Sam

Since the sound of shattering glass followed by a loud crash and muffled curses had brought Sam bounding to his feet, heart pounding, there had been relative silence from the bathroom. Sam had restrained himself from hammering down the door. Dean's second shout of, "I'm fine!" while probably less than true, had contained more irritation than pain, and Sam was fairly confident that his brother would have asked for help if there was something seriously wrong.

Now, though, he was getting agitated. Fifteen minutes had gone by and he was about to go check on his brother when the bathroom door opened and Dean emerged. Sam frowned at the way he was moving, slowly and slightly hunched over. There was little evidence of colorful bruising yet, but there was obvious swelling down the left-hand side of Dean's back, from shoulder to hip, and it was clear that he was in a lot of pain.

Sam's mind flipped back to the events in the warehouse. Dean had taken the brunt of the supernatural power's attack. It had flung him with bone-jarring force into a concrete wall several times, until it had knocked all the fight out of him. Sam bit his lip, wondered just how bad Dean's injuries were. He hated to see his brother hurt, and Dean had been hurt plenty over the years. The last time had been eight months ago, when The Demon had tried to tear him apart from the inside out. Sam still had nightmares about carrying his brother's blood-soaked body from that cabin to the car.

Another concern was the bandage wrapped around Dean's right hand. There had been nothing wrong with Dean's hand when he'd entered the bathroom. It didn't take a genius to connect the injury with the breaking glass. It also didn't take a genius to work out that Dean had probably put his fist through the mirror in a fit of anger. It took a little brother's intuition, however, to work out that the anger had resulted from the turbulent emotions he'd earlier glimpsed in Dean's eyes.

Dean's physical pain, Sam could cope with. He would either cajole or bully, but one way or another he would get Dean to let him check his injuries and take appropriate action. This raw emotion, though, was something else. There had been other occasions when Dean had been unable to hide his pain, and Sam had never been sure how to deal with it. He decided to try a low-key approach.

"What happened in there?"

Dean carefully lowered himself onto his bed, eyes averted. "Slipped on the tiles and put my fist through the mirror. No big deal."

"Uh-huh." Sam wondered if it had taken Dean the whole fifteen minutes to come up with that story. He chose not to pursue it and changed the subject instead. "You use up all the hot water?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"That's cool. I'll catch a shower in the morning."

Sam waited for a wisecrack about his personal hygiene, but none came. Instead, Dean reached over and turned off the lamp on his side of the bed, then shifted onto his stomach, head turned away from Sam.

Sam deliberated. He could say nothing and let Dean deal with this in his own way, as he usually did. But he found he couldn't just sit back, knowing his brother was hurting, just because he had no idea what to say. He took a deep breath.

"We have to talk about what happened," he said quietly.

His answer was a muffled groan.

"Dean…"

"No, Sam, we really don't."

"Come on, dude…"

"Not now."

"When, then?"

"When hell freezes over. And maybe not even then."

Sam wouldn't give up. "Dean, we can't just forget what happened."

"Nothing happened, okay. Just drop it."

"Dean, Dad…"

"I can't talk about this, Sam."

A slight tremor in Dean's voice indicated that he was even closer to the edge than Sam had suspected. He was tempted to keep pushing, but he found himself reluctant to pressure Dean when he was so obviously emotionally vulnerable.

His reluctance won out.

He lay quietly for a long while, thinking about what had happened and trying to imagine what Dean must be feeling right now. He'd always believed that of the two of them, Dad loved Dean the most, and he was cool with that. It made sense – Dean was the perfect son who always followed his father's orders, not the son who'd rebelled as soon as he was old enough to figure out that the life they were leading wasn't for him.

Sam still believed Dean was Dad's favorite and had thought that Dean did, too. Until that moment eight months ago, when The Demon possessing their father had taunted Dean that the reverse was true. To Sam's shock, he had seen from Dean's reaction that his brother believed it. They had never talked about it and Sam had been sure that Dean never would, but now…

Sam knew without a doubt that had Dean been able to speak back in that warehouse, he would have said, "Pick me.". Yet it must have hurt when the choice was made.

If he was honest, the thing that he feared most at this moment was that this – incident – might change things between himself and Dean. Would Dean begin to resent him, because of Dad's decision? Would it change the way his brother felt about him? Sam couldn't bear the though that Dean could come to hate him. One thing had become very clear to him back in that cabin all those months ago, as he'd held his brother in his arms, trying to stop the flow of blood as Dean's life leaked away. Nothing in his life – not the hunt or the plans he had for his future - would ever be more important to him than his brother.

Sam had been listening with half an ear to the sounds coming from across the room as Dean squirmed around, trying to get comfortable. Now, as his brother shifted position with a clear grunt of pain, he frowned. He hopped out of bed and rummaged in his bag, eventually coming up with a bottle of ibuprofen. He padded across the room and squatted down beside the bed.

"Dean?"

His reply was an inarticulate grunt.

"Dean, did you take any painkillers?"

Another grunt, which Sam took to mean, "No."

"Come on, man, you need to take something."

Dean opened one eye. "G'way."

"Dude, don't be stupid. You can't tell me you're not in pain."

Dean sighed and carefully levered himself up on one arm, holding out his free hand.

Sam dropped three pills into Dean's palm and Dean obediently put them in his mouth, and then held his hand out for the water. Sam didn't miss the hiss of pain as he raised the bottle to his mouth, then flopped back onto the bed. Sam decided to push his luck, since Dean seemed too tired and in too much pain to put up much of a fight.

"Let me take a look at your back," he said.

"No."

"Dean, I just want to take a look, make sure nothing's broken."

"Nothin's brok'n."

Sam ignored the petulant comment and sat down on the edge of the bed. He carefully ran his hand across Dean's shoulder, checking the bone, then down his back, wincing as he saw Dean tense, hand knotting in the sheet until the knuckles were white.

Sam was relieved that nothing seemed to be broken, but the flesh was swollen and bruising was already starting to come out. There was a particularly nasty bruise above the left kidney. "Bro, are you pissing blood?"

"Dude!"

Despite his concern, Sam had to bite back a snort of laughter at the indignant tone in his brother's voice. It never ceased to amaze him that for all his brashness, Dean was a real prude when it came to discussing his bodily functions. "I just need to know if you've damaged a kidney."

Dean sighed. "No, I'm not pissing blood, and before you ask, I'm pretty sure I'm not shitting blood either, okay?"

"Okay." Sam stood up. "I'm going to go get some ice for your back."

"It's fine, Sam."

"It's not fine. Look, if you want to be able to move at all in the morning, you're gonna need that ice."

There was a pause, then another sigh of acceptance. "How about a beer to go with the ice?"

"I don't think so."

"You're no fun, Sammy, you know that?"

Sam knew his brother was trying desperately to hold himself together by engaging in his habitual banter, but the continued waver in his voice showed that his heart wasn't in it. Still, he was happy to play along for now. "Yeah, I know. Geekboys don't do fun, remember? Don't move. I'll be right back."