Disclaimer: I don't own SPN obviously.

*I'm not an English speaker, so sorry for possible flaws.

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Dean stormed in the bunker; not even registering the all too familiar stairway he had practically crossed a million times since they'd moved in. They; the revelation that he might as well consider himself the lone inhabitant of Men of letters' safe house soon enough made him flinch. He shuddered the thought away. He had almost toppled headfirst to the gigantic table in the middle of the room, kicking his own ankle in the process.

"Son of a bitch". The bunker was dead silent, with no sign of someone breathing its air for anytime soon. There was some scattered thick books wide open on random pages glued at the position as if someone had spent the whole night dozing off over them, flattening the headbands irreparably. Dean chuckled to himself; good old Sammy. Then he was crashed by a long train of worries on his brother's behalf; from the fact that he might've got a cold spending the freezing night wearing only a layer of T-shirt to the strain his neck might have endured crouching on small notes gathered by himself here and there. The train sped up; how much food had he gotten just since they got dean back, not to mention the considerably tangible amount of muscles he'd lost during his big brother's disappearance.

He'd mentally cursed Cass and Mom and Jack for days; anyone who wasn't there for Sam as much of force-feeding the stubborn-ass brother of his. It was easy to read it all over his face though; the black circles, bloodshed eyes and beards and all on a face that became drastically gaunter than even his time on the big T trails. but what crushed dean's heart more forceful than any train –virtual or not- was the fact that despite all the fights and fists and curses, despite dean practically begging him not to throw away his life, he still found the curt message on his phone the next morning: "I'm sorry". He didn't get to be sorry. He was never even supposed to. Dean must have locked him up in the dungeon if that's what it took; he must have punched him once again and for all night if that would make Sam believe that nothing worth his sacrifice. People didn't. Most of them were just douchebags and bitches, half worthy of being called a human, let alone of sorts to be sacrificed for. If Michael wanted the planet roast, so be it.

-You don't mean that.

-The hell I don't .

Dean felt his throat sore and blistered from all his shouts hung in the air since just after the dinner. When he found sam looming over some sort of notebook, writing in a speed as if demons were chasing him. He'd peaked over his little brother's shoulders and recognized a few words. Nests, Colt, along with some careful drawings of object dean hadn't seen in his life. Sam flinched away from dean's demanding eyes and closed the notebook.

-what you're doing?

Sam cleared his throat. He pinched his nose for some more moments to gain enough focus to give dean the most irrelevant answer.

-want some beer?

Dean looked at him incredulously:

-Beer? Sam, you barely touched your dinner; same goes for the lunch or every goddamned meal in the whole week.

Sam dropped his head, his mind still fighting to remember some details for the notebook.

Dean could tell when his little brother wasn't even listening.

-Are you with me?

Sam huffed:

-Yeah, Dean.

Dean mercilessly bore his furious eyes to the shy fleeing orbs of Sam's till they couldn't resist the one-sideed stare. Sam looked into dean's eyes and forced a smile; one from many old times when he'd done something as scratching his knees or being bullied by some asshat at the school, the look that craved for comfort but trying to be as well brave for his big brother.

Dean gulped the growing lump on his throat and asked in a grim low voice, as if he was at the brink of cracking and a little bit of strain to his voice-box could break the freaking dam of his contradicting emotions.

- is it… is it because of what happened?

Sam jumped from his seat and had to grab the table to stand on his wobbly legs from which he advertently detained all the energy those long limbs needed in the past couple of weeks. He shook his head in a painstakingly slow manner and when he could as much as open his eyes without seeing black edges tiding nauseously in his sight field, he was able to detect dean's worried gaze and the arm stretching to grab him if, when he fell. He found his pole of reality as he looked in dean's guilty mouth quivering before his eyes –or maybe it was his swinging mind that distorted shapes and faces?- He managed to croak: No. and saw that dean chuckled bitterly at his attempt to act normal. There was no normal after Michael.

Dean cursed himself every day and night for losing the fight he couldn't possibly win. Cas said so, Mom said so. Hell, sam had an hour of his pep talks on how nothing that happened between them was dean's fault. He said that he understood why dean said yes and he said that he forgave him for the life-long scars residing on as well as inside his chest. He convinced dean that he'd asked for it, not that dean could ever believe that. He'd tortured his brother, his own blood and flesh and he could still hear Sam's cries and moans as he straddled his chest, carving his name on his little brother's chest; the one who he'd die for in a blink of an eye and he'd hurt him in more ways that he cared to remember.

-So what is it?

Dean looked hopeless, defeated. His self-hatred so immense that he doubted for a second if he has the right to ask for Sam's well-being. But he had to; it was bore into his core. No matter what; Sam could hate him –he was damn well entitled-, he could flinch every time dean called him "Sammy" reminiscing the memories of days of being taunted and carved and god help him, raped by his brother's body, by his mouth and hands and feet; Sam has the right to kick him out if he wanted to, but there was no way in hell that dean would allow any more minute of his kid's suffering and sure as hell not going to take all that well.

Sam was oriented enough by the time dean was drowning in guilt and self-loathing to push the notebook towards him. He looked befuddled, partly because he expected shouting, words of despise and anything as much of a cold look but nothing came. Sam was smiling at him again with puppy dog eyes as if he was about to collapse from a high cliff, but all he cared instead was to make the jump easier for his big brother. Dean turned the pages slowly; trying to crack the code of something so important his life might actually depend on it, or him not losing his mind. The first thing that came to his mind were the words he didn't notice he uttered loudly: British men of letters.

It looked like one of their mighty strategies, the ones with maps for exact locations of vampires' nests or werewolves' packs; the guns and freaking magical –yet as sam regarded them: tech-wise- instruments they'd used to eradicate evil from their whole freaking continent. Dean surfed through more and more pages of good drawings and tired handwrites.

-so?

Sam offered dean a bottle of bear he'd grabbed from another table. Warm, but it would do.

-So, you remember what you said months before about purging the world from evil?

-yeah?

Dean swallowed a large drop and felt his all too familiar lump he virtually got addicted to soothingly pushed inside his stomach.

-That's it. I read their blueprints, journals and all, just before you know… .

Yeah, just before they had to blast the whole place down.

Sam opened two of his flannel's buttons as an act of cooling down his heated mind. His clock showed 9 p.m. already and he found out that sooner or later he would have to talk about his plan.

It took some moments of amazement from dean's side accompanied by the peaceful silence of newly emptied bunker, which was again thanks to sam who suited the exodus guys in their new houses provided with his own money. He even bought them furniture and filled them their job forms; Mom had left for a hunt and Castiel was taking care of jack somewhere in Texas. Sam was once again alone with his brother; the one who tortured him for a complete week before finally finding the strength to cast Michael out.

It was when dean asked the one million dollar question.

-why bother writing them?

Sam was waiting for this moment. He avoided dean's demanding gaze by looking at his beer intensely as if it was the strangest object he'd ever seen.

- why sammy?

Sam couldn't help grimacing at the nickname and right after getting out of his mouth, dean was stricken by the guilt at the sight of his brother's discomfort. Sam's voice was barely louder than a whisper.

- because.

He waited.

- because I've found a way to kill them.

Dean already knew the voice; it was seeking for forgiveness it shouldn't have sought. The forgiveness he didn't require. Dean tried to calm himself by closing his eyes for a moment.

- and how's that?

Sam was now practically blabbering.

- Rowena… I'll trap them.

Dean could hear that much and it was enough. Words automatically spilled from his mouth, though he didn't understand them. The only thing he could think of was a memory. The day when they, well when sam killed a hellhound and with that started dean's nightmares. Bloody handkerchiefs, convulsing coughs, fever, fainting, wheezing, dying.

- sam, no.

- dean, listen…

The hell with it. They will not go down there.

- I said no.

Sam looked at him, really looked at him. He'd mustered all the sincerity he had in himself

–which was way too much- to glaze into his brother's eyes, searching for a consent he knew he would never get. There was no way in hell dean would let that happen. But from his stoic posture and rock-hard determined obligation, what comes out of his damned mouth was a pathetic plea, one that would not shake his little brother's stubbornness. He wish he could yell, threat and punch but he just couldn't; not after…

-Sam…

But Sam pushed further:

- you can't stop me. You won't. I'm going to do this.

- why, damn you, why?

Dean was now barely holding back the tears. He could not hurt sam any more than he'd done already, but that meant that he had to watch his brother sprinting towards his own doom.

Sam was resolute.

-because it is my fault and I'm going to fix it.

- the hell it is.

Dean stood and kicked the chair beneath him. it cracked with a loud sound. Maybe now sam would accept his plea. Maybe the crack of the chair could somehow make sam hear how much dean needed him. if sam went, he would follow, period. Billie had said it long before. He can't lose him. he won't lose him, not again.

- it's my fault, you hear me? I let Michael in, I made him as strong douchebag as he is now. Don't you dare think otherwise.

Sam was still calm. Taking in dean's anger as extra salt on his wounds all over his torso, but dean couldn't think about it now and deep down sam knew that it's nothing but pure love and fondness that could make dean as furious as he was.

- you did it for me, never forget that. And Lucifer..

- you once sacrificed yourself for the world, trapping yourself with the devil himself in hell.

Dean was pronouncing every word with such emphasis that his jaw actually hurt.

-Don't you think enough's enough? Don't you think you've done well already?

- we let him out ,again.

Sam pointed out with shame. That was when something in dean's existence cracked, a loud

and audible crack from deep in his soul, just matching the one he heard before when subjecting his anger to the chair.

- YOU didn't let him out. Cas did. Crowley did. As much as I remember you were crouching at the fucking cages' bars panting, defenseless, not willing to destroy the damned world YOU yourself had saved. HOW MANY TIMES?

Dean crashed his bottle to the ground. Sam took a step back and that was the act that made dean's heart ache even more. His tone softened.

-how many times you have to sacrifice your life for people who don't even deserve it, how

many times sammy?

He didn't care if another day he'd been manhandling Sam's bright sole right deep in his chest with his –he reminded himself Michael's- claws over and over again as he used his other hand brushing his brother's hair out of his face, suffocating his sobs with the flesh of his freaking hand cooing in his ears some psychotically soothing nursery rhymes, calling him sammy, while scratching the all too shiny soul, tearing it to shreds again and again and –Sam's shriek muffled by a pressure beyond human's strength that actually crushed Sam's jaw for so many times he couldn't remember, just before making him a whole new clean canvas- again. He didn't care that the sole fact that He was there in the bunker was creating night and day nightmares for Sam, the ones he couldn't wake from without making his throat sore and his muscles strained and painful from all the screaming, thrashing and whining at the mercy of a shadow of his brother, always calling him sammy when he harvested his body for new organs to pull out, then resting them back where they were. No matter what, he would always look at sam the way he looked at the chubby haired four year old "sammy" who couldn't part from him even for a mere minute.

Sam didn't answer.

- if Lucifer's again ruling in heaven, let him do whatever he wants. Not our freaking problem.

Dean actually managed to smile reassuringly at sam, who stood at far end of the room looking at him intently for a weak spot. Something in dean's righteous mind that would allow his brother to virtually kill himself to destroy the evil. There was none. especially not after the things he'd done to him a mere week ago. Sam meant it when he said that he forgave dean, hell, he'd been there; he'd seen his hands killing innocent people, he'd seen them beating up dean to an inch of his life and he'd never forgiven himself for that; but he knew that dean forgave him and gave him a second chance he didn't think he deserved.

- if Michael wants the planet roast, so be it. Dean once again raised his voice. His anger was toward himself. He'd done what he did to protect Sam. He could fool himself that it was jack or the world or the freaking apocalypse. But he couldn't lie to himself. On a box deep down in his soul there was a name indicating the sole motive of everything he'd ever done in his life. It was Sam's, and no one else's.

-you don't mean that.

-the hell I don't.

Sam started in resignation.

-I know how you feel, believe me, I know. I've been there. But dean, I beg you to listen. We have a shot at killing both Michael and Lucifer. I can't sleep at night knowing that I could do something and I didn't. you know how Michael's twisted mind works. He will destroy our world, just like he destroyed his own. There are kids…

Dean whispered:

-You are my kid.

Sam smiled brightly, his eyes full of fondness for his big brother. But it was sad and apologetic as well, because he could not stay a kid. He could not rely on dean to keep him safe, hell there was no such thing as safe in their world. He could not let his brother suffer for him anymore.

- you can't always protect me.

Dean wiped his wet cheeks.

-watch me.

Dean strode the distance between them until he was only a foot away. It was too much to ask. Any physical contact would remind sam of his time as dean's-Michael's- prisoner. But it had worked, however it sound insane, however it pained dean to watch himself inflicting unimaginable pain on his kid, it was the one thing Michael was wrong about. He wasn't aware of the nights when dean stayed awake at Sam's bedside checking over him for a meager fever to wear off. He couldn't see how dean rode sam to the hospital because the stupid brat thought he could fly and broke his arm, he couldn't see his tears when he run at a doctor, startling the shit out of them, begging for sammy to be taken care of. Michael didn't know that dean sold his soul for sam and never not once regretted it and he sure didn't know that the most powerful archangel's power only could last a week of constant torture inflicted on the most important person in his vessel's life to finally break its invisible hold. That was Sam's plan and it was the only plan prone to success. Dean closed his eyes and embraced his brother, careful not to pop any stitches –physical or mental- on Sam. Sam leaned to the hold and relished the moment, almost grunting in satisfaction that at last, love had overwhelmed the twisted games the world had planned for them. When they depart, dean thought that it was over. Sam would not go on a suicide mission and they could cherish the end of the world right here, holding beers in hands and thinking about nothing but getting each other back. But as said the nagging voice of a permanent worry in his chest, it was a false hope.

Sam started:

- I never thought of myself to have the privilege of becoming old, you know.

Dean as if came out of a trance, raised his eyebrows.

-why the hell not?

Sam bit his lower lip.

- Because I knew I was cursed, in a way I knew. And that I've come this far was because of no one but you.

- Stop it.

Not a chance.

- you saved me, over and over again. I should have died in cold oak.

Sam didn't even see dean's fist. He reeled back, pressing his two fingers to the crack dean had added to his previous Masterpiece. Dean was too overwhelmed by emotions, by guilt and self-hatred that he couldn't see straight. He couldn't even hear himself shouting:

- Don't you dare say that. Don't you fucking dare. Stop feeling guilty about being ALIVE. I'd do it a hundred times over and I'd never regret it.

He was now sobbing disgracefully.

- Dean…

Dean didn't stop yelling at the kid, who watched him in horror and awe but could not bring himself to as much as retaliating.

- I don't care if the whole world burns. I don't give a damn about heaven and hell; you may think that you're saving the world we know; but you are crushing mine to ashes. Sammy…

He gingerly wiped the forbidden tears off his red-tainted face. He will talk sam out of this –he told himself- his pride be damned. Hell, he would gladly take responsibility of the apocalypse if that meant sam was safe, even for the shortest of times.

- I'll do it. Whatever shitjob is needed for saving the freaking world, whatever godforsaken ritual it requires, tell Rowena to use me.

Sam's face dropped. He didn't met dean's gaze for a long time, which made dean actually hope for a way to trade himself instead. Finally, sam spoke.

- Dean. You can't do it. It needs demon blood and all.

He swung his shaking hand in the air. God, he was practically shuddering from hypoglycemia.

- alright. I get your point dean. Never mind it. I guess we should find out some other ways?

Dean's suspicion was screaming at him, but he sheepishly subdued the bad feeling with a stupid question he knew would do nothing for his worries.

- So, no throwing your life away for the greater good?

He forced a smile to be rewarded by something more than a "maybe" or "we'll figure it out" as sam used to apply. Sam nodded with what dean registered as a slightest shine of honesty. That was enough for him. Sam would not do that to him, he wouldn't ruin his brother's world; he wouldn't sacrifice his life in compensation of his brother's mistakes, mistakes of which he himself had suffered most of all.

TBC?