A/N: Season 5 is leaving me in sore need of some Little Brother Sam and Big Brother Dean. This is a result.
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Talk about stupid.
Then again, hell, the whole damn thing reeked of stupid. I got juiced with some ghost sickness that left me scared of even the thought of my own shadow, and that's so wrong I hate even thinking about it. Scared of a cat, scared of a dog that wasn't even as big as the cat, scared of the life that had been my whole life for - uh - my whole life.
Gee-freaking-whiz.
When I was out of it, Sammy stepped up and took over and got the job done, and I didn't expect anything less from him. He's that good and I know he's that good, and that's three-quarters all Sam and only a little bit what he learned from me and Dad. He was strong and I needed him to be: strong and calm and in charge. If he'd hesitated even a second, I would've been lost and gone, and not pleasantly.
I was in trouble and my little brother saved my ass. No muss, no fuss. Just Game Over.
But when it was all over and done and I was safe, I was expecting a little more freaking out from Sam. I had almost died again. Gone back to hell again. Been lost to Sam forever. Again. Call me self-centered, but I thought that kind of deserved a little more emotion out of my other-than-this-moment emotional brother.
But no. I got nothing.
And call me paranoid, but I wondered a little bit, more than a little bit to be honest, if Sam was still - Sam. If my fear-induced hallucination of demonSam had been only an hallucination, or something more.
Yeah, I felt stupid wondering that based solely on the lack of chick flick moments. But still - I wondered.
We got back on the road after Bobby left us and we drove for a long time in more quiet than I liked. When I 'came back' after the Mystery Spot, Sam was my stick-on shadow for weeks. When I first came back from hell, he tended to stand a little bit closer to me than he used to, and for sure he smiled a whole lot more than he ever had. That lasted for a couple of weeks any way.
This time -
OK, so I didn't die this time, so maybe I didn't rate the full 'eternally grateful' reaction.
I still couldn't help wondering.
We got drive-thru dinner and found a quiet spot outside a small town with park benches overlooking a sluggish river to get out and stretch our legs and eat. We sat side by side on one of the benches while we ate, still not saying much. Which made the meal go by pretty fast.
When we finished eating, I took our trash over to the plastic garbage can chained to a tree, then walked a minute or so down the cement walk along the river's edge, just to think. And Sam didn't follow me or ask where I was going or why.
Oh well.
Sam wasn't – but was he really supposed to be? Relieved, grateful, clingy? Did I really think that? Yeah, he's my little brother and yeah I almost died again. But he's also twenty-five and a hunter, and a damn good one, and maybe his perspective had hardened a little while I was down under and what used to be an emotional display now was just quiet stoicism.
But he was still my little brother, and I had almost died again. And it bothered me that he didn't seem to care.
I turned back, back to the bench and Sam, stopping to pitch pebbles into the greenish river every few yards or so. Maybe Sam was tired. Maybe that's why he was under reacting. Or maybe I was just overreacting to his under reacting.
Maybe.
Sam was already in the car when I got back to the bench, a hundred feet away or so. He was in the front seat of the car, turned sideways with his feet out the open door. He had my jacket in his hands, and his head bent down like he was studying it.
Or praying over it.
Or…crying?
When I got close enough, I could see that Sam had a double death grip on my leather jacket, with his eyes closed and tears rolling down his face. I wasn't sure he was even breathing until his shoulders jumped with a sob.
Strong, calm, and in charge had apparently reached his breaking point. Sam hadn't been feeling too little, he'd been feeling too much, holding it all in until he couldn't hold it in anymore. And I'd been feeling too sorry for myself to even notice.
Way to go, Dean.
I crouched down in front of him and put my hands over his hands on my jacket. He tried to look up at me but shook his head instead and turned away, like he was going to put himself into the car. Like that would make me think everything was A-OK.
"Wait – wait." I coaxed him, tugging on his hands to get him to stay where he was. He sniffled but stayed, and I opened the glove box to get a napkin out for him. He didn't take it at first, not until I warned him, "Don't make me do it for you."
That made him chuff a laugh and he ungripped a hand from my jacket to take the napkin and wipe his eyes and his nose.
"The jacket say something mean to you?" I asked, and he laughed a little bit harder, but didn't look at up me.
"I thought you were behind me. But when I got to the car, I turned and didn't see you -." He gestured to the river and the cement walkway. "It just hit me – it all just hit me again – that you were gone and then you were back and now I almost lost you again and – and I don't know what I would've done. Then – then -." He lifted the hand that was still crushing my jacket. "This was here, and I just – it just - ."
He stopped and laughed again and didn't take his hand off of the jacket. And I didn't take my hand off of his.
"Stupid, hunh?" He asked, finally at least glancing up at me.
"No, not stupid. Understandable. I've hardly processed being back yet, and I barely remember being gone. I can't imagine -."
Sam pulled his hand away then, letting go of my jacket, and I let him. Truth be told, I didn't want to imagine what life had been like for him without me. I knew what I felt when Sammy was dead, and that was two days; if that'd stretched out for months, with absolutely no hope of getting him back -
The familiar knife of regret and panic stabbed up through my gut into my heart when I thought of Sam stiff and mottled and cold on that old, dirty mattress and it hurt so bad I could've thrown up.
Months Sam had lived with that.
And I'd been whining because I thought he hadn't been showing enough reaction at not losing me again.
Worrying that my tearful, overwhelmed, clearly embarrassed little brother might have gone darkside while I was looking somewhere else.
That was stupid.
"It's okay, Sam. It's gonna be okay. I won't walk so far away next time, all right?"
He nodded and I patted his leg to get him to get all the way in the car. Then I shut the door and walked around to get behind the wheel. As I turned the key, Sam offered me back my jacket.
"Whyn't you hang onto that for me?" I said. He nodded and bundled it into his arms and he was still holding it when he fell asleep half an hour later.
The End.