Title: Thicker than Blood

Author: dragonfly

Genre: drama, hurt/comfort

Summary: My Bloody Valentine tag.

A/N: Written for "Whumped Sam/Awesome! Big Brother Dean challenge/appreciation month. (Check out the link on my profile page) A little over 500 words. Heh… Thanks to sid and Lynne for the pom poms! All mistakes left are mine.

It had been nearly four days. Four days of Sam screaming himself hoarse. Four days of him begging Dean to help him, to save him. Four days of vomiting and muscle tearing seizures. Four days of tears—Sam's and Dean's, fallen and held, inside and out.

Four days of praying for it to be over with already.

Sam laid listlessly on his side now, turned away from Dean. His arms were stretched, limp over the edge of the cot. Free, but he didn't move. It looked as if he didn't just purge the demon blood from his body, but also every ounce of strength, every ounce of hope he had ever held.

Dean sat behind him on the cot feeling just as empty. Arms resting in his lap, shoulders sagging, head down, he didn't say a word. Neither did. They sat in silence. They sat in sorrow. They sat in hopelessness.

"It wasn't your fault, ya know," he finally said softly.

"Dean…" Exhausted. Broken. Don't.

Dean closed his eyes. He was at a loss. Something he never used to be when trying to comfort his little brother. But going to hell had changed him. It had changed Sam too. And the apocalypse had made them lose focus on what it was they had always really and truly fought for.

Each other.

He looked back at his brother curled up on the cot. He wanted to tell him, convince him that it wasn't his fault. He wanted to take the pain away…but he didn't know how anymore.

Some big brother he was.

Turning away, he dragged a hand across the back of his neck and searched for words that used to come so easily.

For the first time in a long time, they finally did.

"When you were about two or so," he started, trusting an instinct again that had never failed him in the past. "…waddling around in diapers on chubby little legs, you used to greet me every day when I came home from school."

The corner of his mouth turned up as he thought back. "You'd…you'd curl your sticky fingers in the bottom of my shirt and look up at me with those ridiculous puppy eyes and go, "Dee here?"

Grin widening, shaking his head, he scratched behind his ear. "Mr. Obvious, huh?" He glanced back at his brother, who still had yet to move or make another sound.

Eyes and grin falling away, his gaze grew distant. "But uh…" Throat tightening, he swallowed. "For whatever reason every day, even if I was standing right next to you, you still needed confirmation, I guess."

Something, he realized, that he really hadn't been giving him since he got back.

Chest tight, he looked back down at his lifelong charge. And righting a wrong in the world with three little words, said what he should have said the second he held him in his arms once topside again—the one and only thing his brother had ever needed to know. "I'm here, Sammy," he urged with a lump in his throat and an ache in his heart—longing to fix what never should have been broken. "I am. I'm here."

Sam closed his eyes, freeing a tear that ran across his nose before soaking into his pillow.

It was twenty-seven long minutes later that Sam turned over onto his other side and curled around Dean. He didn't say anything, but reaching out…he snagged his fingers in the bottom of his shirt.

End.