get him.  No, it was his brother, supposedly his best friend, that killed him.  We used to be best friends, closer than average brothers were.  We rarely fought, and because we were all we had most days, we got used to being around each other.  I only remember wanting him to not be around on one day, and that would never happen again.

And now I’ve driven him as far away as I can.  By not talking to him, not letting him know how I feel about all this, I managed to alienate him so badly that I can’t think of how I could have made it up to him.

So now he’s sitting inside the motel room and I’m out here.  I’ve only been out here for a half hour or so, but it’s enough time to make me realize that for my brother’s sake, and so that we can head out in a few days watching each other’s backs and able to laugh at some stupid thing, I need to get my ass back into that room and sit down and talk to him.  I need to make him realize that it’s all right to be angry with me, but that I’m not angry with him; not any more.  I need to save my brother.

~*~

From himself, it seems to the older Winchester as he opens the door to the motel room.  For there, sitting on the bed closest to the door, is Sam and his gun.  Dean doesn’t think, knows that if he does nothing else, he needs to save his brother one more time, and dives for his brother, praying that it isn’t too late.

~~**~~

TBC…

Chapter 3

Dean dove for his brother, reaching out with his left hand to swat at the weapon, to grab it from him, to jam his finger in the trigger hold.  He wasn’t really sure how he was going to stop Sam from doing the unthinkable, but he knew that he had to, one way or another.  He felt himself slam into his brother’s chest, felt the ribs in his own chest grating against each other, felt his finger crush between the trigger and the cold metal of the gun casing.  Then he felt his finger slip and he heard the gun go off.  He heard himself grunt as he and Sam vaulted down against the bedside table, heard his brother’s gasp at the pain he must have felt.

They rolled onto the ground, and Dean saw stars as his chest exploded in pain.  But he couldn’t worry about that, he had to see if he’d saved his brother.  So he opened his eyes and pushed Sam off of him, carefully rolling the younger boy on his back.

Sam’s eyes were closed, and there was blood staining the carpet.  Dean panicked.  He didn’t know how to help his brother if the boy were dead.  He didn’t know how to help himself if the boy were dead.  All he knew was that he failed, and that he had been abandoned again.  He felt anger first, and then guilt, and finally fear.  The emotions were all rolled up in his head and they clutched his heart and stole his breath.  Dean curled into a ball against the bed frame, and buried his head in his knees.  Tears that had been dried before he’d burst into the room were running fresh tracks down his cheeks, and sobs wracked his body.  His brother was really dead; Dean really had killed him.

But then he heard it.  He wasn’t sure at first that it hadn’t been his imagination, but he’d been sure he’d heard his brother groan.  Then he felt it and he couldn’t deny this time, that his brother was still alive.  He felt Sam’s foot move next to him and he jolted back to his knees, paying closer attention to his brother’s state than he had before.

Sam’s eyes were still closed, but Dean saw that the temple that had let Sam’s gun rest on it was intact.  Carefully, the older brother moved around to the younger one’s head and lifted it to rest in his lap.  He could feel the graze where the bullet had ripped open the back of Sam’s scalp, and Dean realized just how close he had come to losing the boy.  He gulped and stroked the wayward locks out of his brother’s face, taking note for the first time that Sam’s chest was falling easily.  He was unconscious, but he wasn’t dead.

Dean checked Sam’s pulse and was relieved to find that it was strong as ever.  He removed both hands from his brother’s neck and arm and ran his hands through his own hair.  This had been too close, and he was going to have to make things right with his brother as soon as he was able to.  He couldn’t even try to convince himself that Sam had been possessed, he realized that his actions had cut Sam to the core and forced him to this.

The older Winchester wasn’t sure how long he had sat between the two beds, cuddling his brother’s head in his lap and just staring off into space.  He wasn’t sure what it was that caught his attention, but when he turned to see what it was, he recognized it as a journal.  It wasn’t his father, and he knew it wasn’t his; Sam wouldn’t have known about the secret compartment under the weapons in the trunk that Dean had crafted.  So that meant that it had to be his brother’s book.  Dean wasn’t sure if he should attempt to reach the bound-leather item under the bed where it had fallen, but he knew that desperate times called for desperate measures, and he wasn’t entirely sure what could be considered desperate if this couldn’t.

So he reached for the book and turned to the last entry, knowing that he could attempt to go back and read the earlier entries if need be.  Sure enough, the last entry had the present day’s date, and Dean began to read.

~*~

When he finished, there were more tears checked in the corner of his eyes, and he knew he had to wake his brother up; talk to him; make him understand that he wasn’t worthless if nothing else.  Dean wouldn’t have lasted the last few months without his baby brother, and Sam needed to know that now, no matter what the cost.

So he lifted the boy into the bed closest to the door and softly began calling him, shaking his shoulder lightly; afraid to scare him.  He was rewarded a few minutes later when Sam’s eyes fluttered open.  Dean sat back on the bed so he wouldn’t crowd his brother, and gulped.  He waited until Sam had fully woken before speaking up.

“I think, we need, to talk.”  It was the understatement of the century.  “I don’t care what you think; you’re telling me everything, Sam.  You can’t hold out on me like you did about Jess.  I can’t…we can’t…I need you around, little brother.  We need to fix this.”

The words were choked and wrought with emotion, and Sam pushed himself up on the bed, sitting back against the wall.  He nodded and took the offered tissues that Dean had plucked from the bedside table, pushing them against the burn on the back of his head.

“I know we do.  Dean, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, everything I’ve said.  I didn’t mean any of what happened today to come out the way it did.  I was annoyed at you sure, but I was really angry at…”

“At yourself, I know.  But none of this is your fault, Sam, and you can’t let it do this,” he pointed to the gun still on the floor, “to you.  God, man, you scared the shit out of me.  This is my fault, not yours; I just don’t know what to do about it now.  I was angry at first today, yeah, but you had to give me a little bit of time to process everything that happened.  Damn it, Sammy, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.”

"When I said I'd die for you, I meant it.  I'd die if it meant that you would be all right, that you would live without the fear that your brother is going to shoot you down in the middle of the night as you sleep.  I see the fear in your eyes, and I know you lie awake at night waiting for me to snap like Ellicott made me.  And I'd die to stop that.  That's why I was going to..."

"Don't you ever dare do that.  Not for me, not for dad, not for Jess, not for anyone..."

Sam just stared at his brother, realizing that he had done the worst thing possible, on top of everything else he had done in the past twenty-four hours.  “Dean, I…” he sighed as he simply didn’t know what to say.

Dean watched as his little brother faltered over his words, and then saw him just give up any pretense he had of being strong.  The younger brother simply buried his face in his hands and started to sob.  Dean’s face tightened and he turned away, gulping away the pain that his brother’s breakdown caused him.  The sobs that wracked Sam cut at Dean’s ears and he stood from the bed.

Sam felt his brother leave him, and it made him cry harder.  He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen, hadn’t wanted to hurt Dean anymore than he already had, and the pain he felt at his brother’s abandonment gave him an idea of what his older brother would have felt.  Relief flowed through him seconds later when Dean sat down next to him, laid a cold, wet cloth on the back of his neck, and then enveloped him in a hug.

Dean pulled his brother close and let him sob into his chest, one arm protectively around his baby brother’s back, and the other hiding Sam’s head under his chin, his fingers tangling in the long hair.  He lent all the strength he had to his brother, and struggled to keep his own tears at bay.  Sam needed Dean to be strong for him right now, and God damn it, that’s what he was going to do.

Neither Winchester knew how long they stayed like that, Dean muttering to his brother that it was going to be all right now; that he was sorry for everything; that he would help Sam now.  Sam wanted to reassure Dean that he was going to be okay now, but all he could do was continue to cry and lie safely in his brother’s embrace.  He started to realize exactly what he had almost done, and fear started to cause him to shake.  He didn’t feel the blanket pulled up over his shoulders, didn’t notice that Dean was still talking to him, he just kept sobbing until he finally passed out.

Dean, though, felt his brother begin to shake terribly, and then felt when everything seemed to even out.  He could tell that Sam was finally asleep and eased himself out from his brother, tucking Sam in like he had done so many times when they were younger.  He went for the first aid kit in the car, taking the gun with him and stowing it in the trunk.

Back in the room, Dean doused the graze in peroxide and wiped up the excess blood.  The wound wasn’t deep, and had stopped bleeding some time before Sam’s breakdown, so Dean left it open.  He screwed the cap back on the bottle and threw it back in the bag, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed Sam was sleeping on and sat down to watch his brother.  Nothing was going to disturb Sam tonight.

Sometime during the night, Dean had taken Sam’s hand in his, making sure that his brother had physical contact if he awoke, to assure his younger brother that Dean was still there, and that nothing could tear them apart as long as they were both all right.  He knew that somewhere down the road, they were going to have to have a major chick flick moment, but Dean could also feel that, for now, Sam would be all right, and that things would be able to return to ‘normal’ for them.  He scoffed at using the word, but he knew that things were going to have to be a bit more ‘normal’ for them if Sam was going to beat this and be able to go back to hunting without being afraid of what it was going to lead to.

Dean finished reading his brother’s journal sometime in the early morning, and was pleasantly surprised to see that as the entries during their hunts had progressed, Sam had only once expressed a need to leave the hunt again.  Maybe he would be able to fall into this lifestyle and actually learn to like it; although, Dean wasn’t sure if he wanted to see the day that Sam had accepted that fate.  For on that day, he was sure that the brother that he loved would cease to exist.  It was the last thing Dean wanted.

~*~

Sam woke later that morning with a pounding headache, but the knowledge that his brother didn’t hate him, that he, himself, hadn’t killed Dean in any sense of the word, and that they were both going to be okay.  It was going to take some time before things were back the way they were, and he and Dean had some more conversations that had to take place, but he knew that for both of their sakes; they had to take that slowly.  Despite how often Dean made fun of Sam’s sensitivity, neither Winchester could take too many chick flick moments at one time.

He smiled and sent Dean off to bed, knowing that his brother hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before.  He watched as Dean flopped into his own bed, stretching out his back and pulling the tee-shirt off slowly.  Sam saw how quickly his brother fell asleep and was content to lie on the bed, with three pillows piled under his head.

He wasn’t sure how long he had stared up at the ceiling, contemplating what he had almost done and how he would never allow himself to be that selfish again when Dean’s cell phone rang.

“Dean…” Sam sighed when his brother didn’t even move.  He picked up the phone to answer it.  Seconds later he was shooting up in the bed.

“Dad?”

~~**~~

The End.