A Moment with My Brother

Mostly Dead.

Dean's door is slightly ajar and so I don't knock but just gently push so that it softly squeaks itself open and I can see him.

He's sitting on the bed. I guess in pretty much the position that Sam left him when he had his hissy fit and stomped out and I can tell straight away that he's hurting.

He's holding his body stiff and has one arm...the one not mummied-up to the eyeballs in bandages, pressed firmly onto the bed as if, were he to loosen the grip, he'd just wobble inelegantly to the floor.

He hasn't managed to get his t-shirt on so he's in just his rattiest old sweat-pants and nothing else and though he's trying to hide it, he's shivering with cold...and maybe, pain.

I cross swiftly to him, grabbing up the comforter from the bottom of the bed as I pass.

"Hey."

I say as I sit myself down on the chair so that I'm knee to knee with him, (well almost...gee, his legs are a bit bowed!) and look into his remorseful green eyes.

"Hey yourself."

He's quiet. It's a pull-at-your-heart-strings, I-might-have-fucked-up and I-feel-like-crap, sorta quiet and he quickly breaks the gaze and stares down at the hole in the thigh of his pants, shivering.

I shuck the blanket and stand, making it obvious that I'm gonna put it round his shoulders, so that I don't de-stabilize him in doing so, cause I was right (call me Nurse Ratchet...no, wait. She was a prize biatch! I know...I'll be Nurse Houlihan...Mmm, 'Hot Lips'!), he's wobbly as hell.

Once tucked in the blankie...(I had a blankie when I was little. I used to call it ducky-cover) he looks a little bit less immediately vulnerable so I sit back down and wait to see if he wants to talk.

He doesn't. Not really. Cause let's be honest, it's one of the hardest things you can ask Dean to do. But he does all the same.

"Is he..."

Pause.

He picks at the edge of the blanket with his good hand.

I wait.

"Is Sam..."

His head comes up and his eyes are flying-saucer wide.

"Is he mad at me still?"

I wanna hug him but I feel like I should sort this out first cause I'm his adoring baby-sis, both of them's baby-sister, and let's face it, they're boys and therefore genetically too disadvantaged to sort this out properly for themselves.

I edge a little closer and I can see he's working at focussing on me but I suspect I'm in sorta old 1930's movie-star soft-focus right now.

"He is..."

I say hesitantly and he blinks and de-ages, before my eyes, a few years more into his fluffy blue blankie.

"But it's because he's worried about ya."

I add softly.

"But I'm..."

He tries to get the 'I'm okay" universal Winchester/ catch-all/ in any circumstance baring actual total demise, phrase out of his slightly-too-pale lips but I silence him with a sweep of my sultry brown eyes and he knows better than to challenge me.

"Don't say it. You both need a new obvious untruth to trot out like a stupid platitude in every circumstance known to man so I'm gonna give you..."

I hesitate, thinking for a moment and all credit to him, he stays in submissive silence as I cogitate.

"Mostly dead!"

Yeah that's much better. I laugh happily at my inventiveness...well, okay. Yeah, I know technically it's a pull from possibly the finest movie of all time...well, that and Fargo...Ooo and Donovan's Reef...and...Schindler's List...Sorry. I got lost in celluloid nirvana for a moment there.

Where were we?

Oh yeah...Mostly dead.

Well no, we weren't actually mostly dead...Oh you know what I mean. Don't be pedantic. It doesn't suit ya!

Anyway, he's looking at me. He looks exhausted and pale and guilt-laden and suddenly I feel like my erstwhile and quite inappropriately acquired nursing qualification should be stripped unceremoniously from my theatre greens for making him feel so crappy.

"I didn't mean for him to get mad, Charlie."

His voice is cut to a virtual whisper and he looks so young and sad and sore so I make sure my face tells him that I absolutely understand that he didn't mean to.

"I know but he still is...because he worries about you as much as you worry about him."

I pause for this shiny pearl of sparkly wisdom to penetrate his endearing thick skull and I see it has cause his lower lip pouts just a bit.

"So?"

I say and he's concentrating on me which is good but swaying a tiny bit too and I know I'm gonna need to get him into bed soon.

"So that means... occasionally?"

I prompt but he's too tired a little fishy to jump on my hook so I stand and lift the covers indicating he should get under them. The shirt can wait, blue-blankie will do to wrap him up warm for tonight. He looks more comfy now but he still hasn't answered my too taxing question so I relent and do it for him.

"Sooo...that means occasionally you have to let him help you. Get it?"

He's laying back now, looking fuzzy and mostly out of it so I fuss a little with the pillows making sure his hurt shoulder and arm are supported.

He nods. His eyes are drooping and I note the two tablets and half glass of water on the side table. He refused to take his pain meds too, I guess. No wonder Sam freaked.

"I get it, Charlie."

His voice is almost lost to total lassitude...both warm woolly blanket and exhaustion inspired and I pick up the pills and water.

"Here take these and then you can go to sleep."

He fumbles with the meds but swallows them and then leans to put the glass back down. His hand is clumsy though and the remaining inch of tepid water slooshes onto the surface of his nightstand as he inadvertently tips the glass and suddenly he's moving far faster than I thought he could in the state he is, and calling urgently...really, very urgently...

"Charlie! My photo..."

There's only one photo on the nightstand. It's an old, curled at the edge, worn out smudge of a thing but I snatch it to safety, trying to sooth him as the rapid movement he made has fired to life all his Ramses-wrapped hurts and his slightly pale has become white as buttermilk.

"It's fine...calm down, be still, you're gonna hurt yourself...It's safe. Your photo's safe."

I raise my eyebrow at myself for daring to utter the newly banished 'it's fine' and hurriedly wipe the edge of the photo so the splashes of water don't bleed or tarnish the image there and place it into his outstretched, trembling hand.

"It's not damaged...see, it's alright."

I smile my top level reassuring smile at him and I carefully nestle him back into his woolen cocoon and he hiccups and trembles in pain, clutching the photo against him like it is his last and only lifeline.

And I realize as I lean over and kiss him on the forehead and his eyes close as he falls to sleep that perhaps that's exactly what it is.

Ends