This episode is usually seen as an amusing one but I have always found it to be highly dramatic and the Winchester hug here

is born from Sam's pain and despair, and that is why to me, it's so powerful and with no fluffiness of any kind to it.

Hope you like it just the same. :)

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Mystery Spot.

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Wednesday; how he hated, loathed and detested the very word, even more than Tuesday, although that unholy day had made

him suffer through the death of his beloved brother for more than one hundred times.

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Said like that it slipped smoothly off the tongue, "one hundred days" but for three months, two weeks and two days he had had

to stand by and watch his brother die every single day, in the most inventive and painful ways possible, without being able to lift a

finger to save him.

Those Tuesdays had reduced him to a walking mass of tears and self-reproach but they were nothing compared to Wednesday;

for that day was the one in which his whole world had fallen apart.

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After discovering that the Trickster had been behind everything, Sam had been filled with such relief and happiness when he had

awoken that morning to find that it was no longer Tuesday, but Wednesday and that finally the vicious circle of Dean's deaths

seemed to have ended.

After months of pain there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

He had believed that perhaps, in the meanders of the Trickster's heart a tiny shimmer of mercy shone, but it was not to be,

for mercy had no place in that heart.

Dean had died for real that Wednesday, exhaling his last breath in Sam's trembling arms, outside of the Motel that had been their

home for all those miserable months.

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That day something in Sam Winchester had switched itself off.

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He had sat in that parking lot crying and cradling Dean's body in his arms for hours until exhaustion took over and he had fallen

senseless onto his brother's body.

When he had come to, any traces of the young empathic man he had been, had been wiped away, and a new

emotionless Sam Winchester had risen like a phoenix from its ashes.

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He had carefully placed his brother's body in the Impala that he had loved; a fitting funeral carriage to take him to his final resting

place; at least until Sam could put right what had been done, and feel his brother alive in his arms again.

He buried him in a patch of woodland.

Dean would need his body once he was restored to life.

There was no way Sam was going to burn it; he couldn't have done it anyway; he couldn't have watched as his big brother's body

consumed itself amid the hungry flames.

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The Winchesters had few friends; their life-style effectively isolating them from others, but even the few hunters that they were

passing acquaintances with would never see him again, not even Bobby, for Sam had only one thing on his mind; the Trickster.

He would track him down incessantly until he had found him and then he would force him to give him back his brother;

there was no other option; no not quite, there was one other but he would reserve that until all other paths had been explored.

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After six empty months of loneliness and despair, keeping his brother's memory alive with the plate of food he always put out for

him when he ate the necessary to keep himself alive, Sam caught up with his prey.

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He was ready; he was well aware of the Trickster's penchant for deception and when he saw Bobby there, his instinct told him

that it wasn't truly him, although for one dreadful moment he had believed it was.

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Sam had gone over and over in his mind a million times, exactly how everything would play out when he finally got his hands on

the Trickster but when he found himself there, all his bravado fell away and he became a little brother again; a little brother

begging for the life of the one person that he loved most of all, for his big brother; for Dean.

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The Trickster's lesson was of no avail, for whatever he had thought to teach Sam, Sam didn't want to learn it; all he wanted was

his brother.

Even a heart of stone couldn't have stood against him as he pleaded and cried for Dean, and the powerful being standing before

him succumbed, albeit reluctantly, to the power of such unquenchable love; and instantly Sam found himself once more in that bed

of torture where it had all began.

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He looked across to where Dean was standing, and the few paces that separated them were covered in a second as Sam threw

himself on to his brother, burying his face in the crook of Dean's neck, holding on for dear life to that which was most precious to

him.

He hadn't see Dean for six months, six long terrible, lonely months.

This was not just a hug that he was giving his brother; it was a symbol of everything Dean was for him.

He couldn't breathe without him; he couldn't eat without him, he couldn't sleep without him, he couldn't live without him.

He was nothing without Dean.

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He felt his brother alive and warm in his arms, stock still, unmoving, not speaking, allowing Sam to take whatever comfort he

needed from him; instinctively understanding that Sammy had been deprived of his brother's touch in some way.

Dean would have stood there all day if that's what Sam had wanted.

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When Sam did eventually break away, Dean could feel his eyes following him continuously as he picked up his few belongings and

they got ready to go, somehow afraid that if he looked away, his big brother would disappear.

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Whatever had happened with Sam, and Dean knew that something had, over and above his own repeated Tuesday deaths,

because the hug that his baby brother had given him was of someone who had suffered through Hell and had been restored to

the land of the living.

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XXXX TBC XXXX

Many thanks to everyone who alerted, favoured and reviewed and to "casismyfavorite." :)