Sammy is ten the first time Dean comes home injured from a hunt, but he doesn't really comprehend it. Dad half-carries Dean in while Sam is doing homework at the table, and he springs up to help but there is nothing he can do. Dad lays Dean gently down onto the bed and Sam stares, fixated, at the blood pouring from his brother's leg. Finally he manages to drag his eyes up to Dean's face, looking to his brother for reassurance, safety. His eyes ask the question that cannot seem to escape from his mouth "are you okay?" Obviously, the answer is no; but Sammy is still a child and he needs Dean to say he will be okay even if it is a lie. Dean, however, lays on the bed with his face screwed up in agony and his fists clenching the sheets and he cannot see Sam's question because his eyes are tightly closed. Sammy looks frantic but nobody notices because Dad is busy with calm and quick motions and Dean is busy holding himself together…the first day Dean comes home injured from a hunt is also the first day Sam sees Dean cry, and it shakes his very core. Dean eventually passes out, and the next day he doesn't remember any of it so Sam never brings it up again, but he remembers.
x
Dean is seventeen the first time he can't leave the hunt behind, and for a week afterwards he wakes up yelling for their father to come save him. The first time it happens, Sam springs up to help but Dean is lost in a nightmare and he fights against Sam as if Sam was attempting to kill him. Sam finds himself on the floor, rubbing his head, and their Dad steps in. Calmly, quietly, he explains to Dean that he is safe and the monsters are gone and the hunt is over and ever so slowly Dean becomes aware. Finally, he looks at his father and really sees him. Something passes between them then, something that Sam sees but cannot understand, and Dean gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. Their father runs a hand over his face like he is exhausted, and then he looks at Sam sitting on the floor and tells him gruffly to go back to bed. Sam complies, for once in his life offering no argument.
The next night it happens again, and Sam lies stiff in the bed while their father calms Dean down yet again, tenderly explaining that everyone is safe and the danger is gone. On the third night Sam goes outside and cries, because Dean is supposed to be strong and invincible and the Dean back in that motel room is terrified and helpless. On the fourth night Sam convinces Dean to let him sleep with him, and Dean offers up the requisite arguments but in the end he relents, just like Sam knew he would. They are too old, really, to be sleeping in the same bed – but that night Sam lies awake and when Dean starts whimpering in his sleep he wraps his arms around his older brother and whispers in his ear "it's all right. You're safe, you're home, it's alright." Dean doesn't wake up, and Sam counts it as a win. He may not understand what Dean and Dad understand, but he knows how to love his brother.
x
Sam is eighteen when he leaves for college. He announces it to his father and brother a week before classes start, and Dad yells some but Sam is equally capable of dealing in anger, so Dad drops his voice down to deadly calm and says "if you walk out that door don't you ever come back." Sam has nothing he can offer to that, no words he can yell loud enough to make a difference; so he walks out. The last thing he sees is his father glaring at the door while Dean stands hopeful in the corner. Dean comes out to see Sam while he is waiting for the bus, just like Sam knew he would. He sits down and Sam looks at him, and Dean's shoulders slump. The dejection that spreads over him would not be visible to anyone else, but Sam knows his brother. "I'm sorry, Dean, "he offers and he wants to explain but Dean cuts him off. "No." He says it gruffly, and Sam hears their father in the voice. Dean drags himself together right there on the bench and looks Sam in the eye and says "If you gotta go, you gotta go. But I'll be here when you want to come back." Sam thinks in his head that he is never going to come back, but he says nothing out loud except a quiet "thanks." They sit there together in silence for the rest of the time until the bus comes, and then Sam gathers up his one bag and faces Dean with no words left to say. Dean blinks and then roughly grabs his brother into a hug. Sam holds him tight for just one split second and then they release, and Dean tucks his hands into his pockets. Sam nods at him and then gets onto the bus and it drives away and he doesn't look back.
xxxxx
Dean is twenty-two the first time he steps foot onto a college campus without the express intent of killing anyone there. He startles Sam right before the first class of the day, and Sam glares at him in joyful surprise while Dean admonishes him for not being alert enough. Sam skips classes for the day, and he walks Dean around campus and shows him the buildings, introduces him to professors and classmates and it is the first time Dean has felt like an outsider while being with Sam. He stands stiffly next to his brother while Sam talks with some guy named Joshua about their upcoming project and the research they'll need to do and Dean realizes that his brother is a part of a different world now. He leaves that evening even though Sam invites him to spend the night, and he drives fifty miles or so away and then sleeps in his car. He wakes up the next morning and the world seems so incredibly empty so he turns the music on as loud as it will go and he drives to the set of coordinates on his phone and he kills the monsters that need killing and he doesn't think about Stanford or little brothers at all. Not at all.
x
Sam is nineteen the first time Dean is hurt while he is all alone on a hunt. Dean calls his brother first, because he is partly delirious and Sam's speed-dial is right next to Dad's. Sam answers blearily because it is the middle of the night on finals week but Dean can't even understand what that means. Sam starts off by saying "Dean, it's midnight and it's finals week!" and Dean shakes his head even though it's a phone call and Sam can't see him. "I'm sorry," he finally offers up, and Sam changes his tone. "Dean, are you okay? Why are you calling, dude?" Dean breathes heavy into the phone and then he hangs up and doesn't answer the five calls Sam makes after that. He calls Sam back a week later and says that "sorry, I was on some strong meds" and Sam accepts it even though they both know that isn't the truth. The rest of the call is spent discussing "safe" topics like sports and beer and girls and Dean thinks to himself that they have never had to be so careful in their conversations before.
x
Dean is twenty-four when he stops calling his brother. Sam can't understand what it is to be driven to hunt, can't comprehend the need he has to kill monsters; and he can't understand what it is to be driven to study, can't comprehend the need Sam has to get a degree and start a normal life. So it is not that they suddenly hate each other, or that they are too angry to talk. It is slower than that, a loss of commonality and both of them entering into new worlds without the other. It is a moving apart, running out of things to talk about because they aren't experiencing life together anymore. So Dean stops calling and Sam stops calling and one day Dean wakes up and thinks to himself that it is inconceivable that they have gone six months without talking at all. But they have; and Dean still doesn't call.
xxxxx
Dean is twenty-six the first time Death truly knocks on his door, but Sam cannot really comprehend it. He stands trembling at the end of his brother's hospital bed and remembers how Dad fixed everything back when he was ten and he wishes he was ten again just so Dean could get better. But Dean looks at him with pity in his eyes and Sam decides he is going to be the John Winchester of this story. He is going to be the one with the answers, the one who fixes the problems calmly and efficiently; and for the first time in his life Sam thinks to himself that maybe he is not that different from his father after all. "I'm going to save you, Dean" he promises, and Dean looks at him sadly but Sam will not accept it. After all, when he was thirteen he learned two lessons simultaneously – Dean is not invincible but brothers help. So he drives Dean across the country and refuses to let him give up, and in the end it works out kind of differently than either of them had hoped but they are both alive and that is enough for Sam. When they leave that town, Dean is driving and Sam is in his own seat and they are talking about commonalities, shared experiences and a life lived together yesterday and last week and tomorrow.
Sam is twenty-two when he truly realizes that they are stronger together. Dean? He's always known it.