Contains dialogue from the episode 'Born Under A Bad Sign', it belongs to Eric Kripke and Cathryn Humphris.
Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page.
PS - to pyrolover3, thank you for all your reviews! You have the PM function turned off so I haven't been able to reply, but I've read them all :)
"You okay?" Dean asks quietly.
He's been watching Sam out of the corner of his eye for the last ten minutes, but so far Sam's been ignoring him and he doesn't plan on stopping now. He's not okay, not at all, but the last thing he wants to do right now is talk about it. Dean is a lot of things, a lot of great things, but he's not always very good at being understanding in situations like this. Sam's upset, and he's not in the mood to be made fun of.
"Sam?" he tries again. "Is that you in there?"
Sam glares at him, and the cheeky smile melts off Dean's face.
"I was awake for some of it, Dean," Sam tells him, somberly. "I watched myself kill Wandell with my own two hands. I saw the light go out in his eyes."
"Must've been awful," Dean replies, and it irritates Sam that he can't tell if Dean's being sarcastic or not.
"That's not my point," he mutters. "I almost carved up Jo too, but no matter what I did you wouldn't shoot."
"It was the right move, Sam. It wasn't you," Dean insists, staring firmly out the windshield.
"Yeah, this time," Sam points out. "What about next time?"
Dean takes a long minute before he speaks – he looks a little bit stunned, like he isn't sure exactly how to answer. "Sam, when Dad told me that I might have to kill you, it was only if I couldn't save you. Now, if it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna save you."
Sam exhales through his nose and looks away. Apparently there's no point in having this conversation with Dean again – seems like nothing Sam does is going to make him change his mind. Then Dan chuckles quietly and Sam glances back up.
"What?"
"Nuthin'."
"Dean, what?"
"Dude, you like, full-on had a girl inside you for like a whole week," Dean drawls, laughing around his words. "That's pretty naughty."
Sam laughs a little in spite of himself, shaking his head in disbelief at how ridiculous Dean actually is. He can't help smiling fondly, though, even though Dean's still snickering like a teenager hearing his first dirty joke and reminding Sam that even though he's younger he's still the more mature one – by miles. For the first time in over a week, Sam actually feels like himself again; sitting in the Impala, thinking that Dean is an idiot but that he loves him anyway, it sort of feels like everything's okay again even though in reality their lives are more messed up than they've ever been. In a way, it feels like home.
Dean drives for another twenty minutes, maybe, and Sam's more than happy to take it in comfortable silence. There's an REO Speedwagon tape in the deck that Sam's heard approximately four thousand times, but it's strangely comforting, just like the rumble of the car underneath his legs. When Dean turns into the parking lot of the first road-side motel they come across, he gets them a room while Sam unloads the bags and watches through the windows - enjoying a laugh at his brother's expense when the desk clerk obviously notices the blood soaking through Dean's shirt and Dean scrambles to come up with an explanation. The room is standard but adequately clean; Sam notices briefly that Dean got them two beds but he doesn't think anything of it. Most of the time Dean does that without thinking, even though it isn't that often they actually use both. Of course, sometimes he does it deliberately because the girl working the desk is cute and he doesn't want her to think he's gay (Sam couldn't care less about things like that, but it seems to matter to Dean so he keeps his mouth shut), but Sam doesn't think that's what happened this time. In all likelihood, Dean's just completely exhausted. Sam can relate.
Dean shrugs his jacket off, hissing as the material passes over his shoulder. He grunts in pain, freezing for a second and then gingerly letting his arms fall out of the sleeves, keeping his wounded half as still as possible as the garment slumps to the floor.
"Shit," he mutters, shaking himself a little and taking a deep breath. "I swear, if that bitch caused permanent damage …"
"Are you okay?" Sam asks quietly, unable to keep a little waver out of his voice. He can't help feeling like it's his fault Dean got shot, not to mention everything else.
Dean catches the tone instantly and glances over, giving Sam a small smile that doesn't do much in the way of making Sam feel better. "I'm fine, Sammy," he assures. "I mean, it hurts like hell, but. Not like it's the worst I've ever had. Couple'a weeks, I'll be good as new."
"Yeah." Sam nods, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He pulls his own jacket off and tosses it onto a chair, sinking onto the edge of one of the mattresses. "You, uh, need me to change the bandage?"
Dean shakes his head. "Not unless it starts bleeding again."
Sam sniffs and nods again, resting his elbows on his knees and picking at a hangnail for something to do with his hands. He can feel Dean watching him, feel the heat of Dean's solid gaze, but he doesn't look up. He can't – he feels awful enough about all this already, he doesn't want to deal with seeing the look on Dean's face right now. Dean might be mad at him – or worse, not mad at him – and Sam's pretty sure he couldn't handle either. His brother doesn't move for a few long minutes, he just hovers like he's silently willing Sam to look at him but Sam doesn't; he keeps his eyes trained on his own hands; the hands that were covered in the blood of a man he murdered only a few days ago. There's a pit in his stomach that's like acid; twisting and slowly eating away at him as he remembers the feeling of the knife piercing Wandell's skin, cutting through inches of flesh and muscle and sinew as he slit his throat so deep he was almost decapitated. Dean can say it wasn't Sam's fault all he wants to – probably would if Sam brought it up again – but that doesn't change anything. He still felt another person's body go slack as life leaked from them; he still took away somebody's father. Logically he knows it wasn't him, but he was still there. He still saw everything, felt everything. He doesn't think that will ever go away. Normally, something like this would probably have made Sam angry, but right now it doesn't. It just makes him feel sick.
Dean sort of shuffles around the room for a few minutes, Sam can hear him moving and he sees his feet walk passed a few times. Dimly, Sam recognizes the sound of a zipper or two, probably Dean rummaging through their bags, and then the clunk of a deadbolt and the scrap of the chain as Dean locks them in. There's a funny, wooshing noise that Sam identifies after a minute as Dean setting up the salt lines, and then the sound of footsteps making their way toward where Sam's still slumped on the bed. Dean's socked feet come into view first, followed by his shins and thighs and then he's kneeling down in front of Sam – reaching out and calmly taking Sam's arm so he can look at the burn. He runs barely-there fingertips over it and clicks his tongue sympathetically.
"Look's painful," he says softly, dabbing some kind of ointment over the blistered skin that stings for a few seconds and then mellows into a dull tingling sensation. Then he covers it with a little square of gauze and tapes it securely into place.
Sam blinks the focus back into his vision and squints down at where Dean's strong, calloused fingers are somehow always so gentle on his skin. "S'not so bad," he answers, sniffing again and wiping the back of his other hand over his nose.
"Sammy," Dean whispers, ducking his head down a little as he tries to get Sam to meet his gaze, but Sam closes his eyes.
"I'm okay," Sam says evenly, though it doesn't even sound convincing in his own head so he's sure he isn't fooling Dean either. "I know what you're gonna say."
"What am I gonna say?" Dean asks – he knows, they both do, but because he's Dean he's going to make Sam say it out loud it anyway.
"That it's not my fault. That it wasn't me." Sam opens his eyes again but goes back to staring at his hands so he doesn't have to see Dean's face.
"Mhm," Dean agrees, squeezing Sam's thighs and shaking them slightly. "So?"
Sam sighs. "So … I don't know. I still feel like shit about it. You can rationalize it all you want, but at the end of the day I still had to watch myself kill somebody. You … that's not just gonna go away."
Dean nods thoughtfully. Sam expects him to argue, to insist that Sam isn't to blame and that he should just forget about all this, but he doesn't. Instead he walks forward on his knees a bit and slides his arms around Sam, one around his back and one around his neck, and pulls Sam down into a hug. Sam's frozen in shock for a few seconds, that was really the last thing he expected Dean to do, but then he loses whatever will to fight he actually had left and he lets himself melt into Dean's chest – wrapping his own arms around his brother and burying his face into Dean's neck. The tears that've been threatening to fall for the last few hours finally do, trailing hot over Sam's eyelashes and soaking through Dean's t-shirt.
"I know," Dean soothes, holding on tight as Sam crumbles. "Shh, I know. Seems like the shitty stuff always happens to you, huh?"
Sam shrugs a little and draws in a few shaky, Dean-scented breaths through his nose. Dean's warm and solid against him; it's more comforting than it has any right to be but Sam lets himself drink it up like a sponge. It makes him feel like a pathetic little kid sometimes, but the feeling of his brother pressed in close always makes everything a little bit better when nothing else can. For a few minutes, Sam revels in the heat and the strong arms around him and the gentle, even thud of Dean's heartbeat – strong and sure. The steady metronome of it reminds Sam of a million nights from his childhood, scared frantic by the shadows that haunted his nightmares but always soothed the second he crawled into Dean's bed and felt his big brother's protecting arms around him.
He loses track of how long they sit like that, him with his face hidden in Dean's uninjured shoulder and Dean's palm rubbing slowly up and down Sam's back, but after a while Sam gets himself together again and pulls back. "Sorry," he mumbles, wiping the wetness off his cheeks. "I'm good now."
"Don't be sorry," Dean murmurs.
Sam heaves a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to calm himself back down but the concerned look on Dean's face breaks him again – he lets out a whimpery little sob and falls forward into Dean, crashing their lips together and licking desperately into his brother's mouth. Dean's fingers dig into the back of Sam's neck and Sam grips the front of Dean's shirt so tightly his hands cramp, but he doesn't stop and Dean kisses back just as fiercely. For a few long, incredible moments, Sam just rubs his slick lips against Dean's; all the horrible things that happened in the last few days melting away with the taste of Dean's tongue and the occasional click of their teeth. But then Dean stills, and before Sam can work out what's happening he's being pushed away and Dean's standing up and taking a few labored steps in the opposite direction.
"What – what's wrong?" he asks, eyebrows coming together in confusion as his sawdust brain tries and fails to figure out why Dean's suddenly so far away.
"I … nothing. Just … I kinda got my assed kicked today, I'm not really feelin' like … you know." A muscle works in Dean's jaw and there's a pained expression on his face that Sam knows can't be good, even if he still has no idea what's going on.
"Are you mad at me?" he ventures wearily. "Cause I – you said we fought, but I wasn't even awake for that part, I don't remember …"
Dean's eyes glaze over a little and he manages a small, tight-but-genuine smile. "No, of course I'm not."
"Then what?"
"Sam," Dean begins gravely, turning away again.
"No, what?" Sam pushes. "A second ago everything was fine and now you're halfway across the room lookin' like someone just died. What's going on?"
"I just … I'm not sure I can do this anymore." Dean heaves a weighted sigh and his eyes dart back and forth a few times like he's been given the task of breaking some horrible new to Sam – it's the same expression news anchors have on their faces when they have to report an earthquake or something.
"Do … do what?"
"This." Dean gestures between them. "You and me."
"Oh god, not this again." Sam rolls his eyes so hard it hurts. "Are you kidding me? Dean, we've been doing this for over a year, I'm pretty sure you're about fourteen months too late on the freak out."
"No, not – it isn't that." Dean shakes his head. "I'm not freaking out, I'm being serious. I'm sorry, I just … can't."
Sam's pretty sure his heart actually stops for the space of a few beats. All the blood drains from his extremities in the time it takes him to draw in a sharp breath like a shotgun – his skin crawls and turns cold and clammy like he's got the flu, only about a million times worse.
"You …" his mouth opens and closes a few times of its own accord; he probably looks like a fish but he can't seem to make his lips form words. "What are you talking about?"
Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs again; defeatedly this time like he's resigning himself to having this conversation even though he doesn't want to. He takes his time before he answers, and when he does it's quiet and sad and Sam has to strain his ears to hear him.
"Do you have any idea how scary the last few months have been for me?"
Sam blinks. "What?" He feels like he's said that word about fifty times in the last few minutes.
"You've been really scaring me," Dean continues, tilting his head to one side and fixing his glassy eyes on Sam. "God, between you constantly seeing people die before it even happens, and finding all these other people who're all freaky like you and we don't know why, and you being the only person in a whole god damn town who's not susceptible to that crazy demon virus … it's like around every turn there's something new for me to worry about and it all seems to be revolving around you."
Sam sucks in a huge, outraged gulp of air, instantly ready to defend himself, but Dean holds up a hand to stop him.
"And before you get all up in arms, I know it isn't your fault, I'm not saying it is!" he adds quickly. "But Jesus, Sam, everything's just moving so freakin' fast lately, I don't even have time to wrap my head around one catastrophe before we're moving on to the next one!"
"I don't … okay, yeah, we haven't had the easiest couple of months, I'll give you that, but what does that have to do with us?" Sam protests, standing up and stepping towards his brother. "If anything we should be leaning on each other right now, not pulling away!"
"Oh come on, don't give me that Oprah crap. That's not helpful and you know it," Dean growls. He runs a hand over his face and turns away. "Look, just – things are getting really complicated, okay?"
"Complicated how?" Sam feels like he's in some kind of spy movie, trying to extract intel out of a trained covert operative. Dean's never exactly been chatty when it comes to anything this serious, but he's not usually this hard to get information out of either.
"Think about how easy it was for Gordon to get to us, to get this close to killing us both," Dean answers. "When he had me tied up, I – shit, I would have done anything, anything he wanted if it meant he wouldn't hurt you. He played us against each other because we let him, Sam! We made it easy for him! And now the FBI's on our trail … we just, we can't afford to be so open and exposed anymore. And I can't afford to be distracted."
"And … you think I distract you?" Sam asks, scoffing in utter disbelief.
"Of course you do!" Dean cries. "We distract each other, Sammy! Gordon may've been the first one to figure out that he could use one of us to get to the other, but you can for sure bet he won't be the last! The demon is planning something big and we can't give him a leg up by having chinks in our armor!"
Sam stomach feels like it just dropped about a foot. "Oh, that's great. Nice, Dean. That's what I am to you after all this time? A chink in your armor?"
Dean rolls his eyes and glares at the same time. "You know that isn't what I meant."
"Really. Huh. I guess I just got confused by the fact that you said it out loud," Sam snaps sarcastically.
"Oh, for the love of – this isn't about you, alright?!" Dean yells. "Stop being a brat."
"Fine!" Sam shouts, finally losing his cool. "Then tell me what it's really about!"
"I already told you!" Dean returns, just as angrily. "You really freaked me out the last few days! Shit, when the exorcism didn't work and Bobby said Meg had locked herself in your body, I was really scared! I didn't know what the hell we were gonna do! And Meg – she said something today, it just made me realize how vulnerable we've let ourselves get lately!"
"What did she say?"
"It doesn't matter, that isn't the point."
"Then what is?"
"That – look, being with you, it's good, Sam. Better then good, it's amazing. You … you're the best thing that's ever happened to me," Dean's voice is thick with emotion and his eyes are shining with sincerity, and it almost breaks Sam's heart. "I don't want to give it up, believe me. But it's not safe anymore. We've been cocky lately, acting like nothing can touch us. We've let our guard down. It's only a matter of time before a demon or a spirit or whatever figures out what we really are to each other and uses it against us, and I can't let that happen. I'm sorry, I really am. You're still my little brother, and I'm still hell-bent on saving you, but that … that's all we can be anymore."
Sam doesn't even know how to respond to that. His ears hear the words but his brain is outright refusing to process them. There's still a part of him that's waiting for Dean to start laughing, or jump up and yell 'surprise' like this is all some horrible, elaborate joke. Even though Sam would be pissed beyond description, it would still be better than the alternative – that Dean actually means what he's saying; that he knows it's slashing Sam up from the inside but he's still saying it anyway. But the look on Dean's face is as serious as Sam's ever seen it, and he's pretty sure Dean isn't that good an actor.
"I'm sorry," Dean says again, his voice breaking around the words. "That's just how it has to be."
If Sam felt physically ill before, the last few minutes have made it about a thousand times worse. He's actually queasy; he not even sure how he's managed to stay upright for this long. He just had what was probably the worst week of his whole life, which is saying something, and Dean's dropping this on him now? And expecting him to just accept it and be okay with it? Sam's actually shaking with how mad that makes him.
"That's just how it has to be?" he repeats loudly. "So what, because you say it I'm supposed to just go along with it like a good little wife? Are you – wait. Hold on." His blood runs cold as the realization hits him. "This … this isn't a discussion, is it? We're not having an argument right now, this … holy shit, this is you breaking up with me."
"Sammy."
"No, don't – that's what's happening, isn't it?!"
Dean doesn't answer, but the wounded shadows in his eyes confirm Sam's horrible suspicions.
"Holy shit," Sam breathes again, pressing the back of his hand into his mouth. "You can't … Dean … don't do this."
"I don't want to," Dean whispers, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. "You gotta believe me, this is the last thing I want. I just don't see any other choice."
"That is such a cop out," Sam grinds out, his eyes burning as they fill with tears again.
"It's the truth."
"Like hell it is. This is about something Meg said, isn't it? She could see inside my head and she said something to you about us and now you're freaking out 'cause you think she's gonna run around telling the rest of the demons you're a friggin' homo," Sam spits cruelly. "You think they're all gonna be laughing at you, right? So you're ending things with me, and now, what, you're gonna go off to some bar and fuck the first thing with tits you can find to make yourself feel like a man?"
That was a hit well below the belt and Sam knows it – he's fully expecting Dean to retaliate, but he doesn't. Dean just sighs heavily and lets his arms fall to his sides, shoulders slumping in obvious defeat.
"Don't make this harder than it already is," he pleads weakly. "I'm so sorry. I swear I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm doing this to protect you. The thing with Meg … it just made everything so real, you know? We – when we started this up again? We agreed we wouldn't let it get in the way of our job, remember? We promised we'd keep it separate, and now it's … not. It's all getting mixed up together, and that's … I've been promising you my whole life that I'll keep you safe, that has to be the most important thing. I … I don't know what else to say."
Sam's remaining sanity is teetering on the breaking point, his whole world just got pulled out from under him and he's tumbling into an endless pit of cold and dark and hopeless – he's half a breath away from actually dropping to his knees and begging Dean not to do this, not to give up on them, but he doesn't. He wants to, god help him he does, but he somehow manages to hold back. He knows that look on Dean's face, he knows a lost cause when he sees one. Bobby says Sam's the stubborn one, but Sam knows better. When Dean gets something in his head, a rolling boulder couldn't change his mind. So even though it's like a band-saw slicing him to bits, worse than, Sam just mumbles "Yeah, alright. Whatever." and unsteadily makes his way to the door and out into the piercingly cold night air.
He takes the car – he feels more like taking a walk but he doesn't want Dean to come looking for him, so he takes the car. He turns off his phone, too; barely resists chucking it out the window and letting it get run over by a truck so Dean can't use it to track him down this time. He's not running away, he's not even sure what he's doing. Maybe he just wants Dean to suffer for a little while. Dean's so insistent on always being so mother-hen overbearing and worried about Sam, so fine, Sam'll give him a real reason to worry. He's not sure how long he drives around in circles – minutes or hours, time doesn't seem to matter very much anymore and Sam's head is swimming – but by the time he gets back the sky's tinged with that dark blueish color like right before the sun starts coming up, and Dean's already asleep. Sam climbs onto the vacant mattress and settles on his side facing away from Dean. It's the same kind of standard-issue double bed he's spent his whole life sleeping in, but Sam doesn't think one has ever felt so cold and empty before; Dean's only a few feet away but it might as well be miles. Sam curls in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, and he falls into a fitful sleep with tears on his pillow.