Disclaimer: Supernatural is not mine. Sam and Dean are not mine. If they were, I'd clone them and sell them to other fans and keep the originals for myself to play with.

Warnings: Spoilers from Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and plenty of angst.

Summary: Sam comforts Dean after his emotional confession. (It's basically a missing scene.)

When Words Aren't Enough

By Uni

The words seemed to keep echoing though Sam's mind...

So tell me, what could you possibly say to make that all right?

The problem was, there wasn't anything he could say. Not anything that Dean would accept anyway. He shouldn't have looked away, he realized, after seeing his brother nod his acceptance out of the corner of his eye before looking in the other direction. It was just so hard to see that tear slide down his face.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Dean cry, and even though part of him had been expecting the grief to show itself sooner or later, even hope that he'd stop bottling it all up inside, it didn't make it any easier to see.

It was ironic, how somewhere in the back of his mind he'd thought that Dean would feel better to talk about his emotions and maybe shed some healing tears, but nothing, nothing had prepared him for this.

Nothing had prepared him for Dean feeling guilty just for being alive.

First the faith healer and now this, he thought sadly. Twice now his brother had been headed towards death, and twice somehow he had been pulled to a screeching halt. Sam knew Dean was hurting, but in emotional discomfort or not he was just grateful his brother was alive. When he'd seen Dean's heart stop in the hospital, he'd felt like his own had stopped along with it, like a part of him was dying with Dean.

He was sitting right next to Dean, but as the silence stretched on miles might as well have been between them. No… there was nothing he could really say. He couldn't say it'd be okay, it wasn't okay, he couldn't make it okay, nothing might ever be okay again, and he respected Dean too much to try to comfort him with false words.

He couldn't say anything to make Dean feel less guilty, he still felt guilty himself about Jess's death and anything he said about this would just make him look like a hypocrite.

Looking over at Dean again he saw that he was trying to pull himself together and failing. His chin was trembling and more tears hung on the edge of his eyelashes, just waiting to fall, and he found himself reacting before he could think about it.

Dean tried to pull away, just as he knew he would, as he slipped his arms around him and pulled him into an embrace, and he purposely let out a small pained gasp that he normally would've stifled when his broken wrist was jarred. Dean immediately stilled, as he knew he would, the big brother in him not wanting to harm him any further, looking out for him as always, even when he was so distressed himself.

After a moment he felt Dean give in and lean against him, even putting his own arms around him to hug back. He sighed softly in relief, thinking that when words aren't enough, sometimes actions speak louder.

He felt Dean's body shaking as his shoulder grew damp from his brother's silent tears, felt a tear slide down his own cheek, and his mind flashed back to Bobby's junkyard and the snarky comment Dean had made.

Come here. I wanna lay my head gently on your shoulder. Maybe we can cry, and hug, and maybe even slow dance.

How ironic. It would've even been funny, if it wasn't so desperately sad.

November 1, 2006