Warning: Strong language (few curses here and there) in later chapters.

A Thousand Suns

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Chapter One

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When a snot-nosed four-year-old entered the room, Dean was the first one to spring to action. When that four-year-old cried, the same results ensued. The older brother's comfort could fix anything.


A talkative six-year-old stumbled over the foot of the chair and landed, elbows first, on a stained motel carpet. He laughed it off.

At the age of six, the kid didn't cry much as he would two years ago, when the hurt was physical. Maybe it was because he was better at holding his balance, the ten-year-old brother thought, two years ago he would have tripped over the leg twice.

When Sam cried now, it was because he didn't understand things such as why his dad, Dean's superhero, sometimes came home sad and with a wrapped wrist.

He cried when he got scared.

He cried when his feelings became too much.

Dean's heart melted when he saw his younger brother running up to him, his broad smile displaying his missing front teeth.


When Dean heard small footsteps, he always expected to see the eight-year-old's puppy eyes gazing up at him in a storm of emotion. Dean wondered how such a tiny body could retain that amount of sentiment, when he could barely keep it together when his father came home with blood on his shirt. Sure, he acted like he did, but his masquerade crumbled beneath the black sky.

He wondered if the same happened for Sam.


When the older brother was fourteen years old he screwed up on a hunt. When his dad went out to grab a drink with another hunter afterwards, he sat down on the current motel room bed, his hands aggressively running through his choppy hair. Before he knew it, tears fell.

He angrily wiped them away, muttering something about being "too old for this shi–"

"It'll be alright," a quiet voice said from beside him. Dean bit his lip.

It's not, I have responsibilities. He didn't say it out loud, but he felt like the ten-year-old understood how he felt because the bed sank a little as Sam scooted closer to him.

He may not have any parental person to comfort him at that moment, but he had something much better. The small hand rubbing his back was greater comfort than a thousand suns.

At that moment Dean finally found the words to describe what Sam truly was; a thousand suns locked inside a tiny body too small to carry their brightness.

Dean wondered what would happen if Sam stopped showing emotions. He was pretty sure that Sam would explode.

And if Sam exploded, the world would end.


The sixteen-year-old laughed happily at his chubby twelve-year-old brother's retort.

"Come on, little dude, get your ass to class," Dean said, his eyes shining with joy.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

The shaggy haired boy walked up the steps and down the daunting halls of his new, and vastly oversized, school. Dean beamed proudly of his baby brother. Beside him stood Salma, the ginger girl from French class. When he had seen her standing in the rain at the bus stop that morning, he had offered her a ride to school – half out of decency, half to tease Sam.

"You're so good with him," she told Dean with admiration.

With a blink of an eye Dean returned to his usual demeanour:

A smooth respond from him.

A soft giggle from Salma.

A flirty wink.

A sarcastic comment.

Dean often acted older than he was – than he should.

When he sat in French class staring down at the crumpled paper that was supposed to resemble a test, he thought of his brother.

Many at his age would ignore the bantering between them and a twelve-year-old brother, but to Dean they were the highlight of his day.

No matter how much they might have fought, thinking of Sam would never fail to lighten up Dean's mood.


Judging by the way his thirteen-year-old grew, he would without a doubt be tall, Dean concluded while sitting in yet another greasy dinner. Height aside, some things never changed with the younger brother. Sam still had a mop of brown hair, those puppy eyes and a thousand suns inside him.

Dean never told him this though. He always regretted that he hadn't, even though it would have been an awkward thing to say. If he knew what was about to happen less than three years later, Dean would have told his younger brother just how much he mattered to him.


The fourteen-year-old was moody, but that was nothing out of he ordinary. He would question things that Dean did habitually. Heavy arguments occurred in the small family. Not only with Dean, he was starting to get angry with his dad.

Emotions were surfacing; displaying its content everywhere. This time they didn't come out as rays of sunshine, but clouds don't denote that the sun has disappeared.

The younger teen wasn't too keen on Dean constantly telling him that everything would be okay, but when the youngest cried one evening, a thing he hadn't done in ages, primarily because Dean never did, he was grateful to have his brother's warm arms engulf his trembling body.


When Sam turned fifteen, he woke up with a fever. As always, Dean never failed to take care of him.

With Sam by his side Dean always knew what to do.


This was why when the younger brother was nearing the age of sixteen and disappeared, and the thousand suns switched off, Dean was clueless of what to do next.


TBC...

A/N: Thanks for reading! I wanted to write something a little lyrical, but only for the first chapter.

Constructive feedback is always welcome. :)