Summary:  After so much has been lost, what remains?
FYI:  Slight A/U (or is it?) set after the final confrontation with the Ceiling Demon. Assumes Daddy didn't make it and that Sam and Dean kept hunting. A/N:  The ficlet meets half the U.S. Surgeon General's daily allowance of angst.
For 'faye_dartmouth', beta and muse extraordinaire and 'kalyw', goddess of spec and spoilers.
Disclaimer:  The usual.

They limped into the motel room, tossing bags on the floor and scattering weapons on the table. Dean unwound Sam’s arm from his neck and lowered him to a bed.

"You need anything?"

Sam shook his head and rolled back, squeezing his eyes shut. He exhaled slowly and carefully as he stretched out, breathing through the pain. He curled a protective hand over his ribs and drifted almost instantly to sleep.

Dean knelt at Sam’s feet, tugging off his boots and socks. He pushed aside the shredded edges of bloodied jeans to check the bandages on Sam’s leg. They were clean, the bleeding stopped. Sam always was a fast healer.

There would be scars, though. There were always scars.

Dean organized their things – one bag by each bed, laptop and journal on the table, toiletry kits on the sink edge, salt along the window and door frames. The guns were cleaned, the knives sharpened and sheathed, and he carried all but the essentials out to the car. His hands moved with the grace of long habit: pop the trunk, rearrange, bury beneath the false spare tire cover and re-lock.

He spotted something on the driver’s seat and reached for Sam’s T-shirt before rolling up the windows. Then, he was back inside. Change, lights off and finally surrender to exhaustion.

But the faint moon-glow that filtered through the gauzy curtain caught the T-shirt where Dean had dropped it near his bed. Filmy light trailed over the dark, uneven stains formed where it had pressed against his brother’s wounds. He picked it up, watching Sam’s chest rise and fall as he turned the ruined cloth over and over in his hands.

Blood, always blood. Sam’s. His. Theirs.

Always and too much.

He pressed the shirt to his forehead, a sudden pressure squeezing the air from his lungs and burning his eyes.

"I’m so lost, Sammy."

He was startled when Sam turned toward him, blinking blearily in the almost-darkness.

"Dean?"

Dean tossed the shirt back to his bag before Sam could see it. "Go back to sleep, Sam."

But Sam sat up, slowly, awkwardly, breath catching in a hiss of pain as he managed to twist his feet to the floor. He didn’t ask for help and Dean didn’t offer, letting Sam make his own way.

They were bookends, facing each other with their hands clasped in front of them, knees almost touching. Sam was watching him in that piercing way Dean hated. The way that made him feel as though all his secrets were exposed.

"You should lie down," he tried again, but it was pointless.

"Dean . . ."

He just looked at Sam, defiant, denying.

Sam dropped his gaze to the floor. "I'm scared, too."

Silence filled the space between them, broken only by the murmurs of old ghosts. Dad. Mom. Jess. Their childhoods. Their futures.

Dean coughed, feeling hollowed and raw. Words scratched at his throat, trying to claw their way out, begging for release. There were so many things unspoken and he was suddenly afraid of what might happen if they never were.

So much had been lost. Almost everything, almost everyone was gone. It was hard to know exactly what remained. But there was Sam. Sam was here. Sam, who’d lost as much, and maybe more.

They cut like glass, but finally, Dean let the words escape. Not all, never all. But the hardest ones to say.

"I want you to know, I'm – I'm grateful that you stayed. After, I mean. You didn’t have to." He pulled at the leather around his wrist, not able to look to meet Sam’s eyes as they rose to focus on his own. Sam’s eyes, filled with emotions that he didn’t want to see.

Sam made a half-strangled sound. "Grateful?"

Dean could feel him lean forward, heard a gasp of pain that wasn’t only physical. "Dean - how can you . . . you aren’t . . . don't be grateful."

Sam grabbed his wrist, squeezing almost painfully, not letting Dean pull away. "I'm your brother. There is no grateful. Don't you get that? I didn’t owe you anything. I wanted . . ."

Dean stared at the long fingers wrapped around his arm, not sure what to say, not sure what Sam was going to say. His ducked his head as Sam stood and inched his way to Dean's bed, sinking heavily so that they were side by side. Sam’s grip shifted, eased, but he didn’t let go.

"I’m not going anywhere. It’s me and you, you know?"

"I know." The pressure was back in his chest again. How did Sam always know what he needed to hear the most?

"Well, then, what?" There was no anger, no frustration, just a simple plea.

Dean eyed the T-shirt again. The shadows had shifted, making the stains less visible. But they were still there. He could scrub and scrub, but blood stains never truly came out.

"I don’t want to lose you, too."

The fingers tightened again as Sam dragged Dean’s hand to his leg. He heard Sam swallow, heard the undercurrent of tears threading through Sam’s reply.

"I don’t want to lose you, either."

There was a pause, and he could feel Sam struggling, reaching for the right words.

"We’ll . . ."

We’ll be ok.

We’ll survive whatever comes.

We’ll endure.

But Sam never lied when it counted. There were no guarantees.

Sam didn’t finish, but Dean nodded anyway, accepting the intent. He brought his other hand over Sam’s and squeezed once. Sam held on a few beats longer, and then let go.

Dean stood and cleared his throat, gesturing vaguely toward Sam’s bed. "You really should sleep."

He held out a hand to help Sam up but Sam shook his head. He laid back on Dean’s bed instead, body still taut with pain, but a faint smile at his lips. "You, too. Come on."

Dean glared at him, opening his mouth to loose a caustic comment about pushy little brothers and grown men not sharing beds and really, Sammy, what are you thinking. . .

And then the T-shirt caught his eye one last time.

It was getting burned in the morning – first thing. Or at least buried at the bottom of the first dumpster he could find.

He collapsed on the other side of the mattress, taking care not to jostle Sam too much but punching him in the arm on general principal. Sam yelped, but there was laughter in it, and Dean could live with that.

"Sleep, Sam."

And they did.