These Things I'll Never Say

Everyone has a breaking point.

Dean Winchester had long since reached his. In fact, over the years he had been broken so many freakin' times his shattered soul should be nothing but crushed glass. He shouldn't be capable of feeling any more pain.

But it still hurt.

It hurt to stand next to Sam knowing there was a chasm of distance between them. It hurt to go out on hunts as though they were just partners working a job rather than brothers carrying on the family business. It hurt to spend long drives sitting in cold silence. It hurt to keep conversations strictly work-related. It hurt to have closed bedroom doors stating 'Do Not Disturb' more clearly than a sign could have. It hurt to be co-habiting an office building instead of sharing a home.

It hurt to know that Sam had finally had enough.

If the old adage that 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' was true, the Winchesters should have been unbreakable after all the crap they had been through together. They had suffered through the worst life and death could offer and they had literally gone through Hell. But nothing could do more damage to one brother than the other. Misunderstandings, disagreements, betrayal, abandonment, resentment and lies had destroyed them, snapping the interwoven threads of their bond one by one until the last frayed strand was finally broken.

Dean had meant to save Sam.

The angel was supposed to possess him, heal him from the inside, and then leave without Sam ever even realising he was there. Sam would be alive, healthy and happy, and they would be together. Everything would be okay.

But everything went wrong. Because this was his life, and since when did anything go the way he wanted it to, ever? Of course the shit hit the fan. It always did.

Dean knew why Sam was pissed. He understood why Sam couldn't forgive him this time.

Dean had promised that he would never let anything hurt his little brother. Maybe he couldn't always protect him, but he always did everything within his power to try to keep him safe and Sam thought he could rely on Dean to watch his back. But inasmuch as they yelled about secrets and lies, what this boiled down to was Dean not just failing to protect him, not just standing back and letting him get hurt, but actually actively helping a monster violate Sam in the most intimate, horrible way possible.

Sam had been possessed by Meg, and had watched as his hands were used to slit the throat of a fellow hunter. Sam had been possessed by Lucifer, and had been trapped within his own mind for more than 100 years, a prisoner at the non-existent mercy of the Devil himself. And then Sam had been possessed by Gadreel, and he had murdered Kevin.

Dean had known that Sam would rather die than be possessed by anything ever again, but he had let Gadreel in anyway.

It was one betrayal too many.

Of course Sam hated him. He had every right.

And so, even though it hurt, Dean didn't say any of the one hundred things he wished he could.

He didn't say "I saved your life, you ungrateful bastard. You should be thanking me."

He didn't say "You don't get to choose your family. I'm your brother whether you like it or not."

He didn't say "What happened to 'I'm not going to let you die, period', and 'I'll find a way to save you', and 'I know why you do it', and 'It's worth it, Dean', and 'I'd die for you'?"

He didn't say "If you had let me do the Demon trials none of this would have happened."

He didn't say "The war isn't over yet; you're not allowed to just throw in the towel because you want out. We have a responsibility to see this thing through."

He didn't say "I can't do this alone."

He didn't say "You're all I have left."

He didn't say "I have always put your needs above my own, and you won't forgive me for being selfish just this once?"

He didn't say "How many times did I let you walk away from me? When you wanted to go to college, when you wanted to find Dad on your own, when you wanted to be a civilian, when you wanted to save the world… I let you go. But I couldn't do it again."

He didn't say "If you think I am capable of letting you die then you never knew me at all."

He didn't say "You can't expect me to break the habits of a lifetime."

He didn't say "I'm doing the best I can."

He didn't say "We can fix this."

He didn't say "If I had let you go you would be stuck in the veil right now."

He didn't say "If you want to die so bad, then why don't you commit a murder-suicide and be done with it?"

He didn't say "We can't keep going like this."

He didn't say "Don't you think I'm tired, too?"

He didn't say "You're killing me."

He didn't say "I miss you, Sammy."

He didn't scream, or cry, or beg.

He forced himself to get up every morning, to go through the motions, to interact with the man who didn't want to be his brother, to do the job, to bury his emotions down deep and pretend he didn't feel dead inside. He ignored the razor sitting on his bathroom sink and resisted the urge to swallow a bullet or take a swan dive.

It hurt like hell – worse than Hell, actually, and he was one of the few who could make the comparison – but he never said a word.

After everything he had done, he deserved this misery.

He bore the pain in silence.

ooOOoo

The End