Author's Note: Hello! This was just something that I wrote a while ago. Months ago, maybe, while I was feeling quite rusty as I hadn't written anything for a long while. I'm posting this now, though, not quite sure why so late. Maybe because I didn't feel too confident about it before. The rest of the A/N was written during that time.

I hope you enjoy this sad, angsty story. I can't say if I'll really end it the way I did. I was thinking of making another alternative ending to it, depending on some factors. However, up until this point, I'll have to call it a deathfic. I really don't like warning about it, because I like to keep the shock value, but alas! I don't want to deceive the people who wish to be warned about it.

Also, be warned that my writing's really, really rusty. I'm not deprecating myself or anything, and I'm not saying it's horrendous, but I think I might have lost the flow and rhythm as well as a few skills required in writing. And I've done my medical research, but I'm still not too certain. And due to such dire circumstances, and my own not-so-guilty pleasures, you might find Dean a little too affectionate (I don't know if there are people who have issues with that, so just in case. Personally, I love that kind of stuff). Not suffocatingly, or so I hope, but a good enough amount. This is a story in his P.O.V, and it may seem pretty defeated and depressing, so he won't be your typical sarcastic, tough-ass hunter.

Warning: deathfic, severe burn injuries

Summary: A few simple choices not taken, and Dean is left wishing that he had turned around sooner, had never left, had asked him more. Now he's sitting beside his brother in the hospital, his body burned beyond what his chances of survival should have been. Post 5.04 - 'The End'.

more than the world

When I got a call that Tuesday morning from Sam, asking me to bring some holy oil because he didn't have any, it never occurred to me that maybe it was just some poor excuse to see me again (one last time). I knew Sammy was a sappy little shit like that. I should have known by the way he was staring at me as I handed him my own possession of holy oil (did he really not have any, or did he just say he didn't?), all doe and soft and stupid hero-worship, and with so much finality that I only see now, looking back, looking at him here now.

I remember he had this little smile on his lips, something sad, quiet and secretive. I didn't know what it was. I guess I didn't look at him too much. I should have. I really should have.

I still wonder, even now when it's pointless, why I never asked beyond 'why do you need it?' and why I never tried to find out beyond 'I found a plan to stop Lucifer' (maybe it should have made sense right then and there, just with those words alone. Lucifer was a fallen angel, after all, and Sam was the vessel in which his actual power lied. But even now, it somehow almost doesn't seem to make sense to me, why he would ever do what he did to himself).

Yeah, even now, as I look at him, mummified with gauze on a hospital bed, I wonder. I still feel sick when I remember finding him like that, but I did learn to hold it down, even if it's there all the time, an uncomfortable flip and turn with every thought and emotion and breath that goes through me.

You just have to learn when it's there all the time, and it doesn't go away.

But sometimes I can't hold it in though. Sometimes it all just comes out, and it doesn't matter how hard I try.

…

I remember his second last words to me before he went into that warehouse.

"Thank you."

That was what he said when I turned my back to him. It seemed small at the time, insignificant, and a little annoying even, for some reason. I had thought it was just for the holy oil (when it sounded like something so much more), and I didn't really like driving all the way over for four hours just for that.

His last words were I'm sorry.

That should have rung alarm bells in my head, but it didn't. I didn't care. He had already said that so many times before that it grew irritatingly trite. I had also thought maybe it was out of some politeness of having to make me drive all the way there (everything he said sounded like so much more, so much meaning in words too vague to let it be discovered).

None of it makes sense now, you know? My annoyance at him, my anger, my need to punish him by letting him go that day on the picnic table. My refusal to let him back in after that.

After my work was done, I got in the car. I didn't look back at him, but I couldn't help a brief glance in the rear-view mirror. I saw him walk into the warehouse, feeling something hollow and wrong in the pit of my stomach.

And then I drove off.

I don't know what to say. I don't know. Maybe if I had turned the car around sooner. Maybe if I had never left at all. Maybe if I had just asked beyond the questions I did. Maybe. I don't know.

I touch his bandaged hand, just a light brush of fingers, barely feeling anything of him. He's breathing, and his heart's beating, but he isn't there, and there is something terrifying about this. I want to press my fingers down and feel his solidity, but I don't want to hurt him. It probably won't hurt him now, but still. I just... I don't want to hurt him.

I had turned the car around far too late. It took me less longer to go back to him, but it was still not soon enough. By the time I reached him, he wasn't screaming. It's a miracle how he's even alive, but I'm not going to question it.

I swallow it all down again, feeling like if I breathed too little or too much, it would all come pouring out. I touch his hand again, wishing I could touch him more.

I tried to kiss him on his forehead when I first came here, girly as that sounds. But well, I, uh... I saw him like that. And I just needed something in that moment. Comfort or proximity or to apologize with something that wasn't as small as words, I don't really know. I can't say what it was, just that something inside me was ripping apart, and I was scattered and sick and didn't know what to do. So I crawled up on the bed beside him and bent over him, put my arms on both sides of his head, my palms and fingers just reaching for his face incomprehensibly, quivering (too afraid to break him), like they didn't know what to do either, where to touch, until they realized that there was nowhere to touch here, because it was all burned. I leaned forward, brushed my lips against the gauze on his forehead, but I couldn't do more, so I backed off and didn't let myself think about what it all looked like under the gauze, and I didn't let myself break or throw up when I ended up thinking about it anyway.

(I did break and I did throw up.)

...

Sam wakes up a few days later.

He looks like he wants to scream (I don't think it's pain, because he cannot feel his third-degree burns due to obliterated sensory nerves, but maybe from being locked inside a demolished body), but he can't. I want to scream too, but I don't. I crawl up on the bed and bend over his body, like that first time, and put only the lightest of grazes of my thumb on his cheeks, trembling against the thick and rough layers in between, not quite able to feel him, and gently hush him when he tries to squirm and lets out a strangled whimper.

I could have screamed at that point, because it was there too, always there, right with the sickness and that something inside me ripping me apart. I swear to god, I would have, the way it welled up from my stomach to my throat.

But I don't know what happened, because I just start crying instead.

...

I find the courage to slide my palm over his covered hand, but I have to consciously make sure that I don't let it get too heavy on him. His eyes are always on me, because they're the only things he could use (and fuck if that thought doesn't make me want to scream again. Or cry. Whatever), and I want to think that it's good, that it helps him in some way, maybe comforts him. But then I also think about how I turned the car around too late or left or never asked him more, and I start worrying that maybe it doesn't, and he just hates me.

I don't talk to him. There isn't anything to talk about, really. Or maybe I don't feel like I should. Most of all, I just can't, because this — this fissure in my chest is a black hole, sucking everything of me into it. So I turn on the TV and put my hand lightly over his and think about how I'm going to tell Bobby about this, because he still doesn't know. He called a lot of times, but I never picked it up, because then I'd have to tell him that Sammy burned himself in holy oil to keep Lucifer away from ever accessing his true power and that I was right there before it happened, and that wasn't a conversation that I was ready for.

I'm still not. But after Sammy falls asleep again, and after I stretch my back and lean over and almost-touch his head, I call him.

I call him, and he picks up on the first ring, and he starts yelling as soon as the phone meets his ear, so I have to put my phone away from mine.

But when he's done, I just say, "hey," and that's all I have to do. Somehow, he just knows, just from the sound of my voice, rough and quiet. Maybe these kinds of things, things like watching your brother writhing in flames in front of you, maybe they just become etched into everything you are and everything you do, and you stop noticing it after a while. You stop noticing that your insides are filled with stones, that your eyes are heavier and blacker, that your voice is weaker and quieter and more fractured, that you smell like you haven't showered in weeks, that your stomach feels airy and empty because you haven't eaten in days (it all comes back up anyway, so what's the point?), and that nothing is normal and everything is fucked up and broken down and time has dragged on so slowly that it feels like it's been this way forever.

I tell him everything, and he doesn't scream at me again like I expected he would.

He just says, in a voice that's a little too steady, "It's okay, boy. It ain't yer fault."

I don't know what to say to that. I don't want to say, "it is," even though it is, because I know he'd try to convince me otherwise. And I don't think I have the energy to listen to any of that. I don't want to say, "yeah, okay," because obviously, it's not okay, and it's a lie.

So I ask him if we could come over to his house, whenever Sammy gets better enough to travel.

"Do ya have t'ask that, son?"

I couldn't help the barest of smiles. "Thanks, Bobby," I whisper.

...

I think Sammy must be bored as shit these days, so I bring him a stack of books and read them to him every day, even though they aren't the kind of things I liked to read. Using up too much air drains me, and so does reading five-hundred page books that bore the shit out of me and somehow entertain him, but I do it just because Sammy listens.

I graze the highest of my knuckles against his ribs every now and again, reading slowly and carefully, enunciating each word so that he could understand easily. Not too slow, like he was a dumb-ass, but slow enough that he didn't have to try to catch up.

Sammy falls asleep somewhere around the one-hundred and ninth page, and I put the book away and gently take up his hand and he doesn't break. I'm starting to realize this. He never breaks like I keep thinking he will.

...

On a quiet day, when I have it in me even less than the others, I somehow end up telling him everything I couldn't tell anyone else, the things that are always there in me now. He keeps his gaze on me without wavering, and he listens.

I slide off my chair and kneel on the ground, beside him, my twisted face close to his, his hand in mine.

"I'm sorry, baby brother," I whisper to him, my eyes burning. "I'm so sorry. God, I...fuck."

I want to tell him I would have done anything to change this, to have stopped this, but I don't think any of these words, these apologies and I-would-haves, I don't think they'd explain the horribly fucking deep regret and shame and pain I feel. And somehow, it sounds insulting to what Sammy went through, because they're too small to make up for it.

So I stop there with the words, with all my apologies and I-would-haves, and I just wipe my face and breathe deeply. And then, still kneeling, I move forward, hesitantly. Pull my fingers up and run their tips over his head and kiss him on the temple.

And he doesn't break.

I'm starting to realize this.

...

Sometimes I think I imagine it, but Sammy's eyes crinkle whenever I come into the room or look at him, just a little, barely visible and there. I don't know if it's pain or my imagination or actually a smile, but I like to think he's smiling at me.

I read him another book, something just as nerdy and old and boring as the last one, and I don't bother to read the title. God, I don't know how he could like something with so much detail about the stupidest shit.

I actually tell him just as much, and it feels normal in a way it hasn't for a long time. But ironically, that is what seems to make me realize how much isn't normal right now, and how bad that really hurts, and how much I haven't actually stopped noticing it.

I don't think that crinkle in his eyes is a smile right now. I can't help but smirk at him, but then I notice how tired they are, and the bandages. And nothing feels normal anymore at all, so I look back down at the book and continue reading, and for once, I'm glad to lose myself in these over-detailed paragraphs.

...

They said that Sammy's organs are irreversibly failing (Multiple Organ Failure Syndrome. Straight to the point). I know I should have known that we got too lucky when we got his heartbeats back, in spite of all the horrendous injuries he had suffered. I know that if you have third-degree burns on more than fifty percent of your body, your chances of survival are too low to be even considered a chance. I know that Sammy's is far worse than that.

So, yeah, we got too lucky, and too much luck wasn't a daily occurrence for us, which was why I should have doubted it, should have questioned it. But I just let it go and joined my hands and hoped that I would never have to.

Now it's staring at me right in the face. It's like a mind-trick, maybe some kind of an emotional defense mechanism. You like to pretend that it's not going to happen, and somehow it creates an illusion that this denial will stop it from happening, but it's just closing your eyes in the midst of a tornado coming your way. It will take you up in it whether you want to see it or not.

Sammy wheezes, chest straining against his bandages. One lung, one kidney and his liver. He has second-degree and third-degree burns, and it was at least half a comfort to know that he didn't feel most of his scorched body before. But he struggles just to breathe now, and I can't even imagine the rest of the anguish that I can't see or hear.

I remember Hell, and burning in its fire, and when they carved into me, and when they removed my lungs so I couldn't breathe. I put all three of them together, and imagine that this must be what Sammy's feeling.

...

On a Tuesday morning, I come back from the cafeteria to find Sammy crying. His eyes are red and wet, tears sliding from the corner of his eyes, down the bandages covering his face.

I put down my coffee cup on the nightstand and kneel on the ground, stroking his head gently. He was still struggling to breathe.

"Hey," I say, feeling like there was hot metal burning inside my ribs. I stop for a moment after that, thinking of what to say, because it's been so long since I've consoled him in any way. I can't ask him what's wrong, because that'd be stupid for obvious reasons, and he won't really be able to tell me anyway if there was something else. Nothing I could say seems good enough.

I wipe his tears away with my thumb, rubbing it over the bottom edge of his right eye. He closes them, more tears falling, and his sadness is gut-wrenchingly silent. I wonder how much he's holding in, without any choice.

"I'm here," I whisper to him. "I'm sorry that I wasn't before. I'm here now."

His eyes squeeze shut, tighter against my thumb, weak breaths stuttering out. They pause for a few seconds, like there's not enough air in him to let out a sob, and I hate that I have plenty in me to scream.

He breathes again, and my heart is swollen and bruised as I watch him try to compose himself. When he does, he opens his eyes, stares up at me like he always does now. But there's something different, muted and deep and unfathomable.

I keep my hand on his head, and he breathes out something, something like a word. I want to be happy about it, that he's trying to talk, but right now, the world is too quiet within these white walls, the kind of quiet that comes before something terrible. And I'm trying to put my finger on this sense that's tingling in the deep pit of my stomach, this tiny sense that something's going to happen, going to end. I watch Sammy, his eyes growing weak and faded. There is a struggle between two forces in them, like he's trying to hold on to something and something else's pulling him in. And later, I'll think that I already knew, so obvious and clear, and I just didn't let myself realize it.

I lean closer to him, his fractured breaths warming my ear.

"H...a'a..." he strains out shakily, pale lips trying to shape around his words. He inhales a broken wisp of air, exhales it out in one word, painfully exhausted. "I..."

In these infinitesimally short seconds, I wonder what it'll be. Will it be 'I'm sorry', like his last words before all of this happened were? Will it be 'I forgive you'? 'I hate you?'

'I love you'?

I wonder.

And then I keep wondering for the rest of my life.

...

I don't cremate him, even though he would have wanted a hunter's funeral. It's understandable, after everything that's happened, why I can't bring myself to. Why it feels so wrong to burn away the rest of him.

I don't know how I'll tell Bobby that Sam won't ever get better enough to travel, and that only one of us will come back.

I dig and dig and dig, Sammy's body laid in the passenger seat behind me in the car. My hands ache, and I'm trying not to think about last times. The last time he'll ever sit in the passenger seat of our car. Our car. It was never just mine, was it? It was always ours.

It was just mine now.

I swallow, and eventually, hard as I try not to, my mind drifts. The last time he smiled at me, just when I handed him the holy oil, handed him his sweet, suicidal penance and wrapped his fingers around it. There was something tender and soul-deep leading up to his eyes when he smiled then. Love. So much of it. There will never be anyone else who will have that much of it for me, I think. Not as much as him.

And I had let him go so carelessly.

There's the last time he laughed, a true, genuine laugh. I had to really think about it, trace it all back in my memories, because I realize with a twist in my stomach that it's been too long. Before Lucifer. Before I locked him up in the panic room. Before Ruby and demon blood. Before. Before so many things.

We were arguing about something pointless and petty (it was pointless and petty then. It's not anymore, and I wish I could remember what it was). I must have said something stupid in a desperate attempt to defend my honor, and he just stopped, gave me a 'what the fuck' look, before he just exploded, laughing until his eyes were watery and he was folded over.

He was so loose and carefree in that moment (that's all I really remember). I wish I could have seen him like that more, and it makes me sad that I never made him laugh like that enough.

I stop shoveling for a moment, fall back against the earth, vision blurred and breathing so hard with this pain shoving in and in and in between my ribs. Fuck, I can't breathe. And I can't breathe without him. I can't imagine doing it for the rest of my life, I just can't. It makes me so sick (but I've already thrown up enough times and I'm drained) and angry. I feel like burning away, and I feel like this world should burn away, like he made himself burn.

And just like that, in another moment, I hate him for burning himself. I hate that he thought it would save them all, this pathetic, shitty, oblivious world. I hate that he didn't think about saving me from living in a world without him. I hate that he ever even came up with it and thought it was a good enough idea, a good enough redemption (you should have been here with me all our fucked-up lives. That should have been your redemption. It shouldn't have been you leaving for good. But maybe that is my punishment). I hate that I turned the car around too late and left and didn't ask him more. That he never told me so that I could have yelled at him and fucking chained him to the steering wheel and never let him go into that building. Never let him go at all. Fuck, that bastard. I hate him. I hate him I hate I hate him I hate him so fucking much.

And God, I can't breathe without him. Not for another day. Another year. A lifetime.

I have to carry his body over from the car, but he's heavy and I'm spent and my arms hurt, so I just end up falling down with him, to the knees, then to the elbows, breathing hard and fast and trying not to sob or scream. I make sure that I let him down gently though, make sure his head doesn't bang against the ground. Not that it would matter.

And I'm still trying to remember our last times, the smallest things that only start to matter when they can't happen anymore. What I last saw him eat and the last time he bitch-faced me and the last time we sang together. The last time we sat silently on the hood and watched the sun rise up and set away and the stars we fell asleep to in the car.

I don't know what happens then. Something within me snaps like a rubber cord and I lose my mind. I'm finding myself trying to haul him into my arms, stiff and twinging fingers scrabbling desperately over his jacket, against his still-bandaged body (I never could bring myself to peel them away to replace them with fresh ones), sobbing. Screaming. Finally screaming. My face buried into his shoulder. I'm rocking back and forth, as if somehow, that movement would shake the throbbing inside me away, like it was just a burnt finger.

And then I tug him back and put us forehead-to-forehead. And he won't ever smile at me with love tender and soul-deep leading up to his eyes. And he won't ever laugh at my stupidity. And he won't ever eat his favorite chicken salad in Minnesota and bitch-face me and sing with me in the car. Watch the sunrise and the sunset and fall asleep to constellations through the windshield with me.

I move my crumpled face away, enough to kiss his forehead as hard as I want to, because he's dead and he can't break anymore and it doesn't matter how much I hurt him now.

And there again, I let him go a second time.

I pull the dirt over him until it's over. I look back at the car and think about driving until I crash or fall off an edge, but I can't bear the idea of being in a closed place with the ghost of his memories, and I'm so, so fucking tired, to the bone, to the soul.

So I lie down beside his unmarked grave and close my eyes, shovel to my chest, hoping, somewhere on the edge of sleep, that when I wake up, it'd be in heaven with him.

My second last thoughts before I fell asleep were that I hope it was an 'I love you', even if that wasn't how we worked. I hope to God it was. Because I love him too.

You hear that, Sammy? I love you. I love you more than anything. You meant more to me than this world ever could have. You should have let it burn instead. Hell, set it to fire yourself. Anything but this. I still would have loved you more than it.

The End

Let me know what you thought. I'd love to know! Constructive criticism is welcomed, but please be polite and respectful.

(That ending was really painful to write.)