A Moment with My Brother...

Chapter One. Late Night, the Bunker.

I know in my logical geek brain that the bunker's dogged down so tight with every warding sigil known that it's virtually impenetrable and my slightly compulsive, 'Charlie-You-don't-need-to-check-the-door-again' rituals add a whole other layer of OCD inspired security.

So I'm pretty sure that the subdued mumbling and clattering about coming from the kitchen is one or other of my adopted-siblings, that or our now earth-bound, quasi-human angel but until I'm sure it is one of them simply performing some hunter-esque, early-morning task, I feel it's best to play safe.

Thus, I heft my Moondore broad sword a little tighter and carefully push open the door just in case a pack of rabid were-kittens or some such supernatural thing have forced their way into our quirkily comfortable home as we all slumbered peaceably in our memory-foam havens.

Don't smile indulgently like that!

I'm right to be cautious.

A modern girl about town must always look to her safety.

However, we are feline and/or other preternatural visitor free and I think I must have let out a little sigh of relief because Dean...yes, it's big brother who's standing with his bloodstained hand dripping over the old porcelain of the sink...Dean whips round, spraying droplets of cheerful crimson as he turns his face to me.

His expression is a mixture of guilt and...and something else that I'm not sure I have a total handle on yet but whatever it is...and I will work it out...it's over-laying a pallor that's a little worrying.

So knowing the coast is clear, I park the Moondore Slayer and move quickly to his side, grabbing the tea-towel as I pass the table.

"What happened?"

I'm go to wrap his hand in the clean towel as I note there's broken crockery in the big sink and blood trails from there, up the side and over onto the floor at Dean's bare feet.

He huffs out a sign that's part irritation and part resignation at being caught, and knowing him, I recognize that all his instincts are telling him to brush the injury, and me, away with a 'it's nothing' or 'I'm fine'.

Thus when he doesn't, when he actually let's me take his hand and gently fold the cloth around it, I am both surprised and, to be honest, more than a little...well...touched. It's a trust thing see? Dean doesn't give his trust easily and the simple action of letting me look after him, if only for a moment, is a big give for this man.

Awh, I know you think I'm being sappy but really Dean's damaged-psyche socks are on so tight most of the time that he even finds it difficult to let Sam see when he's hurting so in letting me...well, let's just say it makes me go all warm with sweet sibling sentimentality.

"I cut my hand."

His voice is soft and I sneak a concerned peek at his face as I cajole him onto the chair I've wheedled out from under the table with my delicately feminine foot. Hey, stop that laughing! I'm tall alright. I'd look stupid with tiny feet.

"You don't say."

I whistle appreciatively as I draw back the towel and peruse his skillfully filleted palm and fingers. My raised eyebrows say 'No shit, Captain Obvious!' but in a kind sisterly way.

"It's not so bad. Don't fuss..."

He says as he smiles to reassure me but it's a weary, I-feel-a-bit-wobbly-but-I'm-not-gonna-admit-it sorta smile and we both know, that we both know that, but we have a silent understanding so I nod back, pretending I'm convinced.

"Can you move your fingers?"

He does, and they squelch and little bloody bubbles burst from the ragged incised lines but he doesn't even gasp. Tough cookies these hunters and he upholds our silent pact and pretends not to notice back when I do gasp a little.

"So you cut it...how?"

I rise as I speak and pad over the cold tile to the shelf where I know we have sited one of the numerous first-aid boxes the MoL's have bestowed on us. It's another of my minor OCD quirks. Always like to have an eye-patch and a triangular bandage to hand.

His eyes follow me as I grab the box and return to his side and he's all fluttery eyelashes and wide, wide, green, so damn green eyes.

"I was bringing the mugs back from Sam's room..."

He's intent on the little row of items I'm lifting from the box and laying out neatly on the table and it distracts him from his answer. They have to be neat. Lack of symmetry is freakzoid freaky for me.

"You'll need the butterfly strips."

He observes and his un-damaged hand hovers for the medicinal treasures. I gently but meaningfully push him aside.

"I know, keep your mitts off. I'm just deciding which size to use."

I chide him effectively and he drops his hand back to the table. I don't think he realizes but he rests it carefully on his wounded forearm defensively. I guess he unconsciously knows that what is to come will be unpleasant. He's done this many many times.

He doesn't go to carry on speaking, like maybe he thinks 'I was bringing the mugs back from Sam's room' should tell me all I need to know? But it doesn't - I'm a details girl. So as I rise again and find a bowl to fill with warm water to wash the cuts, I prompt him gently.

"So you were carrying a mug..."

His eyes find mine and he takes a second to have them focus.

"Yeah...Sam'd been coughing a lot so I'd made him some tea with honey in. It seems to help...soothes the coughing..."

He tails off again as I sit and place the bowl down beside the towel that is our makeshift operating theatre drape.

"Is he okay now?"

Dean smiles, one of his rare unguarded 'my brother's slowly getting well' smiles and even pale and a little shaky as he it, it lights up the room.

"Yeah, he got off to sleep pretty quick this time. You know I really don't think he's coughing as much anymore."

His face lifts to mine as he says this and there's a hint of the desperate need he has for that to be true lilting under the ever present facade of sorted-out-ness that is part of his armour.

I smile for him partly cause I'm happy it really is true but mostly because I realize how essential it is to him for it to, indeed, be true.

"Shhhhtt!"

He hisses through his teeth as I bathe the biggest of the cuts. It's deep and wends lazily from his thumb, across his palm like a little red salmon run.

"Sorry."

I offer in apology and I mean it, but I know he bears me no malice. He's sat through this and this, only likely a hundred times worse, in his relatively short life.

"So..?"

I prompt some more.

"So what?"

He's confused. Doesn't know what I'm 'so what-ing' at. I hear it in his voice so I glance up and look questioningly again and it kicks starts his memory.

"Oh yeah...so I figured I'd wash them, the mugs, cause there was a plate as well from earlier when I'd taken Cas a sandwich. So I'd got water in the bowl and I was going to put the mugs in the sink but...I don't really know...I guess I dropped them..."

He pauses, drawing in his breath again as I pat dry the now clean cuts. They must sting like the devil.

"Gotta let your skin dry a little or the butterfly strips will never stick."

I say and I cover his hand with the towel as he nods, seeing the sense in my thought pattern.

We sit quietly, he swaying just the slightest bit and me watching his face.

He looks pale and I notice now that his eyes are smudged with grey shadows. His cheek bones are more prominent than they were and his reassuring stockiness has become somewhat leaner.

I get to thinking about how he's always up before I am but never goes to his memory-foam nest till long after we all do. He does the laundry and most of the supply runs and then in the wee small hours, there's always Sam's tea to get or Cas's sometimes frayed, 'it-overwhelms-me-in-the-night' nerves to sooth.

Plus when I think about it, Dean cooks 90% of our meals now and we eat well. Bread made from scratch to cradle his famous burgers, no additives and e-numbers as he wants Sam to be strong enough to heft more than a soup spoon before he's exhausted.

Yet, and boy, this rocks me back on my heels, he doesn't really eat that much himself anymore. When I think about it, he picks more than pigs out, nibbles more than gorges. Oh he smiles when we eat, but the smiles he craves, Sam's and Cas's and mine now, distract him from his own plate.

And now I've seen that but for all that I can't be mad with him cause it's working. Sam is looking stronger by the day and Cas has less bouts of intractable sorrow and guilt over the fall of his brethren and I feel...I feel so wonderfully 'at home'. So effortlessly safe. So finally goddamned loved.

But sudden realization hits me that all this, our splendid, wonderful recovery is coming at a cost. A silent, slow ebbing of Dean's strength cost and I'm suddenly scared to death for my big brother and angry at myself for not seeing it sooner.

"When did you last get a full nights sleep?"

I keep my words soft and non-judgmental but even slow from fatigue and in pain from his injuries, he's sharp and onto me.

"I sleep."

His head has come up and he's all tense denial.

"I don't mean half hour naps in the chair, Dean."

And he shakes his head but doesn't say anything. His eyes are turning broody. The vibrant green darkening to something much more intimidating and if I didn't love him like I do, I'd back down cause shit! He's scary.

"Did the mug just break or did you go a bit dizzy and drop it?"

He doesn't answer and doesn't allow me his gaze either cause he knows his eyes always give him away. The are too telling of his feelings to let me see them if he wants to hide and pretend it's all fine.

"Do you feel dizzy still?"

He huffs in irritation. It's a 'back off Charlie' huff but I don't.

"Well?"

I stare at his cheek as his head is still turned from me. A little tickle of sweat slips from his hairline to the notch of his too prominent jaw. Seconds tick noisily by in the deafening silence but I hold my ground.

He'll break before I do. Girls are better at waiting it out than boys.

I'm right..he fills the silence first.

"It's just a cut hand, Charlie. Don't make a big deal of it."

It's my turn to huff now in exasperation.

"You're running yourself into the ground looking after us."

It's a simple statement of fact. Not really meant as a criticism but more as a loving expression of worry but his body stiffens further and he does that thing where his jaw tenses cause he's clenching his teeth to keep from shouting.

And I feel bad cause my wanting to show him I care for him has made him angry and defensive. Dammit Charlie! You're a heavy-handed Nancy sometimes.

I'm trying to work out how to sweet talk him when suddenly before my eyes his whole posture softens and his gaze wavers hesitantly back to mine.

Anger has given way to exhaustion and he looks young and a little lost.

"I...I'd only walked up the corridor but when I got to the sink...I don't know...I just got all...kinda...blah."

He looks at me to see if I get 'blah' and I do so I nod, my eyes saying 'yeah Dean I get it'. Blah is woozy, nauseous, so tired the mug slips from you hand and your hand follows it down as you go rubber legged and somehow the shards of it tear at your flesh.

And he nods, knowing I know.

"Shall I tell you what's so damn crappy about it?"

His voice is a little strained, like his throat is tightening but his eyes are wide as saucers.

"That you cut your hand and it hurts?"

He laughs and shakes his head at my Captain Obviousness.

"Nah..."

I quirk my eyebrow, saying 'what then?'

"I really liked that mug."

He sounds so sad and I almost smile cause that much feeling can't really be associated with a cheap piece of crockery but I don't because being allowed to see this far into Dean's emotions is a rare privilege. So I wait a bit to see what else tumbles out of him.

"It was my favorite. When I make Sammy his tea or take Cas a coffee then that's the mug I always use for my coffee. It's my...bunker mug. It's mine and I don't have much that's mine..."

He halts abruptly, the constriction in his voice choking off his words and I can see he's breathing fast and kinda staccato. It's making me a little scared and my mouth rattles of the first dumb thing that comes into my head cause I want him not to be sad over such a stupid thing.

"We'll get you a new mug..."

And he's on his feet, suddenly angry as fuck and swiping the first aid box onto the floor with his injured hand before I can stop him. He hisses at the pain it causes him.

"I don't want a new mug, dammit!"

He's shouting now and it's way more angry than I understand and I'm really scared.

"I'm sorry."

I raise my hands in a placatory fashion, not certain where all this rage can have come from but I guess, even though I try not to show it I look scared enough that it registers with him cause he sags and looses it as quickly as it came.

He flops immediately the adrenaline leaves him and it's fortunate he's not really moved his feet, so his boneless fall deposits him gracelessly more or less back on his chair. His sore hand bangs, edge down, on the table and little splatters of blood spray, CSI- fashion onto the wooden surface.

It causes him to pull it in toward him, cradling the crimsoned flesh to his tattered old t-shirt. Ouchie!

We reverberate for a second or two in the vibration of his suddenly dissipated rage before he surprisingly, softly, breaks the silence.

"Don't want some other mug, Charlie."

His words are so quiet I have to drop to his level and crane my neck toward him to hear. He looks at me then and his eyes are too sad, just way too sad to put a description to.

"Don't want any old mug. Want that one."

He's biting his lip now and his eyes are huge and iridescent with moisture.

"It was my mug, Charlie. Mine and I bust it."

I nod now because suddenly I understand his code. My mug really means I want Sam well and safe. I want Cas to not feel the whole weight of heaven pressing upon him. It means I've seen too much, been hurt too much and this mask I wear is so brittle that I don't know if I can hold it in place.

Yeah, that's it. 'My mug' means all that when you understand the code and now, cause we're family, I understand the code.

I move carefully closer to him now, nodding all the time, my face soft with compassion for him. It's a delicate as approaching any other wounded animal. I know if I get it wrong he'll bolt or bite or something.

I can think of a hundred things I want to say to him. It'll be alright. Sam's getting better. Cas will learn to forgive himself but I know they'll come out wrong so I opt for kneeling in front of him to buy a moments thinking time.

His breathing is still rapid and he's white as a sheet.

"You're tired."

It's not a question more an observation and he knows that I know I'm right. He nods just slightly and I take it as the permission I think he wants it to be and lean toward him.

I wrap my arms around him carefully, like he's fragile because for tonight, he is and I want him to know that it's okay. I can be his strength for a few hours. In fact I'm honoured to be that if he'll let me.

His cheek nestles into my shoulder and I move my hands in little circles on his back. I've seen him do this for Sam so I know it's a touch he understands and will therefore allow.

And so we rest a while.

And I don't mind that the shoulder of my hoody get damp with his quiet tears and my soft circles tell him that no one but us will know.

Because he's my brother now and I love him as I know he loves me.

And I'm so happy that he lets me, if only for tonight, have his back.

Ends

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.