Title: Loss

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: Season 12. Sam deals with the loss of Eileen. Dean POV.

I found my little brother in the library. Quiet. Dark. He was on the floor, slumped in the corner; knees folded to his chest and forehead resting there.

I sat down, close enough that our shoulders touched, but careful now to crowd him.

"Sammy." Nudging him slightly, I stated the obvious, "Hurts, huh."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

He sniffed hard and coughed to clear the emotion from his throat, before letting that emotion speak for him. He then proceeded to do the obvious. The one thing that was so very Sam. Blame himself.

"S'my fault she's dead."

"Don't, Sam."

"It's true, Dean."

"You didn't know. None of us knew."

"I should've known. Maybe I could've warned her. Saved her. If I hadn't signed up to help those sons of..."

"Sam, no!" I said, then stopped. This was a battle that neither of us would win, and one that would only lead to an unneeded fight. We had enough on our plates without pickin' at each other, so I ended the argument before it began and changed the subject.

"You want somethin' to eat? I was gonna go grab a burger."

My brother lifted his head and set it back against the wall, eyes closed. "Not hungry."

He looked damned miserable. Broken and torn...with the crushing weight of the world once again pressing down on him. My stomach growled, but I ignored it. I couldn't leave my brother. Not yet.

"Eh," I said, "I'm not really all that hungry either."

"Dean," his brief protest began.

"Quiet, Sam. Can't a guy just hang out with his little brother on the cold library floor of their hidden underground bunker without being questioned?"

Sam's eyes opened and he floated me one of his 'Dean's an idiot' looks before a heavy sigh and returning his head to again rest on his knees. Exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Feelings that seemed to be routine for us anymore.

I couldn't make those things vanish, as much I wanted to, but I could do what I'd done all my life. Look after my little brother. Take care of him when he needed it the most.

I set an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. "We'll take 'em down, Sammy. Every last one of those murdering British bastards."

"Doesn't make it better, Dean. Revenge."

"I know it doesn't. Nothing does. But it's what we can do."

"She was a good person."

"She was."

"She deserved better."

"She did."

"Still hurts."

"Stop talking for a while, Sam."

"Won't make it stop hurting."

"It won't. But you need rest." I tugged him a bit closer. "You want me to hang out or you want space?"

Sam shrugged under my arm; a habit of his since he was young. It meant he was trying deal with the pain while at the same time trying to shake things off. But it was also a silent plea for me to stick around. So, I did.

"You got it, Sammy."

I gave a soft squeeze to his shoulder.

And we sat. In silence.

And we remembered Eileen.

The end