Four times Sam hugged Dean and the one he didn't


Dean blinked, drops of water falling from his eyes and catching the light of the setting sun. His breath caught in his throat, angry words of guilt drifting in the wind.

Sam had every right to walk away now. To extract his revenge for a lost father by leaving.

This was Dean's fault, Dean's sin, and he expected no forgiveness.

The feeling of warm arms circling his shoulders came as a surprise, Sam's larger body engulfing him and allowing the last remains of fear to melt away.

"I'm here, Dean... let me share the burden."

And Dean let himself fall.


"It wasn't real... none of it was real," Dean whispered, voice rough from the too long denied tears. "But it felt so... authentic, so true."

"It was make believe, Dean... you wouldn't be happy like that," Sam whispered back, because any louder sound would certainly break Dean's fragile confidence.

"I'm not happy like this," Dean confessed, face looking down allowing the tear tracks to race straight to the floor. "I can never be."

Sam's arms were strong and tight when he gathered his brother against his chest and hugged him. "I'm real... I'm here."

And Dean grabbed on to that.


"It's over."

"It's never over."

"Yellow eyes is dead, you're alive, dad's out of Hell... it's good for me."

Sam did replied. He simply pulled his brother in to his embrace and held on tight. Dean smelled of sweat and blood, and graveyard dirt and gun oil and home. There were no sweeter smells on earth. Love and family.

Rigid and ready to push him away at first, Sam could feel when Dean finally melted in to the forced contact and finally gave in, leaning his still bleeding head against Sam's shoulder. "We have a year, Dean... it's not over."


"It's still bleeding."

"Yeah, well... bastard had sharp teeth, what can I say? Besides, your hands are a mess too."

Sam looked at his blood-covered fingers. He couldn't tell which was his and which was Gordon's. For all he knew, he'd already been infected by the vampire-virus. He looked at Dean, silent by his side, catching his breath. In a less than a year, Dean would be dead. And Sam might be a vampire. Immortal.

When Sam grabbed Dean's bloody neck and pulled his brother in to a hug, it might have been mistaken for love. But it was despair.


Dean's breath catches as the final words leave his mouth, tears like rivers running down his face. He wishes he couldn't feel a thing and if there was one wish that Sam could grant his tormented brother, that would be it.

But Sam can't grant wishes and, no matter how hard his heart breaks at seeing Dean's pain, Sam knows that he will never be able to understand what he went through, how it feels to be Dean.

The one thing Sam can do is refrain himself. He doesn't hug Dean. He doesn't offer a word. He drinks his beer.