Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or the characters here portrayed. This is a fanfic to practice my writing skills.
What Dean knows -
by negativefeeling
Sammy dreams. Dean is awake, lying on the bed next to his brother.
It's been so long since they had a quiet night. Most of the times is either because himself or his younger brother have nightmares and shake in their sleep. The other wakes the troubled one up and checks if he's alright, and then both go back to sleep, once the fear has faded away.
Tonight it seems that everything's got back to normal. For once.
Dean doesn't want to move. He's comfy under the blankets of the cheap motel they're staying at this time. He didn't even care where the Hell they were in the country.
Sammy breathed heavily in his sleep. Usually he would snore lightly, but tonight it seemed that silence got him and decided that he would respect the silence reigning all over the place.
What Dean knows is that Sammy hadn't slept like that in years. Last time before this one... it was when Sam was still starting high school. Dad hadn't start complaining yet to his young son's rebellious behavior.
The older Winchester curled in the strange mattress he had to call his bed for some days. The chilly air of the night draw translucent vapor coming out his lips, and the moonlight coming from the slightly open curtains would show the profile of his brother on the other side of the room.
When he was a kid, John would always tell him to take care of Sam... his Sammy, when the little one still didn't have any clue of how life worked. He remembers sharing his breakfast with the squirt, when he didn't like what he was having. It always seemed that Dean's food was more appealing than his own's. Or playing Lego with Sam, when he still liked to chew on the blocks and Dean would say "yuck" all the times he got to take a drooled one. Or holding Sammy when he was sleeping in the backseat of the Impala, while Dean would nod in weariness and trying not to fall asleep so he could keep some company to his dad.
What Dean knows is all about his brother. Maybe that big stupid Sasquatch had spent some time away while "playing" College, but he wasn't as different as he used to be then, when the Winchesters were still some kind of family.
Dad was gone now. Oh, how he missed that man. He could have been a jerk sometimes, just as bullhead as Sam was. Dean grinned wondering about the analogy he was playing in his head.
What Dean knows is about the sandwiches, the Lucky Charms, the green army men, the days spent in the road making up games so that Sammy wouldn't start wrinkling his face and pout and complain, the fights and how he sometimes let his brother win...
Those times seemed so far away in time right now.
His brother shifted in his sleep.
The night was silent.
The older man drew a bitter smile on his face. He had missed his brother so much. He had needed him. Even though he was not the kind of man who would share openly his feelings, he felt much better when Sam was around. Sometimes Dean made fun of his "chick flick moments", but secretly he envies -not much, just a teeny tiny bit- how his brother can accept and transmit feelings openly. No way he was going to tell Sam he thought like that. It was not manly at all.
What Dean knows is about the crying, healing boo-boos, helping with homework, doing the shopping, arranging the clothes for laundry, the nights in dirty beds with bugs that itched in his skin like hell, the dishes being washed in the sink, the candies he nicked for the squirt...
It seemed that Sammy was not needing Dean anymore. Sam was an adult up to today.
And Dean, in his warm bed, wished for old times to come back. He would give everything he had to have one more day in that old routine, when Dean was everything for Sam, and Sam was everything for Dean, and Dad was the one who dragged them together to one place or another.
Sure he loved alcohol, and women... He also loved the smell of the oil when he was cleaning his weaponry, and the sight of fire burning in a lost grave after a hunt. But all that didn't mean anything if the Winchester brothers were not together. It was family what mattered. And he believed in the family.
What Dean knows is that Sam is his only brother, his only relative that is still alive, his reason to keep living until the day he leaves him.
What Dean knows is that he's crying silently right now, while watching his brother sleep, because he knows this precious moment won't last forever and that he'll be gone soon, leaving Sam, his Sammy, alone. Letting the younger brother survive him broke his heart. Not because he will be dead, but because he won't see his beloved brother growing old by his side.
What Dean knows is that he loved his brother. To death.