A Brother's Faith

Takes place after Its the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester.

I do not own Supernatural.


Dean sat on the park bench watching the children and parents at the playground. They were completely oblivious to how close they all came to dying. If Samhain hadn't killed them, the angels would have.

Angels, Dean thought bitterly. So many people believed them to be kind merciful beings with chubby baby faces and feathery wings like you see on friggin' Hallmark cards or like on that show with Roma Downey, but they were ready to kill an entire town of innocent people without a second thought.

And that was what people put their faith in? If only they knew.

It made Dean sick. He had never really been one to believe in a Higher Power. He had seen far too much evil in his life to accept there was such a thing. He had been taken aback when Sam told him that he prayed everyday. He knew his brother better than anyone but he never knew that. Then again, being a part of their family didn't leave much room for such things. It wasn't fair to Sam. He had wanted to believe in God and angels and all that, and Dean supposed he needed to with their line of work, to believe that there was good instead of just evil.

In that case involving the spirit of a young priest, there had been an energy and a sense of hope in Sam that Dean had never quite seen before. And once they discovered it was just a spirit and not an angel appearing to people, a light seemed to have dimmed in his brother. Even though Dean wasn't a believer, he felt for him. His hope had been crushed. Now Dean couldn't help but feel guilty for insisting that angels weren't real and giving him a hard time. The kid had just wanted to believe there could be something good in the world, something watching over him. Who was Dean to take that away from his little brother just because he didn't have that kind of faith?

"I'm sure it makes things easier. I'll tell you who else had faith like that. Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us… She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There's no higher power, there's no God. I mean, there's just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil that comes out of nowhere and rips you to shreds."

Turns out, Sam had been right all along, but now the very beings that Sam had had faith in were threatening him. Castiel had warned Dean to stop Sam or they will. Bastards. Sam was always the one who had faith, and now they were throwing it in his face, abandoning him. Sam was a good person. He had never done anything to hurt anyone, except for evil sons-of-bitches that deserved it. Sam was always the voice of reason, always trying to do the right thing, and this was what he got in return? If Sam lost his faith, if he thought that the very God he had credence in abandoned him, it could break him. What if that led him further down that dark road? Would that even be Sam's fault? Dean was beginning to think not. But why him? Why would God want him and not Sam? His brother was a better man than him, and Sam deserved that much.

"I don't know, Dean, I just... I wanted to believe, so badly. It's so damn hard to do this, what we do. All alone, you know? There's so much evil out there in the world, Dean, I feel like I could drown in it. And when I think about my destiny, when I think about how I could end up...

I needed to think that there was something else watching too, you know? Some higher power. Some greater good. And that maybe... I could be saved."

Dean didn't care if it took defying God himself and being smote on the spot, he wouldn't give up on Sam, even if God had, because if that's what God was like, he was no God Dean wanted to put faith in.