Don't own – unfortunately.
Don't Cry Sam
Dean can remember the first time he saw his little brother cry.
His mom had bought Sam home from the hospital and had him resting in her arms. Dean had stared at the baby, all fat and red-faced and squishy, tiny mouth pursed and little hands waving randomly.
Dean wondered what the baby would do if Dean poked him. After all, he was so soft and squashy looking. Dean smiled at his mom and leant over, pinky finger digging into Sammy's little cheek.
The baby looked at him; face drawn up into a comical frown, lips wavering a little. Dean felt disappointed, expecting a better reaction. He waited for a moment, until his mom turned away, and then he leant forward again and poked baby Sammy harder, his finger sinking into the baby's chubby, pink flesh.
Sammy's face went from pink to red and his eyes screwed up alarmingly. He took a deep breath and then let out a loud, piercing scream that made Dean step back, mouth open, deeply impressed.
That night Dean went to bed without supper and his mom was really angry at him.
He crept into the baby's room, when his parents were asleep, and bent over Sammy's cot, his hands reaching through the bars to stroke the cheek he had poked.
"I'm sorry Sammy," he whispered.
6-6-6-6
Sammy didn't cry much as a child.
It was almost as if he knew tears wouldn't work, wouldn't wash and he hid his emotions well, even as a little boy, his large hazel eyes telling Dean more than sobbing ever could.
There was only one time that Dean could really remember. He must have been about eight at the time and Sammy only four. Sammy had this woollen rabbit, all worn down and cuddled flat, one bright eye missing, fluffy tail hanging off.
Sammy loved the rabbit and never went anywhere without it. He cuddled it in bed, took it with him in the back of the car, sat it next to him in restaurants and kept it in his pocket when he was left at Pastor Jims.
It was the middle of the night and John was making them move again, a fast, unexplained dash from the damp and unwelcoming apartment that their dad had rented for them.
They were in the back of the Impala and driving away before Dean realised that Sammy was sobbing; not soft, hidden sniffs and watery eyes, but big, chest heaving sobs complete with snot and grime and everything.
"What's wrong Sammy?" he murmured, seeing the anger in his dad's eyes, trying to keep his brother quiet.
"I lost bunny," Sam stated, mouth turning down, hands shaking, empty and desperate, "I dropped him when we ran and now he's gone."
Dean knew that appeals to his dad would fall on deaf ears. He pulled Sammy into his arms and held him up close, arms tight around him. Sam pulled a little bit of tee-shirt between his fingers and clung on tight to it, burying his damp face into Dean's chest, sobs growing softer and gradually fading away.
Dean clung on to his brother, wanting more than anything to make things right.
"I'm sorry Sammy," he said.
6-6-6-6-6
Sam seemed to cry more as he got older.
By far the most tactile and emotional of the three Winchesters, Sam was not afraid to show his emotions and his walls were far more fragile than Dean's carefully constructed ones.
There were tears over the junkyard dog that his dad wouldn't let them keep, watery eyes when his first love dumped him for the captain of the football team, soft sniffs when his dad wouldn't let him take part in the school play and made them go hunting instead.
The next real breakdown came on the day Sam left for Stanford.
Clothes being stuffed into the trunk, books scattered everywhere, socks being thrown across the room, duffle spilling its contents onto the bedroom floor.
Dean put his hand on his brother's shoulder, trying to keep his own anger and tears in check. He hoped and prayed his father had only spoken in the heat of the moment and that he didn't mean what he had said.
Sam was shaking, silent sobs making his whole body tremble.
"He didn't mean it," Dean knows he sounds unconvincing, even to his own ears, "Sammy – it'll be alright."
"Yeah," Sam's face is smeared with tears, his mouth is turned down, his eyes red-rimmed, "he meant it, Dean, you know he did," Sam's lips purse and, for a moment, he looks like the angry faced baby that Dean poked all those years ago and Dean just wants to hold him, comfort him, make things right again.
"I'm sorry Sammy," is all he says.
6-6-6-6-6
Dean could count on two hands the amount of times he had seen Sam cry openly since picking him up from Stanford.
After Jess, and after dad.
The day the doctor told Sam that Dean was going to die.
Tears in that cold, clinical room in Rowan Oak.
Open weeping in Madison's homely apartment before Sammy had to shoot her through the heart.
Tears of desperate happiness as Sam embraced him to the sound of 'Huey Lewis and the News' and the news that it was actually Wednesday.
Now, at the crossroads, Dean had made his little brother cry again.
Sobs that were harsher, more hopeless than Dean had ever heard.
Distant barking spelt the end and Dean could hear his brother's hitching sobs, his murmurs of apology, his cries of desolation.
This was no lost rabbit or playful poke, this separation was final, there would be no coming back from it, no waking up to find that it was a different day, no cavalry coming over the hill, not this time.
Dean watched; helpless, as his brother broke before him, the last words on his lips solely for the one person in life that he had ever really loved.
"I'm sorry Sammy."
End