Warnings/Rating: GEN, PG.
Word Count: 422
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just for fun.
Characters: Dean, Sam
Summary: Dean makes a wish
A/N: Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are completely mine. Set afer 5.22, cause for some reason, this is what my brain comes up with. This one demanded to be written, otherwise I'd be working on my other one.

Dean manages to make it for two weeks after Stull before he finds himself there again. Blind drunk and fingers scrabbling in the dirt, he tries to claw his way down to Sam. He doesn't get very far, just a small hole, before he realizes that the keening sound he's hearing is coming from his own mouth.

Knowing this, he leans his head back and howls Sams' name, a primal sound full of grief and rage. It turns into a moan, and Dean collapses onto the only grave that will ever matter. He falls asleep on the ground where the hole to hell had opened, his tears continuing to dampen the grass beneath him.

When he wakes, it is oddly quiet, no birdsong playing on the breeze, only a hush. Picking himself up off the ground, he stumbles to the Impala, freezing when his red, bloodshot eyes fall on something inside the Impala. The amulet he had thrown away, hanging from the rearview mirror. He stared at it for a long time, watching it sway gently.

He went to the car and jerked the door open, grabbing the amulet and almost taking the rearview with it. Dean holds it up and looks at it, the sunlight sparkling on the gold, and knowing it shouldn't be here. No, couldn't be here. Amulet dangling from his dirty fist, he yells obscenities at the sky, hoping the sound of his voice carries all the way up, so those bastards can hear him.

He stops only when an idea hits him, and his desperation comes back full force. Walking, trying not to run, back to the hole he had dug, he drops to his knees and puts the amulet in the hole, burying it. His voice, already gravelly, speaks a single word repeatedly. "Please." It cracks during the seemingly endless litany. He wishes harder for this than he ever has for anything. Tears begin to drop from his eyes again, but he doesn't notice. Any hope he might have felt begins to drop away, but he doesn't stop.

His heart stutters and his mantra is interrupted by a voice he never thought he would hear again.

"Dean?"

He snaps his head up and there stands his little brother, looking very confused, but untouched and whole.

"Sammy?"

Deans jumps to his feet, and wraps his brother in his arms, squeezing so hard he can hear Sam's ribs creak. Dean whispers a thank you that is lost in Sam's laugh, but he believes that it was heard anyway.