Contains dialogue from the episode Sympathy For The Devil, it belongs to Eric Kripke.
Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
"You know, I was thinking, Dean. Maybe we could go after the Colt," Sam begins as they head toward the parking lot. He sounds optimistic and happier than he has in close to a month. It makes Dean feel sick.
"Why? What difference would that make?"
"Well, we could use it on Lucifer. I mean, you just said back there – "
"I just said a bunch of crap for Bobby's benefit." Dean laughs humorlessly. There's really nothing funny about any of this, at all. "I mean, I'll fight. I'll fight to the last man, but let's at least be honest. I mean, we don't stand a snowball's chance and you know that. I mean, hell, you of all people know that."
Dean walks around him, anger bubbling just under the surface. He's been doing a decent job until right now of hiding behind his wall and not letting anything show through, but it's getting harder by the second.
"Dean, is there's somethin' you wanna say to me?" Sam asks with a heavy sigh.
Dean turns back to him and looks at him, really looks into his brother's eyes. The eyes he's been staring into for almost three decades, the person he's supposed to know better than he knows himself. He tries to see something, anything, of the Sam he knew. The one he would and did die to protect, the one he loves so much it hurts. But he can't. That Sam is gone, and the parts of Dean that matter are gone with him.
"I tried, Sammy," Dean says, that carefully constructed wall just crumbling. "I mean, I really tried. But I just can't keep pretending that everything is alright. Because it's not. And it's never going to be. You chose a demon over your own brother, and look what happened."
Sam's face falls. "I would give anything, anything, to take it all back."
"I know you would," Dean tells him, and he does. The problem isn't that Sam's not sorry. The problem is Sam's remorse doesn't change anything. "And I know how sorry you are, I do. But man … you were the one that I depended on the most. And you let me down in ways that I can't even … I'm just, I'm havin' a hard time forgiving and forgetting here, you know?"
"What can I do?" Sam asks earnestly, and that sucks more than anything because Dean really, honestly believed that him and Sam was the one thing that could never truly be broken. There's always something; an I'm sorry or an I didn't mean it to heal the wound, a missing piece to snap back into place. Always. Except this time there isn't.
"Honestly? Nothing. I just don't … I don't think that we can ever be what we were, you know?"
Sam nods. He was expecting that, even though he looks like it breaks his heart.
"I just don't think I can trust you," Dean adds, and that Sam wasn't expecting. The look on his face hurts way too much so Dean turns away from him, walks back to the Impala and gets inside. Even she doesn't feel right, not right now anyway. Not with a stranger about to climb in beside him.
It's a long time before Sam walks over and gets in too, and Dean just stares out the windshield and tries not to break down. When Dean pulls out of the lot, he has no idea where he's going. That isn't unusual – often they have no specific destination after a hunt wraps up – but usually driving to nowhere with Sam is Dean's favorite part of the day. It's freeing, usually, having his baby and his brother and no place to be but exactly where they are. Now, it feels like he's speeding toward a cliff they both know he'll drive right off of.
"So, what do we do?" Sam asks eventually.
Dean glances over at him. Sam's massive frame has never looked so small. He's slouched in the seat, his hands folded in his lap and his eyes glued to them, his whole body retreating in on itself like he wants to disappear. Dean knows how he feels.
"I don't know," he answers truthfully; hopelessly. "I really don't."
"Are we still gonna fight this thing together? Like, you don't want me to leave or something, right?"
Dean doesn't have a good answer for either of those questions. "Sammy, I just … I mean, what you an' I are? That we're partners, and brothers, and everything else? All that works because we're a unit. Because we have each other's backs, because we're number goddamn one on each other's lists. And if that's not true anymore? I mean, how are we supposed to hunt, how are we supposed to do anything, if I can't trust that you've got me?"
"Dean, I would never let anything happen to you," Sam protests.
"You were almost the thing that happened to me," Dean points out angrily. "You practically strangled my lights out."
"It was the blood. I swear it was. Okay? It was the blood, and it was Ruby. They had me all twisted up, they made me into something I'm not. Me, the real, conscious, not coked-out me, would never hurt you. You gotta know that."
"I thought I knew it. And then you fuckin' did, so what the hell am I supposed to think?"
"I …" Sam starts, but whatever he was going to say dies before it reaches his lips and he sighs and slouches down a little more in the seat. "I don't know."
"Sam, I know, alright? I know it was the blood, I know you weren't in your right head. I know all the reasons. And you're right, they're all good reasons, but the point still stands, man. Whatever the motivation was, you still did all the things you did. And I … I don't know. I don't know if we can be …" Dean doesn't say it. He doesn't need to lay out all the things that they are, and all the things he's terrified they can't be anymore.
Sam nods and doesn't say anything.
"I mean, you …" Dean begins, but then he trails off when he's not sure if he even wants to go there, if he wants to say out loud all the things that are spinning in his mind.
"What?" Sam asks softly.
"The night we killed Yellow-Eyes. The night you found out I made the deal. You said … you said there's nothin' you wouldn't do for me." Dean clenches his jaw to keep his emotions in check. It doesn't really work. "And I was stupid enough to think you meant it."
Sam's silent for a moment. Dean doesn't look at him, doesn't want to see the hurt on his brother's face. He doesn't need to see it to know it'll be there. Sam's voice is quiet and small when he finally says, "I did. I do."
"No you don't, Sam," Dean argues tiredly. "You think you do, but you've never known what that means. Nothing you wouldn't do for someone. To you, the word nothing comes with exceptions. There's nothing you wouldn't do for me, until it gets in the way of something you want. Like school, or like trusting a demon."
Dean is expecting Sam to be pissed at him for bringing up Stanford, but Sam doesn't respond.
"So I don't know where we go from here. That's the truth, I don't. It's just all of it, y'know? I don't know how we put this back together."
"All of what?"
"It's everything, Sam." Dean knows he's barely making sense at this point. The truth is, he can't even make sense of this in his own head, so he has no chance of being able to explain it to Sam in a way he would understand. "You and me, we're every-fucking-thing to each other, so everything is tied up in this! The fact that we trust each other, it's the reason we've ever been able to be everything that we are! If I can't trust you? How can we be anything anymore?"
"Meaning what?" Sam asks slowly, and Dean doesn't even know for sure himself.
He sighs. "Bobby always says family doesn't end with blood."
"So?"
"So maybe it doesn't start with blood either. Maybe that's where I was stupid. Maybe it's about what you do, what you are to each other, not just who your parents were."
"I'm still your brother."
"Yeah, I know. That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying?"
Dean shrugs and doesn't bother answering, because he doesn't have any idea what he means. Everything is so smashed up and tangled inside him, he can't make sense of any of it. He isn't even mad about the Apocalypse. Not really. It's at least halfway his fault, so he can't put it all on Sam. And anyway, Zachariah made it pretty clear that they were never meant to actually stop it from happening. Sam was just a patsy. It's the betrayal that has Dean's stomach in knots and his head spinning in confusion and anger and hurt. What Dean's upset about, what he's not sure he'll ever get over, is that Sam had a choice, and he didn't pick Dean. The one thing Dean was always sure of in their crazy, messy life is that he and Sam would always put each other first no matter what. That's gone now, and Dean's lost without it.
"Do you still love me?" Sam whispers.
"Sam," Dean growls. It's just enormously unfair for him to ask that right now.
"Yeah," Sam mumbles dejectedly. "That's what I thought."
"I didn't say no."
"You said enough."
Dean growls again and bangs the heel of his palm into the steering wheel. There's a neon motel sign coming up on his left, and since they can't leave this town until Bobby gets out of the hospital, Dean figures a room is as good a place as any to have no idea what to say to Sam. He drives up to it and throws the Impala into park, and then he flops back against the seat and doesn't get out of the car. In his head, he's wrestling with wanting to tell Sam he'll get them two rooms and hating himself for wanting two rooms. They've never done that before. Ever. Even when they were mad at each other. But right now, Dean can barely look at him. When he does, all he can think, all he can feel, is how much it freaking guts him that Sam chose Ruby.
No matter what, regardless of circumstance, Dean would always choose Sam. The fact that Sam doesn't feel the same way shatters everything Dean thought he knew into a billion pieces. It rewrites their entire history.
"What are we doing?" Sam asks in a soft, sad voice.
"Sleeping, I guess," Dean answers, and his own voice doesn't sound any less broken.
"Any chance things'll look better in the morning?" Sam half-jokes, but he doesn't sound like he believes it for one second.
"I doubt it," Dean says heavily.
Sam nods and sniffs. Dean doesn't look over to see if there are tears on his brother's face. He's not sure if it would make him feel better or worse to find Sam crying, and either way he doesn't want to know. He gets out of the car, pushing the door shut behind him and heading toward the office without looking back or knowing for sure how many rooms he's going to ask for. He'll figure it out when he gets there, just like everything else. One problem at a time, one foot in front of the other. That's how Dean's always done things, rolling with the punches as they come. Never letting them under his skin – or at least never letting anyone know when they do get under his skin. It's the only way they have any chance of making it out of this mess intact, so that's what Dean will do. He'll probably lose Sam for good along the way, but right now Dean's okay with that. And really, Dean's not sure anymore he ever had Sam in the first place.