"Dean," Sam's sigh was laced with exasperation.
His big brother had been pacing the length of the library like a caged animal for what seemed like hours.
Initially Sam had ignored him, Dean never could sit still for long, but even if Sam's eyes were on his lap-top's screen, his brother's incessant pacing grated on his nerves, disturbing his concentration.
"Dean," he repeated, adding a huffy eye-roll. "You're gonna wear a path in the floor if you keep this up."
Suddenly stopping in mid-stride, Dean fixed him with a sullen stare.
"Can't a guy pace any more? You'd rather I took a baseball bat to the furnishings instead?"
:
"Look, man, I know this hasn't been an easy few months for us, but..."
"You know, Sam. Sometimes, I think you're empathic to everyone except me!"
"'This hasn't been an easy few months'," Dean repeated, imitating in a sing-song litany, his brother's words.
"Since the Mark of Cain, Amara, killing Death, finding God,... to mom showing up..., you being tortured by the Brit bitch; Brits with whom we're now gonna work, to my Baby, crippled and broken by a runaway hell-hound, it's been fucking apocalyptic!"
The older man glared accusingly at his younger brother, though well aware Sam, like himself, was no more than a boat careering without anchor in the tumultuous whirlpools of destiny.
:
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but instead pursed his lips together.
What was there to say?
Dean was right. These past months had been an ordeal, physically, mentally and emotionally, but usually the roles were reversed and it was Sam who brooded, while the older man shrugged off any and all crap, externally at least.
So, yeah, Sam mused. Dean had every right to be pissed, but Sam knew all of Dean's tells.
His big brother was upset about something, and whatever it was, hadn't been included in the list of stuff he'd voiced.
:
"I know it's not just this crap that's eating at you, Dean. We face the incredible every day, so just what is really bugging you?"
:
:
When Dean pulled out a chair and flopped down on it, Sam knew he'd made the right call.
"You truly missed your vocation in life, geek-boy," he grunted. "You'd have made a phenomenal shrink."
Sam responded with a rueful smile, and for a moment his mother's words came back to him about how working with the Brits to rid America of monsters could mean Sam being able to go back to college, or at least choose another kind of life outside of hunting.
But even as Mary had pronounced the words, Sam had silently refuted them.
Too much had happened to Dean and himself, for either to consider a life independent of the other.
Even if Mary was their mother, and Dean had keyed her in on the bigger issues, she'd just recently appeared in their lives.
She didn't understand, no-one did... except maybe... His lips curled up in a half-smile.
Contrary to all logic, perhaps the only one who truly had insight into the convoluted bond that united Sam to his brother, was ironically Crowley, the King of Hell himself!
A paradox, if ever there was one.
:
Dean's pained, "Hey! Here I am spilling my guts and you're not even fucking listening, " drew Sam's attention back to his brother.
"I'm listening, " Sam assured him. "I was just thinking back on something mom said. It's nothing. So.. just what's got you so upset?"
:
Dean passed his hand over his jaw-line as if considering how to begin.
"Ketch came to the bunker. Knocked on the door as nice as you please."
"You let him in?"
"He had a pretty convincing visiting card. A bottle of rare scotch."
Sam grinned. "You always were an easy fuck!"
Dean rolled his eyes.
"We talked. He tried to rope me into working with the BMOL, the usual stuff. "
"Okay, " Sam said, waiting for his brother to get to the point, whatever that was.
:
"'Dean Winchester. You're a killer.'That's what Ketch said."
Frowning, Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Dean held up a hand.
"Ketch didn't say I was a killer of monsters or that I killed to save lives and protect humanity. No, Sammy. He said I was a killer. Period."
:
As he spoke Dean's demeanour took on the aspect of a child needing assurances that he hadn't been bad.
Sam felt a lump come to his throat which he quickly pushed down. His brother looked so vulnerable, so in need of consolation, and there was no-one … no-one who could give it to him but Sam himself.
"If you're a killer, then so am I , " Sam declared solemnly.
Dean squinted at his brother. "No, Sam. You don't understand Ketch said I was a killer. No adjectives to diminish the impact. A man who enjoys killing."
:
Then Dean pushed back from the table, done speaking, ready to flee the library as if he considered himself unclean, not worthy to be in the same room as another human being, even his own brother.
But before he could do more than stand up, Sam was there, blocking any flight, the younger man looming over him, his body at its tallest.
Without another word, he pulled Dean into his arms, head searching out the curve of his big brother's neck, where younger versions of himself had always found their place.
:
The older man, as if at first taken aback by Sam's unexpected action, tensed, before raising his arms in turn and pulling his little brother close.
Tight in each other's hold, both savoured the physical contact, too long absent, basking in the comfort it gave them.
An onlooker, be it even their mother, might ogle awed at the sight of two grown men, moreover brothers, locked in such a grim embrace, so close as to flow into one another.
But no-one understood the Winchesters as they themselves did, and no-one ever would.
That two hardened hunters could receive all the comfort they needed in a childish contact such as a hug was hard to assimilate, but there it was.
:
"We gotta do this more often," Sam finally whispered into his big brother's neck.
"Yeah, " Dean mumbled, arms wrapped possessively around his little brother's gigantor body, "maybe we could make it a daily thing."
:
His heart sang at the fact that it was Sam who had initiated the hug.
Ketch had defined him as a killer. It took one to know one.
Yet Sam didn't see it that way, and if he did, Dean mused happily. His baby brother didn't give a rat's ass of a fuck.
The end.