Author: Kailene

Title: Unbroken

Characters: Dean, Bobby, Sam

A/N: So...I have a new obsession, Supernatural, which I have to send big hugs out to Ceillean for introducing me to. Aahhh, those Winchester boys. . Anyway, I decided to take a step away from my usual SW Jag & Jaina stories and try my hand at Supernatural.

This takes place after 6.11, Appointment in Samarra. It started out as a short, simple one-shot, me needing some brotherly love between the boys, because as we all know, it's long overdue. Well, it kinda got away from me and this will end up being two maybe three chapters.

A/N2: I own nothing. Supernatural and, unfortunely, Sam & Dean, belong to Eric Kripke.

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Dean's eyes snapped open, his hand already gripped tightly around the hilt of the knife that he kept underneath his pillow. Despite his brief yet exhausted sleep, well-honed hunter's instincts had alerted him that something was wrong. His mind and body instantly awake, he held himself perfectly still in the darkened bedroom, eyes scanning the periphery of his vision for any movement, any shadow out of place.

Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to take action, to move now before it was too late. He took a deep, steadying, quiet breath, slowing the rush of adrenaline coursing through him that was very quickly increasing tenfold by every passing second.

The Salvage Yard was protected by every ward, sigil, devils trap and anything else they could think of to keep just about any being out. Except maybe for those blasted rogue Angels. But Dean knew that even that wasn't the case.

No, it wasn't that something was wrong that had woken him, he realized with sudden clarity.

It was that something was missing.

The old house was about the closest thing they had that the two of them thought of as a home. He knew every creak and groan that it made. It was the absence of one noise in particular that stopped him cold. That one missing sound had woken him from a dead sleep.

A lifetime of sharing rooms had made it a normal, expected part of everyday life. Dean would never admit just how hard it had been to adjust to the silence during Sam's stint at college; or that even the whiskey that had gotten him through the days and having Lisa tucked by his side at night hadn't been nearly enough to fill that void, or ease the horror of his nightmares while his little brother had been trapped in The Cage.

The simple sound of hearing your brother's deep, even breath while sleeping nearby gave each of them a sense of security and safety from the chaos that was their lives.

And that sound was suddenly missing.

Dean's over-protective-big-brother-mother-hen mode, which had already been working in overdrive this last week, kicked up a notch. "Sam?" He sat up quickly, swinging his legs out of bed and sitting up all in one motion, head swiveling around in the dim room looking for signs of where his absent brother could be.

He looked across the room, even though he already knew what he would find. Or wouldn't find in this case. Sam's bed was empty, blankets tossed carelessly in a heap to one side. "Okay Dean, you're being ridiculous. Over reacting. It's 3am, where could he have gone? He's probably just in the bathroom."

His frown and worry only deepened when he glanced out the bedroom door and took in the darkened and silent bathroom across the hall. Willing down the rising dread at what he knew he would see; his gaze slid to the chair in the corner of the small bedroom that they had shared since childhood. His little brother's jeans and hoodie were gone. Boots that had been discarded hours earlier were no longer there.

Dean cursed vehemently to himself. Where could he have gone? He growled low in his throat, running a hand roughly through his short hair. "What am I thinking? This is freakin' Sam where talking about. God only knows what's going on in that ginormous brain of his. He could be anywhere."

A thousand different scenarios raced through Dean's mind as he crossed the room and threw on his own clothes. His heart stopped and his blood ran cold each time he came to the same conclusion.

The Wall had cracked.

Dean's stomach clenched at the thought of Sam out there somewhere. Running. Alone and terrified, his mind shattered; not knowing reality from the demons trapped in his own psyche.

"Sammy!" Dean ran out of the bedroom, hopping on one foot as he quickly tried to force on his other boot. Rounding the corner into the dimly lit hallway, already off balance, his frantic thoughts tunneled on finding his little brother; he forgot about the pile of ancient texts that were precariously stacked in the corner.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" He stepped wide to avoid the pile, his arms shooting out to try to catch the falling books. It was a futile effort. Dean's shoulder slammed hard into the wall as he stumbled, the books tumbling nosily in all directions.

Dean stepped quickly and carefully over the books, knowing even in his anxious rush it would be his head on a platter if he damaged any of them. Once clear, he brought his head up.

Right into the muzzle of Bobby's sawed-off.

Years of training took over on instinct. Reeling backwards, he knocked the shotgun out of his face, hands going up on either side of his head in a non-threatening manner.

"It's me! It's me, Dean," he yelled frantically. "Whoa, Bobby, stand down."

"Dean!" Bobby ground out, his heart still racing at how close he came to shooting the older boy he considered a son. "Damn idjit! What the hell ya' doin at this ungodly hour?"

The younger hunter took a steadying breath, his heart still up in his throat somewhere. "Sam's not in bed," he said simply, as if that explained everything. And to Dean it did.

"Well, let me alert the media," Bobby deadpanned.

Dean huffed out an annoyed breath as he stepped around the older hunter, reaching the staircase and taking the steps two at a time, yelling for his brother once again. "Sammy! Dammit, where are you?"

"He probably couldn't sleep," Bobby said, following Dean down the stairs. "Dagnabbit boy, will you slow up. This old body don't move like it used to, you know."

Dean reluctantly stopped half-way down the stairs and turned. "Bobby-"

Bobby cut him off. "Listen, I know what you're worried about, kid. I've been worried about the same thing. If that Wall had broken, even a little, we woulda known. There is no way that he woulda been able to make it out of this house in that condition without us knowing. Your brother was fine a few hours ago, a little quieter maybe, but still fine. I'm sure he's just looking for some time by himself."

Dean glared at Bobby before he turned and once again started down the stairs, his expression saying all too clear, Stay outta my way. This is Sammy we're talking about. I don't have time for this.

Unfazed, Bobby merely ignored Dean's expression and followed him down the stairs. "Dean, you've been hovering around the poor kid round the clock like a nervous new mother since Death left. You only let him out of your sight to go to the bathroom, for pete's sake, and even then you wait outside the door."

Dean weaved his way through the labyrinthine maze of old books and maps that were stored seemingly haphazardly in the hallway of the first floor. He made his way towards the small room in the front of the house that was used for a combination office, library and spare sleeping area, hoping that his brother was just doing his geek thing and had plugged himself into his laptop and lost track of time.

"Yeah, 'a little quieter'," Dean threw back bitingly, ignoring everything else that had been said and giving the older hunter an exasperated look, silently berating himself for not noticing the change, however slight, in his brother earlier. "Bobby, we both know that a Sammy being quiet is a Sammy thinking. The kid's brain never stops for cryin' out loud. Problems need answers; puzzles need solutions…Dammit all to hell!" Dean threw his arms up, growling as he spun in a circle around the empty office, knowing as he did that it would be incredibly hard to miss his six foot four little brother.

He crossed into the living room, hands tightly fisted by his side, jaw clenching and unclenching to try to ebb the growing pit of dread. "Come on Sammy; give your older brother a break here, will ya. The place isn't that friggin' big," Dean mumbled, running a rough hand down his face as he took in the empty couches and chairs around him.

The fact that he wasn't finding anything out of place; no chairs overturned, windows broken, or signs of any type of struggle didn't make him feel any better, if anything it just made things worse. It only confirmed to him that his over-analyzing, over-thinking, guilt-ridden, emo-brother had left on his own.

Dean pulled back the wrinkled, yellowing curtains and looked out the front windows of the old house. "His body was wandering around for over a year without him, Bobby," he said, continuing his rant. "You know as well as I do that we can tell him till we're blue in the face that he's not responsible for anything that happened while he was soulless but he's still gonna turn every little stone over in his mind and blame himself. Beating himself up for every little thing that happened. I can't let him do that. I won't let him do that."

Dean's head snapped around abruptly, his body frozen in place momentarily at the sudden sound that broke through the silence of the early morning. He'd have recognized that sound anywhere.

"Sonuvabitch!"

"Oh balls!" Bobby grumbled, following Dean as he took off through the living room and kitchen towards the back door, the unmistakable low rumble of the Impala filling the night air. "What the hell is that boy doin now?"