Dad just died, and things are getting difficult. Car’s messed up, but Deans almost done with it; Sam’s the only one his half-sibling talks to, and it’s all his fault. Dean didn’t have to go up and ask to know; it’s because he kept quiet about the demon, because he didn’t talk about Dad dying, and he just kept on getting more distant and didn’t talk to the sibling he tried so hard to toughen up.

Maybe he wasn’t the best older brother, and he could tell it from how his half-sibling acted nowadays. Before, there was always chatter and begging to go along with him on missions—now his littlest sibling just stayed with Bobby. Sam broke the news, but Dean was sure that it was known before them. His littlest sibling wasn’t stupid, the crash, the fight, Dean somehow being revived from his ghost phase, it was suspicious.

He misses how it used to be. When his half-sibling would want to be around him, instead of him having to bug the other to just talk to him. Dean knows he’s unbearable, especially with how Sam acts around him, and every other person, but it just hurts. The rambling was gone, the talk about school was gone, so was the asking for help with homework and studying. That all either transferred to Sam, or his little sibling was just independent.

He wasn’t the cool brother anymore.

That just hurt.

It was like he wasn’t even a brother to begin with.

Dean approached the situation one night, after Sam telling him to stop being a wuss and talk it out. He brought food, and just sat there, at the kids desk for a bit. But his littlest sibling wasn’t a kid anymore, were they? A teenager. He got empty nest syndrome just thinking about it.

“Hey, uh,” he began finally, scratching the back of his neck and trying to find the words. Dean didn’t know how to talk about this, he hardly knew how to deal with anything without starting to yell. “I’m—” he couldn’t say sorry, could he? “—I should’ve told you about dad,” he settled on. “And the demon. I just want you to talk to me.”