Song Remains the Same

Chapter 105: Deal Or No Deal

"The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble."
- Clara Ortega

The year had been 1988.

Five years old and dressed as Superman (well, wearing a sheet tied around his neck like a cape, anyway), Sam Winchester was in a heap on the ground in front of a shed, sobbing and clutching his left arm. "Owww, oww! Augh, Dean, it hurts!" he howled, tears streaming down his little face.

His big brother tossed aside his Batman mask, the one his sister had painstakingly cut out of paper then colored black with a marker. "Hey hey hey, buddy, don't move okay? It could be broken!" Dean said, his young face wrinkled up in worry as he crouched with his brother on the leafy ground.

Sam wailed a little louder when his sister, distraught by her twin's crying, took his hurt arm in an effort to look at it for signs of injury. There weren't any, not outwardly anyway, but Sam's shriek of pain at her touch made Dean pull her hand off their brother as her eyes bulged wide—she was further upset that she'd hurt him.

"Gentle, Al, gentle, it's okay," Dean consoled. But Alex began to cry too, upset at what was happening. Her entire little face was colored lime-green with a highlighter, lips and all (Dean had caught Sam helping her 'become the Hulk' just before they decided to jump off the shed and pretend to fly), so it was a bit of a strange sight to see. Dad would definitely kill all three of them when he found out the hijinks they'd gotten up to and the injury Sam had sustained. But he wasn't around at that time, and so Dean stepped up to the crisis. In doing so, he seemed godlike to the twins. He stayed calm, hid his own panic, and was firm about what to do. He took a bike that was there at the old house they were squatting in and put Sam on the handlebars and had Alex hang onto his back piggyback style. To this very day, she still remembered how that sour, chemically highlighter tasted in her mouth from where Sam had missed when he colored her face. She still remembered how his sheet-cape had flapped back at her on that bike ride. She still remembered how Dean had distracted them as he pedaled along with a story he made up on the spot of how Batman took the Hulk and Superman on an adventure to the hospital to defeat True Evil.

That was the kind of big brother Dean had always been—thoughtless for himself when his brother or sister were in trouble, willing to do whatever it took to get them better and make them feel safe. How hard would it have had to been for a nine-year-old boy to pedal that bike almost three full miles to the local hospital with the weight of both his siblings on him? At the time, a mere five years old, Alex hadn't wondered about that. Her big brother Dean was cool and big—he was invincible and all-powerful; he knew everything and could do grown-up stuff she and Sam couldn't even dream of. He never needed help and nothing was too hard for him. He was brave and strong, stronger than her and Sam put together.

These days, she knew all too well how Dean wasn't invincible at all, not even a little.

Nevertheless, he had been the backbone that held the family together.

When Sam left for Stanford and when Dad gave up on the family as a whole, Dean hadn't let his grief defeat him. Instead, he stood up taller and stayed at Alex's side, family first no matter even if family had become just a brother and a sister. When he died after his soul deal came due, Sam and Alex had gone their separate ways and endured their own personal hells without Dean to anchor them. When Sam jumped into the cage, Alex and Dean hadn't been able to go on as before—Alex's call, not Dean's. She still regretted that decision. And now, she regretted how things had been between them when he was ripped away yet again six days ago, when he and Cas had sent Dick back to where he belonged.