Sam's not sure when Dean stopped being a person and became a montage of the dark end of the Winchester legacy. John taught them to lie well, but Sam thinks he didn't know they'd be so fluent at it, that they'd turn themselves turn into an incoherent untruth. Sam can wear a rifle like he was born into an arena of camouflage. He can also shrug on a Ralph Lauren blazer as if he'd one day inherit an equestrian estate. He has worn, with all the grace he could grasp, the skins of angels and demons. He is an actor of most affluent experience. Yet, throughout it all, he has strove and succeeded to retain ribbons of the essence of Sam Winchester.

Dean wore nobody but himself and Dean drowned. Once, he wanted to be a fire fighter, because small boys like that kind of thing, the red hat and yellow coat, the siren sounds as he pushed the toy fire truck all around baby Sammy. Mary applauded him for it, like she would have done for all the other careers he'd discover in his childhood, because that's what moms do. She indulged her baby boy with supreme motherly advantage.

He was Mary's heart. Sam was a baby, as babies go and Dean had her eyes and their wild loveliness. Dean chatted about everything, mostly unintelligibly, but she understood everything. Dean was naughty and wonderful, and nothing else mattered. Then there wasn't a Mary, a home or a Dean anymore.

So he had to be like his dad, had to be a hunter and had to be Sam's big brother. They were all titles and Dean earned them, hitched up his shoulders in a leather jacket with sleeves that had to be folded. The bad boy persona was first a phase then a protector. The more he wore the jacket and drove the Impala too fast, dealt cards with old tattooed giants and acted like he didn't care, it became simpler to shrug on someone called Dean Winchester.

It was easy to deceive, easier to be accepted.

He did care though, still does, always will do. He used to be told it was a weakness which would corrupt his harsh profession and that he should switch it off, the way he quelled his emotions. Dean knows that no matter what any wiry hunter can say, it shouldn't be called weak. He considers it his strength. If he didn't care about his family, he's fairly certain he wouldn't be alive and they wouldn't be too.

Looking after Sam used to be his job and then it became his existence. He doesn't see different paths or choices when it comes to saving his brother. Demon or deals, death or destruction, there is everything else and then there's Sammy. Dean tells himself that as long as Sam's alive, it doesn't matter what Sam says to him.

It reminds him of a cruelly cold night where he had battered ribs and dad didn't spare a second glance at him, because he was worried about Sam. Dean wasn't supposed to mind. It is a route of memories, where Dean hurt and Sam stepped up stronger, and nobody cared.

As long as Sammy is alright, nothing else matters.

Since Sam has proclaimed his independence for the last time and it's about time Dean listened, he doesn't see why he should stay. The world doesn't need a reckless, poisonous person, the world doesn't want him. Most especially, his brother doesn't.

It's an endless, gasping loss inside him, that even if Sam didn't choose life, he also didn't choose Dean.

Sam wanted to hide his life because he thought everybody would be ashamed of it. Dean hid himself because he thought no one was interested.

When stars fell between the nightmares and desperately clutched knives wouldn't keep them away, he'd wonder if he would've been good at basketball (I'm not short), or seriously studied mechanics (not an aeronautical engineer, because planes are scary), or done something randomly interesting like be a chef (it's not girly) or write something, anything, because writing is completely not him.

What is him? What isn't him?

Dean wonders what it's like, being a person, where you're born with the right to just be.

He can't remember. He doesn't know.

Dean is a journey of scars.

~SPN~

Dean's laying on his bed, in a new t-shirt and an IV with the good painkillers, until Sam figures it all out. He knows the scars on Dean's chest are because the evil force of the blade is dissolving Dean from the inside, its power too ancient and deadly.

'It's okay Sammy' Dean taps his elbow.

'No Dean, it's not' Sam's says frustrated. Dean says it all the time. He should've stopped when Sam was old enough to understand that all things could not be fixed, that most matters scattered into millions of broken pixels. Still, Dean mumbles it through breakfast or a bloody mouth, the degree of danger doesn't matter because he knows it's a safe embrace for Sam although Sam will never admit it.

If Dean doesn't say it, Sam decides that the end is nigh. His heart rate will spike and he's pretty sure he'll be gone before Dean has. Well, if not in body then in spirit. It doesn't occur to him how much he unknowingly, emotionally wraps his heart around Dean's reassurances.

Dean's voice. Dean's words.

Dean is almost always nattering, he can't even watch TV without keeping quiet and he hardly says anything of much relevance, so Sam smiles and tunes him out. On the various, morbid occasions where either of them has died, Dean always manages to say something so wretchedly beautiful, it swirls a storm in Sam's heart.

It surprises him. He doesn't know where Dean gets it from, that crystallized, innocent emotion.

Dean isn't meant to be like that, he's all rude jokes and tough killer, so it doesn't sense. Sometimes Sam thinks he doesn't know his brother much. Maybe it's because Sam and Dad molded Dean the way they wanted him to be, the way it suited them most to their advantage.

We used you, brother.

'Remember what I taught you, Sammy.' Oh, that stayed in Sam's memory throughout that traumatic time in his life. Dean had taught him life and Dean wasn't here to teach him anymore, and there was nothing right about that.

'Jerk,' he says, under his breath, realizing Dean did it again with the note.

Dean looks at him impassively. It unnerves him. He learns most about Dean when he's dying. He looks so un-Dean. There's no wicked glimmer in his eyes, no sly smirk, no rule-the-realm shoulders and no world conquering smile, there's a boy with green eyes so painfully honest, Sam feels lost.

'It's okay Sammy' his brother would repeat, unfailingly. Even then, even when Dean is dying, he's still looking after Sam. Mary dying had to be the worst moment in Dean's life, but he wasn't screaming for his mom, he was looking after Sam.

It makes Sam feel safe and guilty.

'It'll be okay Dean,' Sam mumbles, not confidently, 'I'll…look after you.'

'No, you're wrong Sammy,' Dean coughs.

Sam glares at him.

'You haven't been my little brother for decades,' Dean fights against the painkillers, always struggles and wrestles with everything he can, 'how do you think I've survived this long? We've had our own regretful apocalypses' numbed lips slur over the troublesome word, tortuous times, 'but you've also had my back, been my big brother too.'

Sam's astonishment is a ring of silence.

'You don't have to feel guilty,' Dean's falling into an unreachable chasm, he can't fight it anymore, can't contend with the universe and its secrets, 'there was never any debt to pay'.

Sam doesn't know what to do suddenly. It's as if his purpose has fallen along with Dean. The constant thought that he's a disappointment to his brother never lets him really rest. Dean acknowledging him, almost thank him, free him from misconstrued, misunderstood bounds, he feels a whisper of peace.

Sam's choice.

'Dean,' he runs his hand through Dean's hair, he's not sure if Dean feels it, but it makes him feel like his human amulet isn't melting, 'I love you more than most.'

The End.

Wow...That finale. 'I'm proud of us'. Tears. Guest ah yeah, their both awesome & you made me :-)! Reviews please? Lovely people, thank you so!