okay, so this is another short chappy, but i really just didn't want to cut away from what i've written here and move onto something else as i really liked the scene just as it is...thanks for reading and for all the awesome reviews!! bambers;)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Dean brushed past his father, and with a lot less confidence, trudged toward Sam's hospital room. His father was behind him within a heartbeat, placing his hand on Dean's shoulder. Whether it was meant to give Dean moral support or to stop him from going any further into his brother's room,Dean wasn't sure. Although it really didn't matter to him which it was because at the moment his Dad was the very last person he wanted to have a conversation with.

"Dean — "

"I don't have anything left to say to you." Dean pressed his hand against the door, and pushed it open, calling back over his shoulder, "You've done your fatherly duty, now I'm sure there's a demon out there that needs your freakin' attention. So why don't you do what you do best an' leave."

Without giving John a chance to reply, Dean shut the door and stood pressed against it for several minutes. If his father chose to barge into the room at that second, he knew he wouldn't have the strength to stop him, but luckily the eldest Winchester made no attempt to follow.

After a lengthy pause, he finally worked up the courage to look in his brother's direction, and green eyes met and locked on terrified hazel ones. Dean held up his arms in a show that he intended to stay right where he was until Sam was ready for him to move any closer.

"Sam . . . Sammy . . . ." Dean hesitated, lowering his head as he licked his suddenly dry lips. He took a slow measured step toward the hospital bed, but stop instantly when he heard a small cry issue past his little brother's lips. Dean gaze immediately went to the heart monitor, wanting to make sure his little brother wasn't going to have another attack, and sighed deeply when the wavy line kept at a fairly regular beat.

"By my best calculations, I figure I was kept in Dominic's prison for about three weeks," Dean began as he slowly edged his way along the wall, wanting to be closer to his brother, but too fearful to take the shortest route there. "I swear to God, I tried to hold out an' have hope . . . I swear I did." Dean stopped short in his slow and steady trek toward Sam's bed when he noticed his brother's eyes narrow slightly as if he was trying to determine if he believed Dean.

Dean drew in a shaky breath as he scrubbed his hand across his face, needing time to get all his thoughts in order. "An' then . . . ." He wavered as he glanced back into his brother's eyes, not liking what he now was about to admit, but knew it needed to be said. "An' then I jus' started remembering how angry you seemed when I came to get you from school . . . like you didn't even care if you ever saw me again." Lowering his head, Dean turned it slightly to the side as he brushed away a lone tear that slipped down his cheek. "An' Dad took off without a word . . . I'm not proud to have to admit this, but I started to believe Dominic . . . started thinkin' no one really cared if I lived or died."

He looked to Sam again, hoping his little brother would say something to let him know that what he was saying wasn't falling on deaf ears, but Sam remained deathly quiet and still. "Sam," Dean took a step forward when he reached the end of the wall, and had he not reached out and grabbed hold of a nearby chair he would have fallen as his legs were trembling so badly. A slight awkward smile flitted briefly across his features, and when Sam failed to respond in kind, it faded away. "I don't really wanna go into all I endured while he had me locked up . . . figure you already know it was pretty bad." Dean nudged his head toward all the bruises and injuries on Sam, and continued, "An' I can see tha' it was nothin' in comparison to what he did to you. But it was bad, Sam . . . no one's ever hurt me like that before . . . an' I swear I'm not tryin' to make light of what he did to you . . . I'm really not."

With another unsure step, Dean reached out and took hold of the heart monitor stand to steady himself. Through lowered lashes, he glanced up at Sam, and for the briefest of moments he thought he saw an understanding in his little brother's eyes, but it faded away all to quickly, and Dean was left to wonder if he'd actually seen it at all.

As Dean thought of what he had to do next, he pressed his eyes closed, not wanting to see the look in Sam's eyes at that moment. Slowly he lifted his shirt up to reveal all the stitched over wounds that he had endured while Dominic held him prisoner. His hand lightly grazed over the word etched on his chest, and he sucked in a breath, hating how true it was. Ghosting his fingertips across his chest, he felt where his skin had been torn away from the hooks that had held him suspended to the ceiling, and then he slowly turned so Sam could see the long trailing wounds left behind by the whip.

"He made me do things I never imagined I would ever do," Dean hesitated again as he remembered groveling at Dominic's feet, and gagged as his stomach lurched suddenly, acrid bile rising in his throat. Covering his hand over his mouth, he swallowed hard, fighting the urge to throw up, and finally his stomach slowly began to settle. "I did try to stand up to him once," he lightly trailed his hand over the mark on his chest again, "an' this is what he did to me for it."

Sam's gaze traveled downward and settled on the word etched in Dean's skin, and Dean noticed a single tear slide down the side of his little brother's face in response to what he had seen. Lifting his right hand, Sam lightly rested his cast on his chest, and gave a slight nod of understanding.

"I was so screwed up, Sammy," Dean took another tentative step toward the bed, followed by another, but halted in his stead when Sam visibly flinched away from him. "An' I actually came to think I wanted what Dominic had to offer . . . I wanted a home . . . a family who would always be there for me . . . a wife . . . ." Dean's voice trailed off as he remembered holding Raine in his arms as her life slipped away from her. "But then Deacon reminded me of something very important . . . something that's worth fighting for . . . worth dying for . . . ." Again Dean's voice wavered off as he brushed away the tears welling in his eyes.

Ever so slowly, Dean closed the remaining gape between them, and waited for a moment before he finally took a seat beside his brother. "I never hurt you, Sammy . . . I never even knew you were there. I swear it on my life. You have to believe me."

Dean leaned in, and then very cautiously rested his arms on the edge of the bed, careful not to make contact with Sam even in the slightest way. "Cause, Sammy, you gotta know that I would rather die than hurt you." He lowered his head and gave free reign to the tears welling in his eyes.

"An' I'm so damn sorry that I didn't think you'd come for me . . . that I didn't trust in you." A sob caught in Dean's throat as he lowered his head to rest on his arms, tears now flowing freely down his cheeks to dampen his shirt sleeves. "An' cause of me, you got so damn hurt . . . this is all my fault, an' I don't know how to make it okay, Sammy . . . you need to tell me how to make it okay again. Make it like it was before . . . ."

Sam's hand lightly ghosted across the top of Dean's head, and then his cast came to rest on Dean's back. Dean peered up at his brother through lowered lashes, and saw a faint smile light up Sam's pale complection, and through his tears he somehow managed to smile back at him.

"D-Dean . . . ." Sam uttered so softly that for a slightest of moments, Dean actually believed he'd only imagined that he heard it.

"Sammy?" Dean asked with his heart in his throat, praying for all he was worth that Sam would say something more to him.

"Wh-what did Deacon s-say to you?" Sam murmured in a breathy whisper.

"He said that you were my home, Sammy." Dean smile widened as he moved his arm and laid a hand on Sam's forearm. "An' that it was time to come home . . . but I gotta tell ya, I'm scared as all hell that we'll never get back to where we were before."

Sam lowered his gaze to his left hand as he lightly moved it up and down over his chest, and several more tears spilled down his cheeks. "Things will never be the same, D-Dean . . . we'll never be the s-same." His voice hitched as a sob caught in his throat. "I wanna trust you, Dean . . . God, you have no idea how much I wanna . . . but I don't . . . an' I don't know how to get that back . . . wh-when I look at you . . . all I can see an' hear is you taunting an' hurting me. An' I don't know if it's true . . . hell, I don't know what to believe anymore . . . ." Sam's voice trailed off as he looked long and hard into Dean's eyes. "I jus' want my brother back . . . an' I don't wanna be afraid of him anymore."

"Okay, Sammy." Dean gave a curt nod, understanding completely why Sam was so afraid of him. He also knew exactly what he had to do to earn back the trust that Dominic had taken from both of them. "Don't worry, little brother, I'm gonna take care of this. We can an' will be brothers again . . . an' I swear to you, Sammy, by the time I'm through with Dominic there won't even be the tiniest piece of that sonuvabitch left behind that's identifiable."