Awesome title and beta-work by Jackfan2, to whom I give the biggest thank you. All else is mine, including the mistakes.

BEAUTIFUL LOSER

"It's your fault."

Dean could still smell the burning flesh of Lisa's body, up in the ceiling, when he opened his eyes to look at the blurry figure of his brother.

The situation was so comfortable and familiar that for a couple of seconds Dean was lost on where or even when he was.

For the expanse of their entire lives, it would seem, Dean had found himself waking up to see Sam guarding him as often as Sam had woken up to find the reverse just as true.

In the past, having Sam there, guarding Dean's unconsciousness, guarding his vulnerability from strangers, had always been something that made Dean feel safe and at ease. The feeling was missing now, somehow.

Gone was the hurt puppy look that Sam would often display when he was worried about Dean. Gone too was the reassuring fussing over, when Dean finally opened his eyes.

Dean did get a small smile from Sam, but it was one born more out of impatience than relief.

"Feeling better?"

Dean nodded, right hand reaching up out on habit, knowing that Sam's strong arm would be at the other end, ready to pull him up. For five terrifying seconds, Dean's fingers met nothing but empty air. His mind slowly caught up to the fact that this was not some recovering moment after a hunt gone wrong and that this Sam wasn't his partner in hunting.

This was a different Sam, unfamiliar to some point even to Dean himself and as his hand hung in the air, waiting to be taken like last week's dirty clothes, Dean realized that he was about to make a fool out of himself for seeking help from someone who might not even realize that help was needed.

Sam's hand did meet Dean's, but it was slightly off time, off kilter, a misstep in the elaborate dance that they'd practiced too many times.

Dean looked at the two empty syringes in Sam's other hand and chuckled nervously. "Seems I'm spending you guys whole stock of that stuff," Dean said to fill in the silence that had settled between them.

The comment had been intended as an icebreaker, meant to illicit some small glint of mirth, but Sam's face remained impassive, without even a twitch of the lips. He looked at the empty syringes, as if he'd forgotten he was still holding them, before capping the needles and stuffing them in his jacket's pocket.

"We have enough," Sam merely said as he adjusted his clothes, "don't worry."

Dean had to stop and look at his brother to make sure that Sam was talking seriously. It was supposed to be a joke, but the truth was it hadn't really crossed Dean's mind that the serum they'd been using to counter the effects of the Djinns' poison might actually be a rare thing that they would have a hard time getting their hands on. And Dean had just foolishly placed himself in a position that called for more of it to be wasted on him.

Perhaps Christian had been right. Maybe Dean should leave this for the professionals... or at least for hunters who hadn't been out of the game for as long as he had.

"I'm sorry ab—" Dean started, feeling the red embarrassment of having behaved like a rookie -like a civilian- starting to color his ears.

"We should go," Sam cut in before Dean could further embarrass himself. "Samuel and the others are waiting for us."

Samuel.

Sam had said he was hunting with family, but they didn't treat each other as family. Samuel wasn't 'grandpa' or even grandfather. Just Samuel.

And the cousins... were distant relatives that shared little more than a common name that wasn't even the Winchesters name. They were Campbell's and they didn't seem to extend the courtesy of being blood to marriage.

Dean felt like a stranger near Sam, but he had no doubts that Sam was a stranger for those people just as well.

00000~00000

Samuel wasn't waiting for Sam. In fact, none of them had even bothered to stick around and find out if Dean was alive. To them, it seemed, he was less than a civilian; he was a civilian who thought he was a hunter.

Dean could easily remember how frigging annoying those were. He remembered all too well the problems and complications they represented for a hunter.

Being considered one... well, he'd just never expected to wear that label, let alone to be treated as a nuisance. A civilian.

Or for Sam to be that unbothered with the fact.

It was weird to see the way Sam reacted to events. Or better yet, how he failed to react.

The old Sam... the old Sam would have drill every piece of information he could out of their new found relatives. And yet, Sam seemed to barely know anything about them, eerily content with just the added security of having a group to hunt with and not bothering to actually know them at all.

Like a veteran soldier in war, refusing to learn the rookies' names in the first week fighting in the front line, just in case they never made it into the second week.

The old Sam would find it odd that his group hadn't waited for him to pack their stuff and go, he would even be pissy at being left behind like that, even if the place they were leaving him was his older brother's house.

Sam took it in stride, assuming so quickly that Samuel and the others had just gone back to their 'headquarters' that Dean was left with the distinct impression that this was not the first time it had happened.

The old Sam would've been right by his side, as Dean ran to Sid's house. Or he would've at least considered the option. Why wasn't Sam freaking out at the realization that the thought hadn't crossed his mind? Why was he convinced that it never would've?

Dean kept waiting for his brother to crack a sincere smile, tilt his head to side and say 'gotcha!'. He kept waiting for the smiles on Sam's face to be Sam's smiles, but all Dean had seen so far were small grins and mocking smirks that reminded him more of Lucifer than Sam.

Fake smiles and Dean couldn't decide if that was because Sam was faking them or because Lucifer had left part of him inside Sam.

Dean was too afraid to find out which, because one would mean Sam no longer trusted Dean enough to let him see his true feelings; and the other meant that Sam was not back at all.

Not completely, at least.

Dean watched Sam leave with a heaviness in his heart that he hadn't allowed himself to feel ever since he'd promise Lisa that he was going to try and live with them, instead of just surviving one day at a time, as he had in the beginning.

It was odd to feel now -with Sam back and apparently more adjusted to his post-Hell life than Dean had ever managed- the same pain and despair that had nearly driven him insane when Dean was sure that his brother was trapped in a cage with Lucifer. It was as if, somehow, despite the fact that he'd just spend a day with Sam, talked with Sam, finished a hunting job with Sam, Dean hadn't seen Sam at all.

It was as if all he'd seen was a smoky, shadowy version of his brother that scared Dean for all that it implied. And if Sam was aware of that change, he wasn't paying it any due consideration, choosing instead to advertise his newfound appreciation of life and hunting... like the two things could even be considered in the same line of sanity.

Dean rubbed his chest and forced himself to ignore the building headache that was stabbing him right between the eyebrows. Lisa would be waiting to hear from him, worrying about him. He should really call; let her know that he would be driving over to get her and Ben back.

Dean didn't really wanted to be there when the police arrived to Sid's house, but he was sure that someone must've seen him run there anyway. It would look suspicious if he just ran away.

That was before, when he and Sam didn't have to worry about justifying the bodies left behind, when all they had to do was be careful with their prints and being seen or recognized.

Most people in that street knew Dean by name now. And Sid...

Sid wasn't just some luckless, nameless victim that the Winchesters had failed to save. Sid was the nice guy next-door, who bought Dean beers and invited them over for barbecues and made fun of Dean every time some waitress put the moves on Dean.

Sid was normal. Sid was Dean's role model to try and fit in. And the fact that Dean had maybe started to fit in way too much, had gotten Sid killed.

Poor Sid.

This was why Dean knew he was a fool to allow himself to be a part of Lisa and Ben's life. A selfish fool who had been thinking about nothing but himself when he came to haunt their steps after losing Sam.

Truth was, Dean hadn't been thinking at all. And now it was too late to take that back.

Sid was gone. Lucy, his wife, was gone. God! What was going to happen to Angie, their daughter? She was younger than Ben... and she has just lost both her parents because Dean had killed a Djinn years ago and then decided to move next door to them.

Dean had ruined that little girl's life.

And if any suspicion over what had happened ever fell on Dean, he, Lisa and Ben would have to leave. Which meant taking Ben from his school, from his friends...

Dean ran a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to pull at it. This was all his fault.

Sam was right. Winchesters were like a curse, a virus that killed everyone they touched, everyone they loved.

Dean walked back inside, past the pictures in the hall, past his coat, hanging side by side with Lisa's, past a life that they'd begun to construct for themselves. It was all an illusion and the only thing real was the danger that Dean had brought to their lives.

The air was closing in on Dean and he couldn't be sure if that too was an illusion from his mind or something real.

That had happened a lot, in those first days in Lisa's home. Throat closing in, world spinning out of control until Dean couldn't tell the difference between now and then, between what he had and what he had lost.

Lisa could always bring him back when he was like that. She had this trick, this way of touching his neck with the tip of her fingers that never failed to bring Dean back to reality.

But Lisa was miles away, at Bobby's house, thinking that Dean was leaving her and Ben at the first sign of trouble.

Dean reached for the phone. He couldn't breath, couldn't move his chest. He needed to talk to Lisa; he was sure that the sound of her voice would be enough to ground him and allow him to breath again.

"Dean?" Lisa answered after only one ring, like she'd been gripping the cell phone in her hand, waiting for his call. "Dean, you there?"

Dean opened his mouth to answer, to ask her to talk to him, to tell him that everything was going to be fine, but all that rushed out from between his lips was air.

And then, like some artsy-fancy noir movie, everything faded to black.

00000~00000

Bobby told himself that he was not staring at Lisa and Ben, but he wasn't fooling anybody. Not even himself.

Truth was, this woman who'd been a part of Dean's life for close to a year now, this person who had managed to do for that boy what Bobby was sure he would have never been able to, was too damn compelling to not be stared at.

And Bobby meant that with as much respect as Dean's wife merited. Because, to Bobby, she was that boy's wife, in every sense of the word even if neither of them wore any gold around their fingers.

Dean might not refer to her like that whenever he called to check up on Bobby and allow himself to be checked upon, and she certainly didn't refer to Dean in those terms, but Bobby could hear it in the way Dean talked about her, about their life together. And Lisa might have not been born with the genes, but she was every bit a Winchester woman as they came.

That kid had been a mess when he had left Bobby's salvage yard a year ago, wounded in the deepest recesses of his soul by not only the loss of his brother, but by how he'd lost Sam.

Bobby had been one step away from grabbing that boy and locking him up in that panic room in his basement until he was sure that Dean wouldn't wane away from existence from the sheer weigh of his pain.

But he knew that keeping Dean with him was keeping Dean in the hunting life, and that boy had already given enough. Bobby was too gruff and too weathered down by life to be of any assistance to someone going through what Dean had been going through, to smooth the aches of someone as maimed as Dean had been after losing Sam.

Had Dean stayed, they would've probably ended up grabbing a knife and cutting each other's wrists within a week.

Or died of alcoholic coma. Which ever they thought of first.

For the longest of times, Bobby was sure that Lisa would fail too. Then Dean called him, asking for some occult books to check on some theories he had... and Bobby was sure Lisa had failed too.

He drove himself there, under the pretense of delivering the books to Dean himself, rehearsing over and over the speech he would give that would convince Dean to let go.

It was only when Dean opened the door to great him with an short, but sincere smile, that Bobby realized that Lisa and Ben had been just what that boy had needed.

He wasn't well, that part was easy to figure out after ten minutes talking with Dean. There were still shadows under his eyes. In his eyes.

Dean's hands shook every once in awhile when he thought he could get away with it without anyone noticing, and his eyes always became too bright whenever Sam or family was mentioned. That was to be expected.

But some things seemed to be gone. Things that were wearing Dean thin even before Sam's fall into Hell.

The hopelessness was gone.

The emptiness was gone.

The quiet despair, hidden under layers of brassy-makeup, was diminished to a controlled drive to help Sam.

The edginess, that sharp attention to every shadow and movement that every hunter seemed to have ingrained in their cells, that too Bobby found missing, and for that he couldn't be more grateful to that woman.

He had no idea how she'd done it without resorting to using black magic or deals with the devil itself, but Dean's frame was fuller now, his hair longer and he was wearing nothing but socks on his feet the whole time Bobby spent in their living room. Under the terrible circumstances that had driven him to that place, Dean was more relaxed and at peace than Bobby had ever seen him. Lisa's presence and calming acceptance was like a cocoon of safety that Dean seemed to have accepted and welcomed. And even if Dean wasn't as good as he could be, the edge of the abyss wasn't quite as near then as it had been before.

After seeing something like that, Bobby had quickly made up his mind. There was no way he was going to mess up the good work that Lisa and her boy were doing by announcing to Dean that his brother was back. He would not risk Dean trading his peace for some sense of duty and protectiveness over Sam that John had drilled into him.

To his shame, that was the first thought that had come to Bobby's mind when a newly freed from Hell Sam showed up at his doorstep; that now that Sam was back, there was no way Dean would get to keep his quiet, normal life.

Sam had agreed with Bobby. For the better or worse, it had been their conjoint decision to keep Dean in the dark in regards to his brother and for twelve months, neither regretted it. Painful as the lie was, they knew that the truth, in the long run, would prove much more dangerous and miserable.

Dean found Lisa; Sam found his grandfather. Or better yet, Samuel found Sam. And Bobby was reduced to keeping tabs on each of his kids by phone and the occasional mail.

Sam sent photos of the latest monster they'd found breaking pattern.

Dean sent photos of Ben's baseball games.

Dean acted like a big brother to the kid, protecting Ben and teaching him all of the normal things that he had taught Sam: how to drive; how to score a kiss from the cutest girl in class; what a carburetor looked like; how to be a man and live with honor, even though that part was more by example than by lesson.

Ben, for his part, respected Dean like a father, Bobby could see that. It was just Dean who was slower on the uptake, because if Bobby had been able to put that together from a couple of baseball photos and Dean's words, Lisa who watched it everyday, could certainly see it too.

Dean was good for that boy; and the kid was like a threading needle, mending the tears in Dean's soul.

When Dean showed up with his new family in tow and a scared look back in his eyes, Bobby had feared that all that hard work, all that Ben and Lisa had accomplished, had been lost.

When Dean left with Sam to hunt the Djinns that were hunting them, Bobby had been left behind with Dean's wounded words, a worried sick wife and a kid who wasn't really sure of what was going on, but had a pretty good hunch that it was bad and dangerous for Dean.

He didn't try to coddle them into believing everything was going to be alright. Bobby already respected Lisa too much for that.

When Lisa's phone rang and the first thing that she said was for Ben to go upstairs, Bobby knew that it couldn't be good.

"Dean?" she whispered into the receiver, even though the caller ID had already told her who was on the other side. "Dean, you there?"

The thud! that sounded from the other side of the phone connection was loud enough that Bobby heard it even from the courtesy distance that he was keeping from Lisa.

"Dean! Dean.. answer me, sweetie... please, talk to me, Dean."

Bobby was already picking up his car keys and yelling for the kid to grab his coat even before Lisa dropped the phone to the floor in shock and looked up him to say "Robert, Dean needs us."

00000~00000

"It's your fault."

Dean could still smell the burning of the exhaust pipe that Sam's new car left behind as he peeled away from Dean's drive way. For a second, Dean imagined that the blurry figure standing over him was Sam.

But Sam hadn't worn a baseball cap since he was six and embarrassed of his curly hair.

"It was all a dream, wasn't it?" Dean whispered, closing his eyes again when he determined that it was Bobby and not Sam guarding his sleep. "I figured it had to be, with that many people back from the dead, and Sam alive and well and the cousins Itts from hell making fun of my life..."

"It wasn't a dream," Bobby cut in, before Dean could actually convince himself otherwise. "You had some sort of delayed reaction to the Djinn antidote. I called Sam to find out what the hell was in that crap."

Dean stared at Bobby. "It was all real?" he asked again, sounding somewhat disappointed. "All of it?"

Dean wasn't disappointed about the part where Sam was finally out of Hell; that was the one wish that Dean had long since harbored, the one thing that he would've given anything to see happening. But the part where Sam and Bobby had betrayed his trust and kept him in the dark, the part where he couldn't recognize his brother in the man that had saved him twice from the Djinns' poison...

"Ben and Lisa?" Dean asked, bolting from the bed and taking a good look around. He was in his and Lisa's bedroom, in their bed, lying in their sheets, staring at the same ceiling that had kept company to his insomniac nights. He still couldn't call it home.

Bobby's hand was there to keep him from completing the motion of springing right off the bed. "They're safe," the older man reassured. "You scared the crap out of them, sprawled out on the floor of the entry hall like some oversized egg yolk like you were when we found you... but they're okay. Scared the crap out of me as well, just so you know."

Dean pushed his hand against the bed, dragging his sore body into a sitting position. "Sam left," Dean whispered, afraid that Lisa might hear the longing in his voice, that she might hate Sam for that. "He wanted me to go with him, said that me staying here would only further endanger Lisa and Ben."

His eyes were bright and wide open when Dean focused his gaze on Bobby's, despair making him forget the angry words exchanged just hours before in exchange for some guidance. "Bobby... they could've died this time, and it would've been my fault."

00000~00000

Bobby sighed. He'd lost count of the times he and Sam had had this same discussion. It was the proverbial 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' because either way, the monsters of this world –and the next- that had an axe to grind with Dean would know where to hit, and the fact that Dean was near or away from Lisa and Ben wouldn't matter much to them in the overall picture.

Revenge was revenge and it tasted as good cold as it did hot, no matter what anyone said to the contrary.

"But you decided to stay," Bobby surmised, given that they'd come to find Dean at home, alone. Dean had made his choice, even if it was one he was looking to validate.

Dean nodded, pushing the bed clothes aside and getting up. Bobby had already seen the bruising in Dean's chest, from where Sam had jammed the contents of three full syringes of antidote, all administrated over the span of twenty-four hours, into his heart. Despite the fact that Dean would've been dead without it, they'd been lucky that the former hunter had gotten out of it with only a fever and a mild allergic reaction. Bobby would have to have a serious talk with Sam to remind him why you don't just leave someone alone after pumping him full of an unauthorized and untested substance. One more dose and Bobby was sure Dean would have been a goner, Djinn poison or not.

"He didn't ask me to go with him, Bobby," Dean confessed, his eyes averted down, hiding from the older man's judgment. "I mean, he said he wanted me to go with him, but he said it like he was talking about getting a better model of the same car... like I was a weapon that was missing from his armory. He doesn't need me... he just examined his resources and concluded that I was an asset."

Bobby kept silent. He too knew this new Sam and how... disturbing his new found rationality could be. Especially for those with an emotional link to him.

"I don't want to be Sam's asset... and I don't want to leave Lisa and Ben alone," Dean went on, finally looking up, the bruises that had been permanent residents under his eyes for those first few months, back in place. "I want to be his brother, and I want to be Lisa's companion and... and I want to be Ben's father."

Bobby took a deep breath to stop himself from going from all misty eyed to full on sobbing. Damn that boy!

He too wanted all of that for Dean, he wanted nothing more than for this boy to have all of those things and so much more. If anyone deserved it, it was Dean.

But fate seemed to have it in for the Winchesters, both those born to the name as well as those bound to them by love. "Can't have it all, son... you know that."

"I know, Bobby... I know."

The end