17

(REVISED)

Disclaimer: Kripke, you already damaged them. I don't want them anymore.

Summary: The last scene of Everybody Loves A Clown, in Sam's POV, because, come on, he didn't walk that far away when Dean started trashing stuff. You really think he didn't know?

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You hurry back indoors and stop next to the doorway. Your head throb with a dull ache and you rub your eyes free of any remaining tears. You wait a little while to see if Dean would come after you, see if he would call out and say "Let's talk about this."

Ha. Who are you kidding? Dean would never do that, not in a million years.

You're selfish. You just want to get everything off your chest. You just want to let it all out so there is someone else to share that heavy burden with you. You need someone else to share your pain. You know you're selfish.

You screwed up with your father. Dean made it clear while he was yelling at you earlier in the day. And it hurt so bad to hear him say it, to hear the wild doubts in your head justified out loud by the only person you have left in the world.

You want Dean to know that you understand now, that you are slowly trying to deal. You don't think you will ever come to terms with it, but you are trying. And you want him to understand that you two are a whole, that you both need each other to get through this.

You start to walk away, but then you hear a loud shattering noise and every fiber in your being goes on full alert. The muscles in your body tense in preparation and your glands pump adrenaline into your bloodstream.

But your subconscious tells you exactly what that noise is.

It is the crumbling of the wall. It is the crumbling of the wall Dean has been building, brick by brick, stone by stone, ever since you were six months old.

So you don't look. You don't even move an inch from where you are, mainly because you can't. Every single part of your body is poised to move, but you simply can't.

So you close you eyes and sink into the wall behind you, fighting the conflicting emotions inside of you. You want so badly to run out, to be out there, standing next to your brother. You want to be by his side, to tell him you can both get through this shit, to let him know you will never give up on him.

But you know you can't. You know Dean like the back of your hand. You grew up with him for 19 years. And you loved him for all those years and more. Dean needs to believe he is alone. That is the only way he would ever let out any of that bottled emotions. The grief, the anger, the denial. Everything.

You know the moment you let your presence known, Dean would stop and give some crap reason about how he smashed something by accident, and maybe make a joke about it. Or maybe he would just ignore you altogether and go on with his work.

Or maybe he would be broken and you would see him vulnerable for the first time in your life.

You aren't ever sure you want to see any of that, especially that last possibility.

So you fight that basic instinct, ringing loud inside your body to run out there into the sun to see your brother. And you hide in the shadows.

Then you hear something else. A dull clunk of metal against metal, again and again, each one in sync with a low growl of anguish in a voice so familiar to you.

Thud.

You wonder what Dean is hitting at.

The Impala?

No. Please no.

You know how much that car means to your brother. It is the one constant in his life that you know your brother depended on. The car was there when you left for college. The car was there when your father mysteriously disappeared. The car was there throughout. In some ways, you often think that the car reflects your brother's state of mind. That was why you refused to let Bobby take apart the car.

Dean can't possibly be hitting the car.

Thud.

But somehow you can see that image, burnt deep into the back of your eyelids. Dean with a bar of some sort, recklessly beating away at the trunk of the Impala. And it burns so bad.

You realize a while later it is the tears that burnt.

You shove a clenched fist against your mouth to prevent your disloyal vocal cords from revealing your location.

Thud.

You want to scream and yell out loud.

You want to run out and grab that bar away from your destructive brother.

You want to get the hell away of this place, as far as possible, where you can't hear anything.

But you just push your back harder against the wall and press your fist tighter against your mouth. You think you taste the coppery tang of blood against your tongue, but you can't be sure.

Thud.

All you can feel are the loud cluck of metals colliding and the raw cry of anguish, both sounds screaming into your ears, each time in pace with your heartbeat. It feels like something is hitting away at your heart and it is tearing you into pieces. You want to throw up. You wonder if this was what Dean felt when the demon was tearing him up inside.

Thud.

God, Dean is so angry. At what? At who?

You?

It occurs to you how you prefer it when Dean was silent. You are so used to him being the older one, the responsible one, the one holding the pieces together, that it hurts to finally realize that maybe, just maybe, Dean is as damaged as you are.

You know you have been pushing him to let out all those grief, to talk and trash things out. But even when you two trashed things out, even when he lashed out at you earlier in the day, your brother never did break.

He is your big brother. He is always there for you. He is the strong resilient one. He will never break.

Will he?

Thud.

This is completely foreign to you. You have never seen, heard, Dean this way before. You're not quite sure how to react.

So you slide to the floor, your legs too exhausted from the welt of emotions to hold you up. You keep your fist pressed firmly against your mouth, wetness craving their way across your fist and down your chin.

And you wait.

…

Seven.

Eight.

Nine

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

…

You hear only silence.

Seventeen times. He went at it seventeen times.

You slowly lowered your fist, but the tears refuse to stop. So you sit in the shadows while your brother continues to work on the Impala, and you weep for the both of you.