A/N: I have long wondered what went on in Dean's mind in the aftermath of his transition from demon to human. It's never truly been addressed on the show. So here is my take. (The episode quotes come from 10x3 "Soul Survivor.")

Things Said/Not Said

He awakened so abruptly it nearly made him hurl. One moment sound asleep, the next sitting bolt upright in his bed, nerves afire.

What the hell?

He was sweating. He swiped a hand across his face, got rid of the telltale sheen. But his t-shirt felt sticky against his chest.

Damn. What the hell?

His heart was pounding. Every muscle fiber felt like it was ready to jump out of his skin. He couldn't be still. He needed to move.

Crap. Christ.

Memories. Nightmares.

The Mark.

He flopped back down onto his mattress, crooking one arm across his eyes. Damn. He hated this. Detested what he considered as weakness. Wanted to drive fingers into his skull, to find the images, to yank them from his memories.

He'd always dreamed. No surprise. What his family did, the things they hunted, killed . . . they truly were the stuff of nightmares. But his dreams weren't of scary things that might exist in the dark, the fantastical stories spun by authors. He'd never needed his imagination funded by the written words of other people for the sheer, perverse thrill of it. He lived it.

His dreams were of that which was, and things that were, very, very real.

Words echoed in his head. Sense memory fed his body recollections of movements. He could not forget what he'd done. What he'd been.

He had avoided it assiduously. Never referred to it. Never thought about it. Stuck his finger in the dike of his emotions like the Little Dutch Boy, refusing to let any drop through. Because to do so . . . to remove his finger, to admit the first drop, would thus encourage the deluge, and the dam would shatter.

So would he.

Dreams betrayed him. His subconscious rebelled.

Why now?

It had been months. Life was back to . . . whatever kind of 'normal' applied to the life he and Sam shared. They hunted. They saved. They killed. Just as their father had taught them. It was the only life he knew, and he found value in it. He knew what he did was correct. Was necessary. He and Sam stopped bad things from harming others. From killing the good. Despite all that had happened, he remained convinced that the ultimate goal was attainable, was worthwhile: to save lives. To stop evil.

He lay upon his bed in the darkness, sweat drying upon his body, and stared up at a ceiling he couldn't see.

"Did you ever doubt? " he asked a long-dead father. "Did you ever question?"

But no. He knew the answer. John Winchester never questioned what he did, the journey he'd embarked upon when his wife was murdered by a demon.

A demon.

Not a car wreck. Not an illness. A demon had come into their house to bleed into his baby brother, to lay claim, and had murdered a woman in a terrible way.

Dean remembered it. At four, kids remembered certain things. That, he could never forget. His mother, pinned to the ceiling, abdomen sliced open, engulfed in flames.

For the next thirty-two years, to now, other than a one-year break, the aberrance of Lisa and Ben (such relief in it, but such grief, too) his life had been non-stop hunting. Either his dad left him behind to look after Sammy; or, as he aged, began training him. And, finally, included him.

Dean had often wondered if the reason Sam had been able to break away, to insist on a different life, was because he had no memory of that terrible night. After all, his father never spoke of it. Dean didn't know how to articulate what he'd seen. Sam only knew what they said by their actions: It was horrible, it was terrible; a wife and mother died and we have to find and kill the thing that did it to her.

He remembered. Sense memory put a six-month-old infant into his arms, and he heard his father shouting at him to run. To save his baby brother.

He'd never stopped.

But. The things he'd said . . .

As that thing.

He shifted on the bed. Why now? It had been months. Life was as normal as life ever got, for them. They had a permanent roof over their heads, resorting to motels only when they were actively working a case. For weeks on end he slept in the same bed.

Why now?

Or was that why? No longer on the road nine days out of ten. They had a home. A place they always came back to. There'd been Bobby's, but this was different. This was theirs.

Christ. He was introspecting. Or whatever.

And his brain was not about to shut down. He could close his eyes, could turn over and shove a fist beneath his pillow reaching for a knife that wasn't there because it wasn't needed, in the bunker, and could try to summon sleep.

But he'd fail.

He knew it.

He couldn't hear Sam breathing. He couldn't hear a rattling a/c or heater unit in a thin motel room wall. He didn't have a duffel at the end of his bed, or a line of salt across windows and doors.

No. That wasn't it. None of those things. It was something entirely different.

Don't be so full of yourself, Sammy. 'Cause, see, from where I'm sitting . . . there ain't much difference from what I turned into to what you already are.

Dean felt his gut twist.

That line that we thought was so clear between us and the things that we hunted, ain't so clear is it? Wow. You might actually be worse than me! I mean, you took a guy at his lowest, used him, and it cost him his life and his soul. Nice work.

Oh, crap. Oh, Christ. Why now?

Dean thrust himself upright, twisted, sat on the edge of his bed with shoulders slumped, head bowed.

Months. Months. He'd put it out of his mind. It wasn't him. He was human again. Little bit of Latin, whole lot of blood. Sam and Cas had saved him, had kept him from killing—

Dean felt his scalp contract, felt the shudder that took hold of him and shook him violently, head to toe.

A hammer. Swung so many times with intent to destroy. With intent to kill.

You notice I tried to get as far away from you as possible? Away from your whining, your complaining. I chose the King of Hell over you! Maybe I was just . . . tired of babysitting you. Or always having to yank your lame ass out of the fire since . . . forever.

Gasping, Dean pushed himself up from the bed. He wore a tee, thin scrubs as pajama bottoms. He yanked the door open and walked barefoot down the long corridor, passing Sam's room. He wondered inconsequentially if Sam had eventually turned it into something recognizably his, something very Sam-like, rather than merely a body existing within the walls. Sam had always wanted the white picket fence, dog, 2.5 kids . . . Dean had just been happy to have a room of his own.

There was one answer. Oblivion. And one way that always brought it. He knew it wasn't the answer. Not the right one. But it was one answer, and it worked for him.

He knew Sam didn't like it. Knew Sam worried. Knew Sam watched him, gauging his intake, wondering when 'enough' would become 'too much.'

Dean went into the library, found the bottle of Jack, opened it and poured a double—no, a triple—into the glass. Knocked it back.

It hit his gut hard. But it was a welcome feeling, a welcome burn even as it made him gulp air, put water in his eyes. A double, yeah, he was used to that. Even to the slow accretion of alcohol over hours. This was . . . well, more.

Dean debated. Poured a double instead of a triple. Knocked it back, too.

Or maybe . . . maybe it was the fact that my mother would still be alive if it wasn't for you. That your very existence sucked the life out of my life!

Another double. All within maybe ten minutes, and too many hours after dinner.

He sat down, then. Yanked out a chair, half-fell into it. Set the bottle and glass atop the table. Then braced an elbow against the wood, placed a hand against his brow, and leaned into it.

He had been . . . a monster. He had been what they hunted. What they killed.

I chose the King of Hell over you!

And once he had excoriated Sam with the statement that, because of Ruby, he had chosen a demon over his own brother.

Pot, kettle.

Jesus.

Why now?

But he knew. He knew. He avoided emotional introspection, but that didn't mean he had no understanding of it.

Never addressed. Sam had asked, as he always did; Dean, as he always did, deflected. Refused. Shut down.

It was too damn hard to discuss his feelings. He had too many of them. Too many internal conflicts. Too much knowledge of his failings. Too much understanding of what he needed to do, tried so badly to do, but could not.

Even the demons knew his failings. His weaknesses.

He poured another double. Threw it back. Contemplated the inside of his eyelids.

Christ, he was dead-drunk. He'd managed it within twenty minutes.

Not soon enough.

"Dean."

Oh. Sammy.

Who'd declared: This isn't my brother talking.

You never had a brother! Just an excuse for not manning up. But guess what: I quit.

"Dean . . . you okay?"

Well. No.

Dean gazed up at his brother. Pushed the bottle along the table. "Help yourself."

It was so Sam. So Sammy. Standing there staring at him with the world in his eyes. His puppy-dog eyes. Which Dean almost never saw anymore because Sam had become tougher. Harder. More like his older brother.

I don't want him to be like me.

Dean laughed. "Be like Mike."

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

Things he couldn't say.

That was what was going on.

This isn't my brother talking.

Yeah. It was.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. Drew in a very deep breath. Committed. Talked. "Sammy—I'm sorry."

Sam frowned faintly, shook his head. "Sorry for what?"

Or maybe . . . maybe it was the fact that my mother would still be alive if it wasn't for you. That your very existence sucked the life out of my life!

"For all those things I said."

Sam shook his head again, and when Dean stretched out to recapture the bottle, Sam picked it up. Set it out of reach.

Dean heard his brother in his mind: You don't get to quit. We don't get to quit in this family! This family is all we have ever had!

And his answer: Well, then, we got nothin'.

"Sammy . . . I'm sorry."

"I don't know what you're sorry for—"

It enraged him. "For the things I said!"

"What things, Dean? You almost never stop talking . . . what things do you mean?"

"In . . ." he waved a hand " . . . there."

"'In there' where?"

"In there. When you were shooting me up with blood." It was difficult to focus. "Sammy. You know."

And Sam did. It was in his eyes, his expression. "Dean, don't do this."

"Why not? You're always wanting to talk about shit."

"Yeah. But not when you're drunk. Not this drunk. Dean, that wasn't you. I knew at the time it wasn't you."

"This is me manning up and talking about it."

Sam sighed.

"This is me being emo and chick-flicky and . . . " he blinked heavily. " . . . talking. I'm sorry, Sammy."

"I know," Sam said.

"It needed to be said. I needed to say it. But . . . it's hard. I don't talk the way you talk."

Sam smiled faintly. "You are your father's son."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Dean—let's get you to bed, okay?"

"Don't you want a drink?"

"No." Sam moved behind him, placed hands on the chairback, carefully tugged it away from the table. "Come on, big brother. You need your beauty sleep."

He felt Sam's hands hook into his armpits, hoist him to his feet. "Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"For everything."

Sam guided him toward the hallway. "I know."

Dean grinned. "This is you yanking my lame ass out of the fire."

Sam took him to his room, helped him lie down upon his bed. Then he knelt. "Dean—it's okay. It wasn't you."

Too much to drink, 'way too much to drink in too short a time, too long after food. Dean closed one eye against the motion of the room, then reopened it. Squinted up at his brother. "I'm drunk—but not stupid. I'm sorry, Sammy. For the things I said."

Sam smiled, nodded. "I know. It's okay, Dean."

"—not okay."

"Yeah. It is. Because you're my brother, and I love you."

Dean smiled faintly. "Emo. Chick-flick."

"Yup."

"Backatcha, Sammy."

Sam patted him on the chest. "Go to sleep, big brother."

He did.

And no dreams came.

~ end ~