Disclaimer: Supernatural and the boys still belong to Kripke, that marvelous bastard.
A/N: I have been trying to write for forever. Yet another example of Sammy drabble turning into giant ball of angst (Angst never sleeps). Dean's PoV, Post-Heart (would this be a tag?), brotherly love of a non-Wincesty kind.
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They hadn't shared a bed since Sam turned fourteen and grew two feet in one summer and suddenly could hardly fit in a bed at all.
But Sam hadn't moved since they stopped for the night, just walked himself into the corner of room and fell into a bed, and Dean was allowed to worry. And because Sam had been too still and too silent and not at all right—not even pretending to be alright—Dean was allowed to do this, go through with the half-awkward motions and stretch out next to his brother.
Sam didn't say anything, kept his back to Dean, engaged in the staring contest with the ugly paisley wallpaper. Dean could only guess Sam was winning,
His was breathing slow, with the occasional break, and Dean knew Sam wasn't even pretending to sleep, just ignoring him.
Dean knew the rules, hell, he'd invented the rules, 'no chick-flick moments', but watching Sam walk back into that room, and listening Madison as she tried to push the gun into his hands, it was enough to make Dean make an exception for this, because it wasn't his twenty-three year old geek-boy lying next to him, it was the five year old whose classmates made Mother's day cards. "Sam?" His brother's shoulders hunched forward, like he was trying to scoot away from Dean's voice, away from Dean, without falling out of the bed. It was the most movement Dean had seen in almost the two hours since they'd pulled in, and there was some promise to it, if it meant Sam was gonna try to bolt. Dean could work with a raging Sam. Rage he knew, he could excuse it.
But whatever other escape plans Sam might have had were cut short by the low keening sound that echoed almost as sharply as a gun going off. There was a jerk in his brother's shoulders and Sam hunched further into himself, further from Dean. There was another cry, a shudder down Sam's spine that rippled across his. It wasn't rage that poured out of his brother, or the defeated determination he'd witnessed back in Madison's apartment. This was just defeat.
His brother had cried for Jess and he'd cried for Dad—Dean had watched him shed enough tears that he was almost positive Sam had been crying for both of them—but this was different. Because even those tears had been reigned in and silent and Sam had managed to still stand despite them, but now, this was Sammy unraveling in the seams, showing everything Dean had ever kept inside himself, ugly raw pain that just poured forth in endless torrents until you were drowning.
"Sammy," he started again, but damn it all to hell if the Winchester men sucked out loud when it came to words, and damn it all if there was nothing he could say to fix this. Because there really wasn't. Sam was just too good at making everything his responsibility, and there was too much blood on his brother's hands, too many open wounds that Sam had been passing off as manageable until then, until Madison. Dean didn't doubt whatever connection Sam had forged with the woman but there also wasn't a doubt in his mind that this, Sam coming part, was about more than just that.
This was about the dreaded D-word and that fucking secret. This was Ava and Meg and Jo and Jess and Dad and Dean almost dying too many times for anyone's comfort. This was about the promise Sam had pushed on his brother and the first hand knowledge of what pulling the trigger would actually mean for both of them.
It was about loneliness, the feeling that God had officially turned his back on the Winchester boys and the numbness that followed. And Dean knew that feeling, it been embedded in him since Dad—because he hadn't lost faith in God, just people, until then—and now Sam was pouring that loneliness out when all had done Dean was bury it inside himself.
But Sam was never supposed to be alone, that's what Dean was there for—he was his brother's keeper.
He reached across the great divide, put a firm hand on Sam's shoulder, determined to ignore the heaving beneath the touch. There was a choking sound, tight and wet, and Dean didn't know if it was shame or grief that making Sam keep it all in. He didn't care if it was the former because he knew the latter too well, so he squeezed, fingers grinding down on Sam's collarbone until he had to wonder if it was painful. But Sam didn't say anything, and that alone cut through any comfort that could be found in knowing that his brother was still there.
"I can't make this better," Dean thought, but it was a truth that felt like shrapnel against the insides of Dean's head. It was lame and defeated and he wasn't about to push his own issues on Sam, not now and not ever—one public melt down per lifetime, and Dean's already reached that quota—so he just kept his mouth shut.
He felt Sam shift, felt his brother's hand clamp down on his fingers, shaky and sweaty, and that was all (and Dean could live with it for now).
Maybe later, he'd try for more, piece together some words for Sam to dig comfort out of. After that he'd offer food and maybe they'd be ready to hit the road again before daybreak, put more miles between them and California and never look back. Just drive until the skies were always grey and there was nothing but corn and wheat and boring every which way.
He knew there aren't enough miles on God's green earth that'll put enough distance between this and now but Dean was sure as hell willing to try, the sick feeling in his gut be damned.
He'd spent the last twenty-three years of his life taking care of Sammy, he wasn't about to take this lying down.
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End
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