Our Always

Mystic25

Summary: It had to do with family.

A/N: I don't really know what I have here, I just rewatched the 200th Episode again and had to write something.

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"Maybe 'okay' will be our 'always.'"

~ John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

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Dean can't count the number of times he's sworn to God. But he can count the number of people he's sworn for– one. Always the same one, over and over again.

And the people who he directed his threats to, the swears to a God he doesn't even fully believe in, they always laughed as sticky as congealing blood and as hard as fuck you whenever he rattles against his restraints- chains, ropes, forces of magical power – and they strode over as cocky as a studded rooster, watching the fire burn iron melting hot in his eyes as they brought down pain with joy on their faces, goading him.

And each time, Dean watched as the slashes bled through his brother's flesh and heard him grunt in angered pain. And the door of something dangerous would open inside of him.

Sam was no boy anymore, he handled himself beyond any scope of the child that had once lived in his shoes; a hard sad fact of what this life had cost. But there would always be glimpse, moments, not of a boy, but of the little brother that Sam would always be. Dean had long ago considered Sam an equal in every aspect except that one- and it had nothing to do with Sam being weak, or him being stronger. It had to do with family.

It had to do with the way Dean would never be able to stop the primal need to gut the up the flesh of anything that dared thought they could touch Sam and expect nothing but silence in return from Dean. Because the blood that ran through and ran out of Sam in those moments ran through Dean as well. Because none of those evil sons-of-bitches seemed to ever have enough respect for what being brothers actually meant.

Until Dean found his in, until he broke apart whatever shackles or binds that were holding him and showed them with a gut of his knife in their intestines, slashing all the way down until what was inside spilled outside. Until Sam called his name in a cry to stop because they were the only ones left alive anymore, sucking in heavy breaths in the blood laden air, and in the after, Dean cannot stop staring at Sam, cannot stop staring because his brother is still standing, and it scared him sometimes how far he will go to make sure that will always be the case, even if that meant that Sam will go on standing without him.

Sam would never tolerate the last part, could never do what was needed, even when Dean flashed him black eyes and had tried to end Sam's life with the non-blunt end of an ax. He would never sacrifice Dean the way Dean would sacrifice his own self. But that was how their story went, as backwards and as crazy as it seemed, Dean knew it was how it should be. For them to love each other was in fucked over ways that bled bright with how powerful it ran between them.

Eventually Dean knew he would stop swearing to God for Sam, but when that time came Sam would be dead, and Dean would be too, or not far behind. Because eventually they would use up all their Hail Mary cards and Miracles, and death would take them- and when that end came Dean would not let it escape him. Because he had tried it every other way before and it had never worked- because bottom line, he could not exist in a world where Sam didn't.

That was how their story went too, the thoughts pouring out of their heads as they wiped their life's blood onto old towels in the leather covered darkness; Dean ghosting over ever slash and gouge on his brother as though it were inflicted on himself and Sam denying the pain of them all to tell Dean that he was fine.

And Dean would of course, call him out, call him a liar, because Sam's life was not meant to be poured out of him through the gashes made by knives or filthy claws; or even by Dean, by a rage that Dean couldn't control, that could turn him in a second to commit his worst nightmare.

And Sam would call Dean out in the millisecond pause and said that his life was meant to be lived by his choice, and what he chose was this, was Dean, and Dean had to understand because there was no other way for him either no matter where that way took them both.

And the questioned hung 'okay?' would come from Sam's mouth.

And the understanding of their life would hurt with such blinding reality that it filled the car over the music in the A-track and the roar of the engine.

And the silence would last long, drenched in love so painful that they could not speak of it, before the echo would come from Dean as he stared at his brother over the darkness.

"Okay."

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End.