A/N: Just experimenting. Never done this POV before.

Spoilers: Season 2, Season 3

You died.

I chanted useless lies and platitudes like 'You're gonna be all right, you're gonna be just fine,' but you just… died.

Right on your knees, right in front of me. I saw it. I saw your face relax, your injury too grave for pain. I saw your eyes dim, I saw them turn from hazel to milky brown. I saw a thin line of blood slither down your chin, while a surge of it gushed from your back. I felt it on my hands, on my skin…

I've scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but…

You had the face of a boy, but the body of a man. That face in my hands, in my brain, behind my eyes when I close them…

And then that too-big body on a twin-sized mattress in an empty house. No, not just empty – destroyed, ravaged, moldering. Just like my insides, just like my heart – or lack thereof, now. Someone came in and smashed everything up, hadn't even left a note, hadn't even left a name. Everything was just broken, with no explanation and no one to blame.

What was his name? How could he ruin us like this? He doesn't even know us. We're not bad people, we don't deserve this.

But I'm not angry. I don't want revenge, because the only thing that matters to me is lying five feet away on a lumpy heap of springs and soiled fabric.

I carried you out of our dead father's car, cradled you in my arms like I hadn't since I carried you out of our burning home. I laid you down carefully on that revolting mattress like you could break, like you weren't already broken.

I feel just as betrayed as you should, with that knife jutting out of your spinal cord. How could anyone do this to me, how could anyone take so much? When does it end?

Whoever created the concept of fairness or justice and whatever other bullshit concepts help them sleep at night ruined everything before it even began. But I never resented them for it, because whenever I saw something I wanted but couldn't have, I looked in the backseat and saw I had something they never would.

I looked in the backseat on the way over. Your skin was gray and your body was limp, head lolling against the leather, hair still pasted to the dried sweat on your brow. It's really something, seeing sweat on a corpse. It's like a wilted flower retaining its color; it's just unnatural.

Drove on the opposite side of the double yellow line for a while, too. No cars came by, unfortunately. I wouldn't have seen them if they did, with what a mess I am, with the tears burning like acid in my eyes. But I'm still alive, so this has gotta be how it went. God decided to punish me further for my unknown crime. Because of course – why wouldn't he?

It's been three days. Your limbs are stiff and your flesh is colorless, bleached by death. But your face is the same, just darker around the eyes and lips.

Bobby says you're gonna start to smell, soon.

I wouldn't know, since I haven't smelled anything but salt for three days straight. I'm disgusted with myself in every single way I can think of.

Like I said, you look the same and totally different all at once, and every time I look at you bile rises in my throat. I've stopped retching because I've stopped eating, because everything I put in my mouth tastes like blood and vomit and ash and...

Even the whiskey. Even the barrel of-

I'm doing this for myself, Sam. I know what gunpowder tastes like now, just like I know it's not what you would want, just like I know this is not what you would want. But I'm doing this to survive. We're survivors, we Winchesters. Aren't we? It may not seem like it, but why put us through so much if we weren't meant to endure it? No – we're survivors. That's all I can accept, that's the only reality I can bear to live in – one in which we overcome this, at any cost, at all costs.

And this is how we have to survive.

.

.

.

.

.

You were dead.

And I couldn't move from the wall.

I heard your screams, I still hear them.

And I did nothing – after everything you've done for me, everything you've sacrificed, I did nothing.

There was blood all over the floor. Where were we, even? Some house? Somewhere nice?

I slipped in your blood once I finally got down from that wall, slipped on my way over to you. Fell to my knees. Assessed the damage, like Dad always taught us.

Your guts were spilling out of you.

By now I've seen some shit, but I'm not sure if your corpse was more or less upsetting than all the others. On one hand, you're Dean, my brother, and nothing about you could ever be disgusting, but on the other you're Dean, my brother, and everything about seeing you like this makes me want to puke my guts out.

You would've liked that, that 'guts' connection. You could always make the best of a bad situation.

I can't.

I dragged you out of the house, too distraught to carry you like I should have. You're not even that heavy.

There was blood all over the Impala too, but don't worry, I cleaned it.

I didn't know where to go, so I went to Bobby's.

I cleaned you up there, in the tub we used to use as kids. Scrubbed you til your rubbery skin was raw, put your intestines back inside and sewed you up like some kind of sobbing surgeon. The stitches are a total mess. You'd make fun of them.

Closing your eyes was the worst part. I found myself wishing you could have just died with your eyes closed, as one last favor to me. How fucked up is that?

But I managed it. After all the major stuff was done – all the (many) patches of flesh reunited – I took a damp washcloth and wiped your face. I always thought of you as the older brother, but it was only then that I realized just how young you really were. Too young. Way too young, Dean.

Why'd you have to go and do this, huh? Why'd you have to do this? It's because of me – because of me, you're dead, and I'll never forgive you for it. Never. How could you put this on me? How could you make me live with this?

I didn't leave you, not for a long time. We put you… We put you on that bed you used to sleep in, next to the window, with the other one right next to it – mine. I slept in the room with you that night, still covered in your blood while you lay immaculate and lifeless in the bed not three feet over.

It ain't right, Bobby told me, and yeah, maybe it wasn't, but shit when has something being right ever mattered?

When I woke up, for a second I thought… I thought maybe it had been a – a dream, a nightmare…

But no.

You were there, real, dead.

Bobby said we had to burn you, like Dad, like everyone else.

I said no.

"No, Bobby, fucking no!" I screamed, tears racing down my cheeks, sticky and hot and wholly unwelcome. "I'm not burning him, I'm not! It's Dean!" Your name tasted like a prayer, but every time I said it, it felt like a curse. I said it to him like it meant something, like it meant something to anyone other than me.

Was it a knee-jerk reaction? Probably. But I… I just couldn't. The thought of destroying your body, the only piece I had left of you, of anyone-

I couldn't.

Bobby just shook his head, knowing it was useless to try to dissuade me.

I sped to Pontiac, Illinois. I dug a ditch as deep as I could, to keep the elements from getting to you. I dug and dug and dug until the dirt started to obscure your stain on me.

I placed you in gently, I stood in that hole with you. I considered entombing myself, too.

But I didn't.

And now you're here, but you were dead, and I feel nothing but shame because this means that someone else came through for you when I didn't.