Author's Note: Diastole is the term used to describe the part of the heartbeat where the heart is at rest, preparing to pump again. The term is also used to describe the heartbeat itself, usually in the phrase "systole and diastole." Make of it what you will.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. But if I had my way, I would so own Jensen Ackles's ass. Literally. Because, dude, have you seen the guy? Mmmm.
Diastole
When the knife went in, it sounded like hamburgers. Their father had made burgers once, before their mother died and before Sam was old enough to even eat solid food, let alone remember anything. But Dean remembered sitting at the kitchen counter, across from his father, watching him cut the meat into equal sections, drawing the knife across the cutting board so that it scraped against the raw beef with a sharp, meaty-wet sound. His father had let him cut letters into the tops of the patties, marking them for each of his family. Patty-cake, patty-cake. Dean had cried because "Daddy" and "Dean" started with the same letter, so they had to share. Hamburgers.
The memory played in a tiny corner at the back of his mind, and Dean wanted to tell his brain to shut up and focus, because there were no more hamburgers. Dad was gone, Mom was gone, and Sam – Sam was the hamburger this time. It sounded absurd in his head, because this was Sammy and anyway his father had used a big shiny butcher's cleaver to cut the meat, not a tiny rusted dagger. It really wasn't that big; how could it do that much damage? Then again, it didn't take a lot. It was like that with everything; even werewolves could be killed with just a silver bullet. He wished his mind would just shut up already. Stupid automatic thought process. Dean caught his brother as he fell.
Now his brain decided to focus. Great timing. Couldn't have caught up at the stupid diner, or the first vision Andy sent, or...you know. Sometime. It had to be the hamburgers. Damn it. Dean didn't want to see another hamburger in his life, ever. Because maybe the thought process worked both ways, and now hamburgers would remind him of the blood staining Sam's jacket and the way the dirt gave underneath their knees. Dean felt like he might need to vomit.
Watch after my pain-in-the-ass little brother. His mind had abandoned hamburgers by now, and moved on to dwelling on what Dean had just said, picking it apart piece by piece. That's my job, right? And suddenly there were memories, a deluge, overpowering and much too clear. He was kneeling on the dirt in Cold Oak, South Dakota, clutching his little brother's limp body, and it was freezing and dark and they had to find the demon that killed their mother and kill it, and he was twenty-eight and Sam was twenty-three and too young to die. No matter how old he was, Sammy was always too young to die. And Dean was always old enough to know that…always old enough to watch out for Sammy. And Dean had never been older than this moment, and Sammy never would be.
He was five, and his father ran out of the nursery and shoved a tiny bundle of Sammy into his arms and he was running, even as the house exploded into flames and his father caught them both up, but Dean was still carrying his baby brother in his arms.
He was ten, and the room was too small but there was a horrible nightmarish something leaning over Sammy's bed, and he cocked the gun but his father yelled for him to duck and shot it himself, and Sammy woke up and was fine, after all, and the Lucky Charms prize in his pocket somehow softened his father's glare.
He was fourteen, and Sammy was afraid of the dark, of what was in his closet, and Dean gave him a noogie and told him it was okay to be afraid, especially because they knew what was out there, but his father came home and gave Sammy a gun and told him to be a man and shoot the damn thing, and Dean wanted to grab the .45 out of Sammy's hands and shoot the damn thing himself, wanted to take Sammy away from the closet and the dark and rock him back to sleep, like he was a baby still, but Sammy, who had learned to talk and walk and eat on his own, pulled the gun back and said he'd do it himself. And when all Sammy shot was drywall and plaster, Dean patched the holes and put the gun away, and Sammy stopped climbing into Dean's bed at night.
He was seventeen, and Sammy was smart, so smart and so hopeful and still young enough to adore his big brother unconditionally, but that year on Dean's birthday when Dean had come home from a hunt to find Sammy trying to cook for him instead, Dean forgot that he'd been cooking for them both since he was eight, and told Sammy not to play with the stove, it was dangerous. And Sammy didn't say anything, only turned off the stove and brought the first aid kit, and sat and watched as Dean tried to mend his own wounds.
He was twenty-three, and Sammy was Sam, was smart and leaving for college, and when he told his big brother goodbye, Dean called him a coward and wondered when his baby brother had grown so tall. Wondered how long before that he'd begun to look up to Sam. And the feeling in his chest as his father closed the door could have been anger, could have been betrayal, could have been the words coming out of his mouth, but it felt a lot like pride.
He was twenty-eight, and Sam was Sammy, had always been Sammy to Dean, but they had no father anymore to shoot the nightmares away when they got real, and Dean had only words to comfort Sammy, but words were for things that go bump in the night, and Sammy had a knife in his back, and for once Dean couldn't fix it, had no gun to raise and cock and aim at the thing killing Sam, had no defense against this. No more Lucky Charms.
He was big brother Dean, and little Sammy was too big for him to hold and too, too still, and Dean had always followed his father's orders, always except for just this once, but it was just this once that counted, like a baby or a gun or a heroin OD, and Sammy was cold in his arms.