Disclaimer: Just gonna get to the point…I don't own.
Warning: Couple of words. Don't think it's too bad.
AN: Here it is. What is very probably the last chapter. I'm so sorry it took me so long to get it out. I've been working on it since Monday but this little baby gave me some problems. I'm still not completely satisfied with it but I really didn't want to overwork it.
Thank you to
everybody who reviewed the last chapter, y'all made me smile. I
sent replies to everybody I could but there were a couple with no
emails, so I'd just like to take the time to thank y'all now:
Shinegami's Little Sis- I think I will keep writing. I like it. Wink Thanks for the read and review!
KatieLB- He didn't quite fix it, but I think they let a couple of things out. Thanks!
Mariethorne
Julie- Thank you so much! Hope I didn't make you wait too long!
Spuffyshipper- Thank you! You know, that's actually a great idea! Is it a story you've read or one you're planning on writing? If you're gonna write it, let me know, I'd really like to read it. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
DesertEagle- LOL! Thank you so much, you're so kind. I'm pleased to tell you, there's another chapter. Here you go. I don't wanna kill anyone, wink. I hope you enjoy this.
Sonia- Aww, thank you! I'm not leaving it there, there's more, and here it is. Thank you for your compliments, your reading, and your review.
Daisymaygirl1
Silverstorm06
Phx- Thank you! I don't think Dean could ever really be mad at Sam. Pissed off and annoyed? Sure, little brother, big brother. But mad and disappointed in? Nuh uh. I think he's too Papa Bear to Sammy for that.
SN1983- You made me laugh! Here you go. Thank you for reviewing and reading!
Okay…on to the story.
Too Little, Too Late
Chapter 3: What They Did Best
Sam didn't know what to do. He didn't know if there was anything he could do. That Impala was Dean's pride and joy. That Impala was the one, the only thing that could make Dean threaten all sorts of things to do to him. Like Nair in his shampoo again. Or God forbid, waking up to a recording of a Ronald McDonald commercial.
Was it really so bad that Dean could so utterly, so viciously destroy something so precious to him? The one thing that screamed of their Dad, the memories they had in that thing. The frantic glances to the back seat when one of them was injured so badly that they raced to the hospital. Or the warmth he just barely remembered when he was a little boy and he'd cuddle up to his brother's side in the back seat. Or the few times when the three of them—Dean, Dad, and him—would just forget about the hunt, for just a few precious seconds and just be a family.
Not hunters. Not warriors. Not Slayers of every evil and sadistic, non-dead son of a bitch that had the misfortune of catching their eyes.
They were Dad and Dean and Sammy.
But there was no more Dad. And he was damned afraid there was no more Sammy.
He continued to watch. As he had watched for what surely had to have been an eternity. He watched as Dean, once again, turned from him, from what he couldn't see. He watched as Dean swayed once, then twice, then caught himself once again on the battered and dirty trunk. And he watched as Dean's chin fell toward his chest, and his shoulders seemed to further drop.
He'd depended on those shoulders. Watched as they grew from being small and slight on a skinny little boy, to bony and angular on a lanky teenager, and finally to the strong and broad span of one of the four best hunters he knew.
Now, he thought as yet another tear dropped and disappeared, his brother was the only one. Pastor Jim. Caleb. Dad. They were all gone.
And all he did was watch and depend on Dean. He was the little brother. He swore he hated it. He swore he could hold his own. He swore he didn't need protecting. So why then did he just watch and need when he should've seen that his brother was cracking and faltering?
Too little, too late, he thought bitterly and swallowed a harsh laugh. His brother wasn't cracking and faltering anymore. He was shattered.
He wouldn't watch anymore. He might end up with another black eye and another split lip and most probably a broken nose. But damned if he was going to watch.
He took a step, then another, and another. He kept at it until he was just behind his brother.
Dean.
He wasn't sure if he whispered it or thought it or even shouted it. But Dean started in a nearly invisible twitch before he turned.
Maybe he'd sensed his little brother, maybe he heard him, he didn't know. But there he was. Eyes red and puffy, wet tracks down his cheek and Dean wanted to bash the hell out of something else.
Did he do that? He did that.
How could he do that?
"Sammy."
It just came out. He hadn't even thought it when it just popped out of his mouth. He saw the cloud that passed over Sam's face for just a second, his eyes darkened and his lips tightened.
For an instant, Dean thought that it was fury and when his little brother raised his hand, Dean was expecting a right hook.
When that hand bypassed his face and hooked around the back of his neck, Dean froze and wondered dumbly if Sam was going to snap it like a twig.
He was seriously considering muttering 'Christos' and wanting holy water when Sam yanked him forward and into his arms.
He stood frozen and shocked for a few moments.
"Dude." It was his first, his natural instinct to fight out of any and all potential emotional, chick-flick moments. And so he did.
He was surprised when Sam's arms banded around his shoulders even tighter. Where had that strength come from?
"You're a jackass." Sam's voice came from somewhere near his ear. "And I'm a jerk."
Oh God. "Sammy—"
"Shut up Dean." And he just held on.
Dean stared out of the corner of his eye at the shaggy mop of brown hair that was his brother. What could he do? Would it mean so much to just hold on to somebody? Really hold on. Would it destroy everything?
He couldn't see anything that wasn't in shambles already. He couldn't see anything that wasn't destroyed. The cars around him, the car to the side of him, Sammy.
Himself.
Their memories.
So couldn't he just hold on? Just for a little while.
So he did. He brought his arms up and wrapped his arms around Sam's back.
But just for a little while.
"I'm sorry, Sam."
"Shut up, Dean."
"But—"
"I said shut up, Dean."
He rolled his eyes, sighed, and shut up.
They stayed that way for a few minutes. Leaning on each other, allowing themselves just those moments to gather…whatever is it was they could gather.
It wasn't much. As soon as they let go, everything would probably crash back down again.
It had to. It was their balance, as fucked up as it was, their constant.
But more than the pain was a regular variable, so were they for each other—the comfort may have come in silence, or double-entendre quips, or razor sharp words, or even punches but it came.
They were broken, they were shattered, and they had walls towering between the two of them. But they would deal.
They had to.
But for now, they had warmth, and solidity, and familiarity. It wouldn't last. For now, it would just be. And they would make it be enough.
Even if they didn't really believe it.
When he felt Sam's tears burn through his shirt, Dean didn't cry, his eyes didn't even burn. He just blinked firmly and clenched his teeth hard enough for his jaw to spasm. He just reached up with one hand and, mirroring his brother, gripped the back of Sam's neck, squeezing the tense muscles there.
I'm sorry, little brother.
"I wish you would talk to me."
Dean sighed again and they let go of each other. The moment was over, and they both felt what they knew what happen—the walls re-erecting and everything else coming back.
Life always moved on and reality always came to bite you on the ass.
"Sammy, I can't." He stepped away from his brother.
Sam smiled tremulously and sadly at the action. "I know. I'm not going to pretend to understand why, and I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't piss me off, but I know."
"You don't need to understand it," Dean murmured, bitterness settling in him again, "you just need to accept it."
"And if I can't?"
"You will."
"But if I can't?" Sam pressed, his eyes begging.
Dean's jaw clenched, "You will."
It was a staring contest after that. Neither flinched, neither blinked. The heat and the tension could be clearly felt by both. They were so close, barely two feet from each other, but they knew that they were so far apart.
Dean swallowed. He was the first to look away. "I can't talk to you now, Sammy. Not now. I need you to give me time."
Sam forced the wetness back. He couldn't be the baby brother right now. Maybe if he showed he could be strong, his brother could not be. Maybe if he didn't feel so much, his brother wouldn't hold his feelings in to tightly. "Fine. I'll give you time." He nodded sharply. "Then I'm hounding your ass."
Dean couldn't help it. He laughed. It was echoing and hollow and it shocked him but he laughed. "All right."
They were silent again.
Oh, the hell with it. Dean thought.
"Sammy."
Sam looked at him. "Yeah."
"Don't stop feeling."
Sam blinked at his big brother in surprise. "What?"
"I know what you're thinking. Don't stop feeling," if he sounded like he was begging, all the women in the world wouldn't get a confession out of him. If he sounded desperate, he'd deny it to his dying day. "You have to promise me that."
"Dean…"
Dean grabbed his little brother's shoulder, "I mean it, Sam. Promise me. We're going to piss each other off; we're going to hurt each other like hell before either of us actually deal. But no matter what happens, no matter what we do to each other, promise me that you'll never stop feeling. Promise me that you won't be like me."
His voice didn't break. He wouldn't believe it did.
Sam didn't know what to say. Wasn't he supposed to be the only psychic in the family, he couldn't help but think. He'd hardly ever heard his brother sound like that. So…young and so vulnerable.
"No."
Dean stared at him. "What?"
"I won't promise you." He's going to kill me.
"Sam—"
"I can only hope to be half like you, Dean."
Oh.
Dean blinked.
Well shit.
"We're not okay. We're not going to be okay for a very, very," he snorted almost callously and Dean winced at the harsh sound, "very long time. And you're right; we've got a hell of a time coming to us. Dad's dead. I don't know how to deal with that, you can't deal with that."
Dean's eyes darkened and he opened his mouth to fire an angry something before he closed it again.
"And you can't stop doing that. You can't stop…stopping yourself from feeling your emotions instead of just letting them out and that's going to come back, and it's going to kill you and everything near you. You're letting them fester and build and someday it's going to explode. I can only hope that I'm there with you when it happens. But until then, I'm going to annoy you and I'm going to get you to feel as much as I possibly can. We're going to fix this, Dean." That last sentence wasn't as confident as he hoped it would be.
Dean had remained silent throughout the impassioned speech, much like he had minutes before Sam had walked away and he took that crow bar to the trunk.
He felt much the same emotions—sadness, grief, fury, and everything fucking thing in between. And he did what he always he did—he hid them.
It seemed, though, he couldn't hide them from his brother.
"It's going to be awhile." Dean said solemnly, "You're right. We're not going to be okay for a long time. If we ever are. And we can't fix this. Not now, not yet."
Maybe not ever.
It was unspoken but they both knew it.
Sam shook his head vigorously and Dean felt his anger. "But we will, right?"
The little boy tone stood in stark contrast before the anger in Sam's eyes slid to desperation. Dean was reminded of that time when Sam came to him with a stuffed teddy bear with its arm falling off. They had no idea where the sewing supplies were, and tears were just cascading down that baby face. Dean had told him that he couldn't fix it and Sam just looked at him with lips trembling and asked him that very same question in that very same tone.
He could answer only in honesty. "We're going to try like hell." He squeezed Sam's shoulder again and let go.
Sam stared at him before he nodded.
"And until then?"
Dean looked away and back to that huge hole. It was such a symbol.
And god, but he hated philosophy.
"I fix the car. You pace out here every forty five minutes for twenty. We find jobs. And we do what we do best." They never realized the depth of that last statement.
Not until then.
That hole in the trunk would be fixed. The car would be fixed. Everything would be made up to nice and neat and orderly.
But they would know better. They would know of the darkness. They would know of the hopelessness. They would know of the emptiness. They would do what they did best.
They would hide their tears, and they would hide their suffering. They would be strong for the other even if they were crumbling inside.
Because if they couldn't hide it, if they couldn't hold the shattering within themselves, how could they keep evil from doing the same to the innocents? How could they protect the world from everything else, when they couldn't protect it from themselves?
They couldn't fix it. It sucked. And it hurt like hell. They wouldn't be able to deal for a very long time. They would never get over it.
They may not have been able to protect themselves. But maybe, just maybe, they could still protect everybody else.
No matter what it would mean.
The End….
Oh wow…my very first completed chaptered story! Yay! I hope you all enjoyed this story, and I thank everybody who left reviews. They made me happy, they made me blush, and they encouraged me to write this to the very best of my ability.
I worked on this chapter for so long, deleting and re-working and everything. This story was only three chapters and what might be thought of as short, but it was so hard. Finally, I kept it at what I hoped felt natural. I have a newfound respect for all you epic writers out there!
In the end of this chapter, I was slightly disappointed because it doesn't feel like I did it justice. But this is my first "major" minor story, so…ehh.
Once again…thank you all for reading and I hope you click that little button down and review. Let me know how I did. Tankies much!