Bloodstains and Flannel

The night grew deeper. Others had long gone to bed when Dean finally decided to make peace with Sam. The others had to be reached out to. It was for them that they had opened up. But what their loved ones didn't understand was that it expelled all energy for Sam and Dean to talk about the story of their lives. They were so numb after every waking tragedy. It was like walking on the bottom of the ocean and being asked to breathe.

Dean helped Mary to bed. Cas went back to Jack. And Sam went to the laundry room and peeled out of his bloody shirt and jeans. Standing there in his underwear, he was running stain remover through his bloody fannel. He scrubbed at the weary fabric with a sponge, feeling the weight of his oceans crashing against him. He pressed his bare knees against the washing machine, trying to calm his frazzled nerves with the rhythm of something mundane and familiar.

He slammed the utility closet door, hands shaking. Numb. So, so numb. As if his bones were removed and replaced with cotton.

He felt Dean slide into the room, cool like the presence of water. Sam never bothered to look up from where he leaned against the utility closet door. He could hear the sound of fabric whisper as Dean pulled out of his own bloody flannel and jeans, standing there in his underwear and spreading blood.

Sam stayed where he was as he heard Dean scrubbing his own laundry. He felt Dean's eyes on him, but he didn't lift his hollow head to acknowledge him. If he moved, it wouldn't be the same. Dean's eyes were bathing him with compassion and he needed to feel clean tonight.

That was something that his well-meaning but clueless loved ones were unaware of. After all that the brothers had been through, and being men, the less verbal expression the better when it came to stomaching all of this. So numb. All of the words in their daily bank burned up. A game of scrabble rigged to the Inquisition. Silence here, shared and lonely, was more comforting between the two of them than a baby's swaddling.

Dean, at last, was done with his own laundry and threw it in the machine with Sam's. Then he came to the closet. Sam lifted his head an inch knowing that Dean was about to take this a mile further. Of course, he couldn't leave it alone. Not after the kind of Hell he'd been through today.

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and whipped him around, roughly slamming him against the door by his shoulders. Sam didn't make a sound but felt the ache of this action in his gut, plucking off the bandage of this last ultra-pressurized tragedy. The ache that went up Sam's spine hurt so pleasantly he nearly cracked a smile. It was the pain of manhandling and for a brother that was almost as good as being cuddled when you were a child.

Dean was silent too. He just pinned him to the door and glared at him. He gave him the thrice-over stare, making a note of the blood that had yet to be cleaned up.

Sam's hands went to Dean's wrists. Dean shoved him harder against the closet. Sam's grip tightened around Dean's wrists. The fire in Dean's eyes froze over along with the Hell inside him. And Sam understood. God help him, he got it. Dean could swear off talking from now on and he'd get it.

Dean swallowed, shaking his head as he bowed, hands still thrust to Sam's shoulders. Sam's knees gave out. He slid down the door, clenched hands at Dean's wrists dragging him and his brother down into other piles of flannel and jeans.

They didn't need to air their dirty laundry verbally. Their bloody life was laying around them in the form of crimson soaked shirts and scarlet drenched, lacerated jeans. Slashes, mud, spilled bleached...It pooled around them like a life driven into the dust. One life. One heart that had squeezed so much blood onto the canvas of disaster as to paint it black with unresolved wrong.

Sam let go of Dean's wrists. They just stayed there for a moment in the bloody laundry. Dean's tired eyes floated up to meet Sam's. They were talking with their eyes. It was the science of telephone lines. The impulses of shared sight were beats down an invisible cable dialing out numbers, framing thoughts in math and not words. They were brothers and this was how it was done.

Dean grunted in annoyance. They were gonna have to wash all this crap eventually. Put more clothes on. Sam leaned against the closet door again, scattered socks and sleeves twisting around his ankles. He let a heavy breath of agreement. He didn't want to fool with this dirty laundry either, but that was life.

He saw Dean's shoulders shivering after a second and threw him a clean shirt. Dean caught it and pressed it to his chest. Then, he slowly eased himself to his feet and held a hand out to Sam. Sam took it and let himself be eased to his feet.

Dean stood for a long moment, tapping his bloody feet in the spilled bleach, cupping Sam's hand by the knuckles in his palm so his thumb could trace the scar. He remembered Sam's mental illness along with so much else. He swallowed, eyes bloodshot now. They may as well be made of lead as they ghosted over Sam's face again. And then he smiled. And Sam felt that smile in his own mouth as if he'd kissed him. It thrilled straight through the cotton of his numb soul and maybe caught a spark.

Dean scooped some jeans off the floor and tossed them at Sam's chest. Thus they proceeded to piece their lives and laundry back together until they were fully clothed again and the bloody pieces were sorted. Not a word was spoken, but a thousand things that needed saying had been talked out. So a wicked night had ended with a much better day. The dawn broke about the same time that the alarm bell for the new hunters had gone off. The brothers continued to mill about their silence, to coffee pots and pancakes and only spoke again when they were spoken too.