'Here's lunch,' Dean threw Sam an apple, because that's what Dean had been doing since Sam's existence, throwing things to Sam. It could be anything, a teddy bear, car keys or his soul, and all Sam needed to do was catch. Recently, however, Sam wanted to throw something at his brother, preferably something that left an impact, like a broken nose.

'We're partners, not brothers,' Sam said coldly, so it could twist through Dean. Right now, he just didn't care. He hadn't slept well, then had decided to go for a long run at an unnaturally early hour, and had since spent the morning desperately researching for something that would free him from the bunker. The air had turned into stifling angst. They weren't talking to each other and everything was dull and worthless, especially hunting. The ordinary evil they sparred against seemed inconsequential, and he wasn't even desperate for revenge against certain angels.

He'd stopped being serious about the 'good fight, saving lives' all that jargon, a long time ago. For years, he'd survived because he'd had someone to fight for and now he didn't. It was ironic that their entire lives they'd fought valiantly against malicious creatures, and instead of going down heroically, they'd destroyed each other without any weapons. Sam felt as if night had crawled into his heart, and there was an endless darkness inside him, that could never be cracked by any hint of hope.

And the apple Dean had so carelessly thrown at him was a reminder of his last date with normality, when he'd gone out on a stroll to buy organic fruit, because that's what he wanted to do. Lately, he'd chosen nothing for himself. It almost felt as if he wasn't a person anymore, because people have intellect to decide on what they want to do, but he didn't. He was just an object, heaven's, hell's, the trial's, his brother's. He couldn't even die, because Dean had taken away all his free will.

'Team Free Will,' he thought, bitterly. There was nothing free about any of them, they were on a constant loop of trouble and torture, and Sam had been tricked right back into it. If he hadn't been deceived by Dean, he'd now be dead and wouldn't have any knowledge of 2014's saving a realm of the universe strategy. If he thought of it that way, he didn't have to help now. Angels, demons and his brother with that ridiculous mark he'd gotten burnt onto his arm and soul could cause maelstroms that cracked continents, but it wasn't his problem anymore.

Sam Winchester was exhausted and this was his choice.

The part that gnawed at him the most was that Dean had betrayed him. Dean never listened! Sure, it felt like something a teenage Sam would say to his dad, but Dean had done what he deemed best, instead of trusting a very grown up Sam to make his own decisions… Siblings were supposed to trust each other, and if Dean still refused to trust him after all the unbelievably absurd adversities they'd been through, as much as he hated it, logically they weren't family.

'Not brothers,' he said again, and threw the apple back to Dean, who caught in on reflex, because he was pretty sure Dean was stunned enough to otherwise let it fall and bruise.

He heard a zip close, and knew Dean had tugged his jacket collar over his ears, they way he did when he felt the world drop him off its shallow shores, and he had absolutely nowhere to go. A desperation so deep it became a being. Sam felt it tug at him, a yank to that invisible iron braid that bound the two of them together, so that he wanted to say something, anything, even ask for that worthless apple back, but he wouldn't, because he was making choices now, and letting Dean have his attention, was Dean taking away his choice.

'Sure, Sammy,' his brother replied, in that 'masking my true feelings with a childish candy-floss cheer' voice. It just infuriated Sam more, so he stomped off, slamming the door to his room, because he'd chosen to do that and it didn't matter how rude it was.

Nothing mattered, and it hurt.

~SPN~

By the next evening, the silence was ringing in Sam's bones, crawling up his skin, shoving a scream from his throat. His brother was never quiet. Even when they'd had a particularly dangerous argument, Dean always had a living clatter falling around him. The sound of guns clicking as they were oiled, hummed tunes, mutterings as he sorted through laundry, books snapped closed, sneezes that always seemed exaggeratedly loud, random chuckles that hung like questions and when he couldn't help it, 'you'll never guess what video I found, Sammy.' It had always reassured Sam and now that there was emptiness, as if Dean was a myth, the bunker seemed cavernous and haunted, and Sam wanted to run.

There was no reason to anymore, but he had to stay. He wanted to live and die. He wanted to gulp crisp, cold air and see his reflection in perfect apples. He wanted to have a photo of him and his mom, just like the one Dean had. Dean had looked at it so contentedly, with his smile lines suddenly lighter, his brow less furrowed, as if 'mom was mine, not Sam's' and even in that, Sam had felt that he hadn't had a choice. He wanted it all to go back to the start and he wanted so much that he could never have.

He wanted his brother to say something.

He shouldn't have to want him to though, because he was miffed with Dean and Dean had to know that and suffer the consequences of his repeatedly selfish decisions. Dean never learnt and worst of all, he didn't want to learn. Sam knew spells for almost everything, but he still hadn't found the elixir that reversed Winchester stubbornness.

If Dean couldn't change with his forgiveness, then maybe this time Dean would learn with his anger.

He'd gone out earlier, taking the Impala without asking Dean, because his brother didn't even like him enough to look at him anymore –which was a strange thing, because Sam was supposed to not want Dean to give him any attention, since all the attention had a misguided reaction at the end- and it wasn't as if he was eloping with a supermodel, he was just going out. Even at the coffee shop he couldn't concentrate on being normal and just getting a simple latte, because Dean had taken away his choice even in that.

It was all Dean's fault. Sam was either miffed at him or worried about him.

Oh, he wanted to hate his brother, but it was all getting tangled as it usually did, and he was beginning to feel that old guilt creep up into him when they were perilously close to, as Dean called it, 'throwing punches.'

He didn't want it to happen this soon. He didn't want them to like each other just yet.

Dean's silence was gnawing at him. The only time Dean was this quiet was when he went on a hunt, and even then, he'd mutter the entire time about why there were so many yucky monsters that needed to be ganked or that bugs from freaking alien jungles were crawling through his hair. So he had to be planning something, and Dean's personal plans always had something variously reckless about them. They mostly failed.

Oh, but it was his choice not to care, so he should forget about it.

Now it was past midnight and he was determinedly trying to watch the movie playing on his laptop, but he still couldn't concentrate. Finally, his brother strolled in, holding a folder in his hands. Sam hadn't seen him in hours.

'Found a case, Sammy,' said Dean nonchalantly, as if it was all so normal, when it wasn't. Why didn't his brother ever get that? It wasn't just another fight, this time it was serious and it would have disastrous consequences (he wasn't sure what yet) but of course Dean didn't even care.

'Great,' he coughed back, because he didn't know what else to do. He opened the folder, which had information of a curiously weird creature that was crawling through a damp forest a few hours away. Somehow, Dean had a knack of finding interesting cases easily. It used to irk him that Dad never acknowledged Dean's skill for it, but then Dad had that odd habit of not praising Dean enough for anything he ever did. It was like Dad deliberately did it and Sam still couldn't figure out why.

He couldn't figure out a lot of things now days, even though he used to think he was clever enough to know almost everything.

'What do you think?' Dean's voice was a static radio caught between Sam's thoughts.

'I'm not sure,' Sam replied vaguely. He didn't care about the case. He was trying to peek at his brother's expression without making it blatantly obvious that he had to know what Dean thought of that conversation yesterday. Dean was slouched in a chair, feet on the table, his mind seemingly where it usually was, in a valley between the consequential and the frivolous.

It all seemed less claustrophobic suddenly, as if someone had opened a door and a moon ray had slipped in. It was Dean's breathing, Sam realized, the lulls in it, as if there was a tune in it that he'd memorized, that he'd always know. When he was away from Dean he imagined that he breathed less fluently, like he needed an inhaler.

'Dude,' said Dean, 'I think you'll like it. It has your usual favorites, squelchy leaves, eerie sounds, stupid hikers.'

Sam noticed something surprising about his brother. Dean usually wore a lot of layers, and when he was upset, he put on more. It was as if he was trying to hide in his own self. Another thing he'd done since forever. So many things had changed of Dean, but so many of the little habits had stayed the same, especially the one he resolutely bound himself to, 'save Sam.'

Tonight, Dean was wearing a t-shirt. He couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

'Good night Sammy,' the words floated and fell into Sam's palms. He clasped them. He wanted to whine and tell Dean to stay, because he'd just begun to breathe easier, but it was too late and then too still, and it occurred to him that he was always thinking of Dean as 'brother'.

~SPN~

Then

Whenever John Winchester returned to the motel after an adventurous quest, his young sons, their faces still so effortlessly innocent, would exclaim jubilantly, 'Dad, we love you!'

And John would reply, 'I love you more.'

This continued until they discovered that an 'I love you' wasn't for teenagers and the custom faded into the canvas of childhood. One day, when all three of them were going on adventurous quest, Sam and Dean unintentionally said together, 'love you dad.'

And John replied quietly, as if it was a wounded memory, 'love you more.'

Later, when Dean wasn't there, John had told Sam that back when Mary was still alive, she'd sit with a sleepy Dean and baby Sam in Dean's room at twilight, and they'd wait for him to come home from work. And when he walked in, Dean would say, holding Sam's fist as if to acknowledge the baby's opinion, 'dad, we love you!'

And John would happily reply, 'I love you more.'

Then Mary would cradle Sam closer to her and tighten her arm around Dean as he leaned into her side, and say, solemnly, 'I love you most.'

~SPN~

Now

Sam Winchester had grown up with guns. He probably identified gun oil as one of his first and most comforting scents and could've written a manual on a variety of them by the time he was ten. So a silencer couldn't mask the faint, almost imagined click that night and it woke him right up. At first, he thought someone was shooting at him and aimed his weapon at the invisible intruder. Then he snapped up and yelled 'Dean!'

He'd always held that word under his tongue, a talisman of his world. It didn't matter, something was going to hurt his brother and he needed to save him, anyway, anyhow, nothing mattered, just Dean.

When he pushed Dean's door open he thought of something he'd told Dean a long time ago, back when he was soulless. It was a technique he'd read about, where a single bullet placed at an exact spot beneath the ribs would severe a vessel and the person was sure to die very quickly. He'd said it with a smirk, because at that time it seemed quite efficient, effective and even kind of cool, but Dean had raised his eyebrows at him, like there was something seriously lacking in Sam's, well, existence.

He'd thought Dean was rude then to dismiss him like that, but now he wished he'd never told his brother about that nifty trick. Dean was on the floor and there was a web of blood in neat veins patterning the surface next to his t-shirt.

Sam felt like he was being strangled. The brother in him was rushing back through the blizzard of yesterday's lashing words, and the hunter in him almost tripped over Dean's legs, a hand on Dean's pulse, one falling to the wound at his brother's side.

'You're mean,' Sam mumbled, realizing he was breathing because Dean still was. Dean's breath was faint and hollow, but it sounded as if there were drumbeats across the walls, resonating through the skies, 'and you missed.'

He was thankful now that Dean hadn't paid enough attention to his tutorial.

Sam knew he should do something, but he didn't want to leave his barely conscious brother. He wanted to stay and hold onto Dean's heart and tell him that he could survive without him but not live, that he couldn't breathe without him, that he was so sorry.

A square of starchy white paper lay on Dean's knee. Sam picked it up, marring it's purity with bloody fingertips. Dean's long, lazy script seemed as true as his real voice, the one you heard before he could shroud it in deceiving accents.

'Sammy, I love you most'.

Oh, brother.

Sam was faced with two striking choices. He could let Dean die or he could pick that bullet out and stitch him up with thread and tears.

'I'll be back in a second,' he whispered, and ran out.