Author Note: This is just a little something I found cold and shivering in the corner of my Drafts folder. Pulled it out, gave it a hug and some hot chocolate, and thought I'd share. This was originally a cut scene from Frailty, one of the underdeveloped bits I pulled from the line-up once I finally had a plan in place for that story.
From the earliest days of Season 5, when all of the wounds were still fresh.
Blister
There are things that are given freely, and there are things that are earned.
Trust between brothers is supposed to be one of the free things. And it was.
Then one night Sam stuck up his nose and raised his voice and slammed a few doors and walked out on them, and any thoughts of trust fled with him. There were secrets and lies and withholding, and a Winchester doesn't change its stripes. Dean can't trust Sam to tell him the whole truth, can't trust him to stick around.
Sam won't let the cards lie, can't allow the hand to play out the way it's meant to; finds Roy le Grange, sets the entire family on a downward spiral there's no pulling out of. And now he can't be trusted to make the tough decision.
Ruby comes along, muddies his mind and poisons his body and Sammy throws out the playbook. There's blood, and there are bruises, and Dean knows Sam can no longer be trusted to make the RIGHT decision.
Decision-making is off the table for Sam, indefinitely. Dean can sleep at night, as much as he ever does, knowing he's benched Sam in this capacity. Sam can be as pissed as he wants to be but this is Dean's birthright.
"What exactly is it about being born before me that makes you think all of your decisions are the right ones?"
Dean takes a page straight from the John Winchester Manual of Dealing and pours a glass of whiskey full enough to raise eyebrows, collapses into a chair and lifts a shoulder. "I didn't say all of my decisions are the right ones, just that mine are the ones we'll be going with from now on."
A derisive snort, right on cue. "You're unbelievable."
"Aw, Sammy. You're making me blush."
"You don't trust me?" Sam's hands are making frustrated fists at his sides.
Dean stares at those fists; it wasn't so long ago those giant hands were wrapped around his neck, Sam using his strength instead of his words to say, fuck you and how much you think you know about me. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat that feels like suffocating. "You haven't given me much reason to these days."
"So I'm just gonna be stuffed in the decision-making penalty box until you pull your head out of your ass?"
"I might be more insulted by the fact you just made a hockey reference than the other thing you said." Struggling to make light of the situation, because Dean's not fucking around when he says Sam needs to take a step back. Sam knows it, too, just has too much natural fight in him to lie down and die quietly.
"Head out of your ass?"
Dean pauses for a drink. "That's the one."
"Well, it is."
"You always say that." Dean will talk his brother in circles until Sam collapses in exhaustion, if that's what it takes.
He throws in the towel instead, and a hell of a lot sooner than expected. Dean would have lost some money on this one.
"I'm gonna get some air." Sam steps toward the door. He abruptly stops and spins on his heel. "If that's okay with you," he says coolly, daring Dean to steal the last word from him like that's his birthright, too.
Dean just rolls his eyes.
Then he holds his breath until Sammy comes back.