This takes place in Season 9, after Gadreel has been expelled, after Sam and Dean start working together but before they start acting like brothers again (post 9x12, but before 9x14). I just had this idea in my head that wouldn't go away; Sam's still angry, and it doesn't matter how many times Dean tries to explain or make things right, that's not the problem. Sam just needs Dean to understand that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural

"You wanna be partners, fine. You wanna be brothers…"

The words rolled around Dean's head for days after Sam had let them loose. He knew Sam was mad. No, he was pissed. Time hadn't dulled that emotion in the weeks since they had gotten Gadreel out… no, they hadn't done anything. That was all on Sam. Dean always knew his brother was the stronger one. Hell, it wasn't just any old vessel that could wrench control back from Lucifer himself. Gadreel had been nothing, compared to the devil – at least, he hadn't been once Sam actually knew he was there.

And the kid had every right to be upset. Dean had screwed up, he knew that; but why couldn't Sam see it from his point of view? He was dying, and Dean had to do something. Right? Didn't matter that Sam was ready to die, it wasn't in Dean's nature to not save him.

He just wanted to find the right words to make this all right. What could he say that would make Sam see, make him understand? What would make Sam not be angry anymore?

He had no idea, and so they continued to coexist semi-peacefully in the Bunker. Neither one seemed keen to find another hunt just yet, content to spend their days studiously avoiding each other whenever possible, and awkwardly making excuses to leave the room when they couldn't.

They had been back in the Bunker for two days when Dean decided he couldn't take the silence any more. Sam seemed to be timing his visits to the kitchen specifically to avoid when he knew Dean would be in there. He was also ignoring the food Dean had graciously made and left out, so that the kid wouldn't accidentally forget that his gigantor frame needed fuel to not, you know, faint. Dean had even gone the extra step and made foods he knew Sam liked – healthy crap, plus some classic favorites from when they were kids. Sam had always loved mac and cheese.

But apparently that wasn't good enough for Sasquatch, who bypassed the prepared food and made his own meals, every time.

So when Dean heard Sam moving around the kitchen, he pounced. Sure enough, there was Sam, ignoring the lasagna that was ready and waiting on the stovetop, in favor of making himself a plain old sandwich. Seriously? Who in their right mind would pick a PB&J over homemade lasagna?

Dean cleared his throat to announce his presence, and felt some trepidation when Sam immediately stiffened and looked up, his expression hard as he glanced over at his brother, before turning back to his sandwich.

Screw this. Dean moved into the kitchen and leaned against the fridge, effectively cutting off Sam's access as he tried to put the jam away.

Sam grit his teeth and set the jar back down on the counter before crossing his arms stoically. "Something wrong?" he asked, attempting to keep his voice level.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Something wrong? You mean other than the fact that it's been two days and you've barely said a word to me?"

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to count to five to avoid snapping. When he was sure he was calm, he spoke. "I don't want to say something I might regret later."

Dean winced. He knew that tactic; hell, he'd used it a few times himself. When you didn't want to make things worse, you just avoided saying anything.

Sam of course knew what was going through his brother's head, so he picked up his sandwich and headed for the exit.

Dean felt his heart speed up; would things ever get better? Would he wake up one day to find that Sam had finally left him again? He had harbored a deep fear that the kid would walk out again, ever since they had started riding together after Stanford nearly a decade ago. He couldn't live without his brother again. He wouldn't be able to handle it. "Sam, please," his words paused Sam's stride, right as he reached the door. "I'm –"

Sam turned suddenly, his eyes flashing. "Don't." Dean was stunned into silence, and Sam made himself draw in a shuddering breath. "Dean, please, just don't. Don't apologize, don't ask me to forgive you. Not right now. Because if you do, I will. And right now, I just need to be angry." His eyes were pleading as he met Dean's own startled gaze.

Was that what this was about? Dean had been so sure that they were broken, and this would never be fixed. Maybe he had been reading the situation all wrong though. Unable to make himself speak, he just nodded.

Sam managed to muster up a grateful look, before he headed back to his bedroom.

Dean spent another minute collecting himself before he let out a low sigh and put the jam back in the fridge, cleaning up the peanut butter and bread as well. Apparently being angry meant Sam put his OCD and cleanliness habits on hold.

No, that wasn't fair to Sam, and Dean couldn't continue to hold all this against him. He hated that Sam was so ready to die, to leave him, but he couldn't continue this self-righteous act and carry on thinking that Sam was just being a whiny brat who needed to move on and get over himself. Dean still didn't quite understand why he was holding onto his anger so tightly, but he recognized that Sam, for whatever reason, needed this. His first instinct was always to protect Sammy, so if this was what Sam needed, he would comply.

For now.

XXX

And he even managed to do it, too. Nearly a full week passed in the same vein; Sam avoiding Dean, Dean doing everything he could to make this easier for both of them.

The one change he noticed was that Sam no longer passed over the food Dean prepared, so that was something, at least.

It wasn't much, but there was a slight thawing in the air, and it gave Dean hope that things wouldn't be like this forever. Hell, Sam had already alluded to that fact, but seeing, or feeling, some hard evidence calmed the older brother and allayed some of his fears that Sam would choose to leave rather than continue living in tense silence with a brother he didn't want to be around anymore.

Sam found Dean in the shooting range, five days after that last real conversation they had had, and waited until he had finished unloading the clip into the target's head before he announced his presence. "I think you killed him."

Dean put the gun down and turned quickly, taking his ear plugs out and setting them next to the gun. "Hey." Wow, that sounded lame.

Sam evidently thought so as well, because he let out a soft snort and moved closer, leaning against the counter. The air around him seemed relaxed, but Dean knew Sam well enough to see the tension in his jaw, the apprehension in the set of his shoulders, and the fiery passion that shone in his eyes.

It was best to let Sam talk first. He needed some clue of how to proceed here. Besides, Sam was the one that came to him. Maybe he was ready to move on?

Sam let out a long sigh and his shoulder slumped slightly. "OK, so I'm still mad," he admitted, his gaze drifting to the far wall. Dean flinched minutely, and Sam continued, "but I'm adult enough to know that we need to address this. I'm…" he swallowed harshly. "Thank you for not pushing, the last few days. I know it hasn't been easy."

Dean shrugged. "No matter how many rough patches we hit, Sammy, you're still my brother. I want to make this better, I just don't know how."

"I don't know either," Sam admitted, voice pained. "We're broken, and I just don't know how to trust you again."

It hurt even more to hear those words again, coming days after they had both had a chance to calm down from the high tensions that had prompted them to be spoken the first time.

"Sam, I can apologize over and over, but I don't think it'll change anything." Dean really wished he had an instruction manual right now. What could he say to make Sam trust him? "I know you don't get it, but I did what I had to do. To save you. You would have done the same thing."

"No I wouldn't." Sam's voice was soft, but his tone was hard, unyielding, and absolutely certain. He meant it.

Dean's heart stuttered and he felt himself stop breathing. After all this? Hunting together, apocalypses left and right, watching each other's backs, and Sam was throwing in the towel? What, he had decided he had had enough and just wanted to check out on his brother?

Sam drew his gaze from the far wall, and seemed to understand what Dean was thinking immediately. Well, to be perfectly honest, it probably wasn't that difficult; Dean didn't think he was capable of hiding the hurt and anger right now.

"Dean, it's not like that."

Dean's eyes snapped up, and he glared. "What, you think I shouldn't be upset that my brother decided he wouldn't save me? Well, don't hold back, Sam, tell me how you really feel."

Sam grimaced and swallowed harshly. "Dean, of course I'd do everything I could to save you. But not like that. That's the difference you need to understand. It's not that you saved me, it's how you chose to do it."

Dean frowned, confused. He had thought that this was all about how Sam was ready to die, or some shit. Sam had even said that.

Sam sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily. "Yes, maybe I was ready to die in that church, but you asked me to stop, so I did. I'm not upset that I'm still here with you, Dean. My first choice is always to be watching your six. But I said yes to you. Not an angel, you. I said yes to my brother. I will always say yes to you."

Dean felt a pressure building behind his eyes, and knew he was pretty close to not being able to hold the tears in. How had he missed this?

Sam made himself take a breath to calm down, and met Dean's gaze head-on. "After everything we've been through, everything that's happened, it's like you just ignored all of it. You let another angel in me after Lucifer, another demon after Meg… Dean, you've never been possessed, you have no idea what it feels like. I swore to myself after I got out of the Cage that I would never be that out of control again."

Dean flinched at the reminder of the times Sam had suffered because of angels and demons. God, how could he have dismissed those events?

They had never talked about Sam being possessed by Lucifer; everything that had happened after just sort of eclipsed it. And when Dean thought about it now, he just remembered how strong his little brother was, to wrestle control back from the Devil, to hold him down long enough to open the Cage and jump in. They never discussed what it was like to have an angel driving the car while you were stuck riding shotgun. Jimmy Novak had once told them it was like being strapped to a comet. Was that what it felt like for Sam too?

"I didn't think…" Dean bit his lip and looked down. "I didn't think about that," he admitted quietly, ashamed. God, he had lived by the creed of 'protect Sammy' his whole life, how could he have forgotten that?

"No, you didn't," Sam agreed. There was no condemnation in his voice, which made it even worse, somehow. "You saw the endgame, saving my life, and never thought about the consequences of getting there."

Dean flinched again, a deep shudder that ran through his whole frame and made him look even smaller. "Everything that happened after made the whole possession thing seem not as important, but if you ever wanted to talk… about what it was like… or something, you can." Wow, that sounded so incredibly not enough, considering all that Sam had suffered. Against all that, what could Dean offer, to make it better?

Sam sighed, a long low sound that made it seem like he was expelling all the air in his lungs. "Lucifer was… different," he said finally, his gaze skittering away as if he couldn't quite force himself to look Dean in the eye as he talked. "He wanted me to see what he was doing. Gadreel…" he let out a small huff of air that almost sounded like a laugh. "He didn't want me to know he was there, because he knew I could make him leave. I guess that's the difference. Lucifer didn't care because he was certain I wouldn't be strong enough. Gadreel knew that I was."

"You're the strongest person I know," Dean said quickly, his fingers twitching uselessly as he forced himself not to move closer. All he wanted to do was give his brother a hug, the way he used to when Sam was still small enough to fit in his embrace and he could pretend that he could shield the kid from all the horrors of the world. But he was unsure enough about their current relationship that he wasn't altogether certain such a move would be appreciated.

Sam gave another huff that managed to quite clearly convey his skepticism. Dean shook his head immediately. "I mean it, Sam. I'm sorry that I never really took the time to talk to you about the possession, but every time I thought about it, all I could think was how strong my little brother was, to kick the Devil down and hold him in check. You beat Satan, Sammy. You did that. Maybe some other people helped, but at the end of the day, it was you. And I was so incredibly proud of you for that."

Sam shook his head. "You're the one who helped me snap out of it, Dean."

Dean shrugged. "Still. You did all the hard work." He sighed and shook himself off. "Point is, dick angel number two was right to be afraid that if you knew he was there he'd be kicked to the curb. And you did. Sam, it took you less than two minutes to expel the asshole, once you knew he was there."

Sam stiffened slightly, and Dean knew that was at the reminder of how Crowley had been there as well. "Sam, I know you're mad about that too. But it was the only thing we could think of, to tell you what was going on."

Sam sighed and nodded minutely. "I get that, Dean, I do. And to be honest, that's secondary. Yeah, I don't like it, but at least Crowley didn't take me on a murder spree." Dean winced, and Sam folded his arms across his chest, hands clenched into tight fists. He looked at Dean, exhaustion clear in his eyes. He was so tired of all the crap that was their lives. "I don't know how to fix this, Dean. So much has gone down in the last couple months, and it goes so far beyond the possession. You lied to me, over and over again. A lot of the memories came back, and I know all about how you would just… shut me down, so that you could talk to him. When I got suspicious, you made me feel like I was going insane again."

Dean felt each word pierce him like a knife. Everything he had put his brother through, in just a few sentences, condensed to cause maximum hurt in the least amount of time. But Sam was right. He had screwed up.

Sam drew in a deep breath and stood up straight, letting his hands clench around his upper arms, his whole posture screaming of defense and protection. As if he felt like he had to protect himself from Dean. "I'm still pissed. I probably will be for a while. But I guess I just… I came down here because I want you to know that I won't always be. But we need to work on this, on us. I want to be able to trust you the way I used to. I just don't know how to get there."

"But we will," Dean pressed. He needed to know that they weren't completely broken. No matter how much it seemed like it now, he could survive on the promise that they could get back to what they used to be.

Sam sighed and glanced away briefly, before returning his tired gaze to Dean's own pleading one. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's been a while since we've had that, I think. Things have just been one crisis after another, and we've never had a chance to actually address our issues. We've both made mistakes, and they just keep piling up." He saw the hope leaving Dean's eyes, and shook his head quickly. "I don't know if we can go back, Dean, but that doesn't mean we can't work this out. I'm not that kid who thought the sun shined out of your ass anymore. And you're not the big brother who would do anything to shield the truth from me. We grew up."

Dean snorted softly, remembering those childhood years when Sam practically worshipped the ground Dean walked on. Even after he started arguing with Dad, rebelling against the hunting lifestyle, and after they got back together after Stanford, Sam still had that look in his eyes, like when everything else went to hell, he still had faith in Dean.

He hadn't looked at Dean like that in a long time. Not since Dean had made that deal to bring him back to life, actually. Like that one act had shattered his belief that Dean was larger than life, that he could do no wrong.

But that was all in the past, nothing they could do to change it now. What was important was this moment, hearing what Sam was saying and listening to him. He needed to remember that Sam was a partner, not a subordinate. "OK." He saw the naked relief in Sam's eyes, and knew that he had a lot of work ahead of him, to fix this. "We'll get there, Sammy. No going back, but from here on, we'll work this out. Together."

Sam nodded slightly, looking more at peace than he had in a week. "Together," he murmured, sounding pleased with the notion.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, before Dean cleaned up the station he had been using, and gestured for Sam to join him. "Come on, let's go out for dinner. Cupboards are pretty bare, and I love the burgers at the diner in town."

Sam smiled slightly and nodded, following his brother out of the shooting range. He recognized the gesture for what it was, and he was pleased with the way that conversation had gone. It could have easily headed in the other direction, if Dean hadn't been willing to listen to him. So maybe they hadn't quite fixed everything yet, but it would happen eventually. Sam didn't want to push it now, or the resentment would continue to build, and they would continue to stew in their own bitterness until eventually they couldn't hold it in anymore and it all came out and made things a hundred times worse.

Sam was still mad, but he knew that Dean understood where he was coming from now, in a way he hadn't a couple weeks ago when they had separated immediately after Gadreel had been kicked out. And what was more important, he was willing to work on fixing what was wrong, rather than pushing all aside and ignoring their problems until he couldn't anymore. That point was generally when the self-righteousness came out and both sides would refuse to admit that they were in the wrong.

So yeah, they had a lot to work on, but Sam was confident that they could do it. Him and Dean together could be an unstoppable force when pushed to it. And together, they could defy fate and destiny itself. When put like that, it made their issues now seem almost laughably easy in comparison.

As Dean threw him his jacket and slipped his own on before checking to make sure his wallet and cell phone were in his pocket, Sam mentally nodded. Both sides were willing to make the effort, and no matter how hard it might be, they'd get there.

Because they were Sam and Dean Winchester, and when they set their minds to something, losing just wasn't an option.

I had to throw in a little fix-it for Sam's whole 'I wouldn't', when Dean said he would have done the same thing. I never felt like it was addressed properly in the show, and I don't think it was about Sam not saving Dean, it was more about the circumstances. I snuck it in a little earlier than that conversation appears in the show, but it's fanfiction, skewing timelines is sort of what we do

So, please review and let me know what you think! Hope you liked it!