A/N: tag scene to 5.01, because the boys seemed to have to cleared some things up between 5.01 and 5.02.
"I just don't think I can trust you."
The words shouldn't have been so unexpected, but they cut up through Sam's gut and into his throat all the same. He thought - he thought -
He didn't know what he thought.
"You comin'?" Dean asked, demanded, from inside the Impala. Normally, any other time, no matter how pissed Dean was, Sam would get in the car and go wherever Dean drove them.
But Dean was more than pissed this time. He was disappointed. He was hurt. Sam had hurt him. Worse than starting the Apocalypse and ending the world, Sam had left Dean behind.
He'd left him unprotected.
Again.
"No, I'm gonna - gonna -." Going to what? Get some air? Clear his head? It all sounded like he was trying to avoid Dean. "I'll walk. I'm just gonna walk."
"Pfft - whatever." Dean said, sourly. He started the car and peeled out of the parking lot without looking back.
And Sam stared after him for a while.
When the sound of the engine had died away, Sam felt cold. Sure they'd had vicious fights before in their lives, but they'd always mended them.
But - this hadn't been a fight. This had been a dismissal. Dean wasn't coming back. He wasn't going to wait a few hours or half a day and then come looking for his wayward brother. He was gone. Sam could catch up if he wanted. If he didn't - that was OK too.
Sam turned back to the hospital and the bench on the portico outside the front door. That was as far as he felt he could walk right now. He'd sit and regroup, try to get his heart out of his throat and back where it belonged. Then he'd –
What? What would he do then?
He'd get up and go on and try to clean up his mess as best he could. That's all he could do. That's all he could think about doing right now.
And he could barely think about that.
SPN*SPN*SPN
Dean was barely out of the hospital parking lot when his phone rang.
Bobby.
"Hey, Bobby –"
"All right, yidjit. What'd you do?" Bobby demanded.
"What'd I do about what?"
"Don't play dumb – what'd you do to Sam?"
That knocked Dean for a loop.
"What'd I do to Sam? What makes you think I did anything to Sam?"
"Because I know you. You were playing calm & confident in my hospital room, but I can smell malarkey a mile away. You were so pissed you wanted to chew the wallpaper off the walls. Now - where's Sam?"
"I don't know and I don't care."
"The hell you don't care. Where is he?"
Dean grumbled to himself but answered Bobby.
"He was at the hospital."
"Was? You left him here?"
"I didn't leave him there. He left himself there. He didn't come with me." Dean laughed a bitter laugh. "But what else is new?"
He heard Bobby heave a sigh. A big one.
"You gonna let me know when you're done feeling sorry for yourself?"
"Oh – you don't think I have a right to feel sorry for myself? I mean, my brother did throw me over for a demon."
"And you threw your brother over for an angel, but I guess it's OK if you do it."
Dean was just trying to think of a scathing comeback when Bobby kept going.
"I mean – it's not like Sam lived a year knowing that you were going to hell because of him. It's not like he had to watch you get ripped to shreds by hellhounds, or had to slop your guts back into your belly to put your body in the car, or had to bury you. It's not like you left him thinking there was no choice but revenge. It's not like you left him all this past year thinking you weren't on his side at all and the only way he could redeem himself was to do whatever he had to, to off Lilith, no matter what it took or what kind of mess it left him in. If it left him alive at all. No, you didn't do any of that, did you?"
That shut Dean up.
"Oh wait – you did."
"We're just having a breather, Bobby." Dean finally said, thinking that. Believing that. "It's not like I shipped him off to Antarctica or someplace. He's just down the road from me."
"Is he? You sure?"
"The motels are only a few blocks from the hospital. I'm on my way to get a room now. Sam will know where to find me. If he wants to."
Dean knew that last bit was total self-pity and he knew that Bobby knew it too.
"I can sit on your ass all day y'idjit, 'til you figure it out."
"Figure what out?" Dean asked. He was driving into the string of fast food joints and motels now, and searched for the alphabetically first motel.
"That Sam needs you."
"Ha. Right. Sam needs me only because he's got nobody else. That's a lot of recommendation. If he had Ruby to run to, I wouldn't even see his shadow."
"I remember an ugly bottle of whiskey you got up close and personal with when Sam died back in Cold Oak. If Sam'd stayed dead, you would've shacked up with that bottle long-term. And all her ugly step-sisters. Dependence is dependence, whether it's got legs or not. And stupid is stupid."
"But I came back, Bobby." Dean said, and his voice shook and he didn't want it to. "I came back and still he went off with that skank. I was standing right there in front of him and he looked right past me."
"Did he?" Bobby asked. His voice was gentle and concerned, not the ire of a moment before. "Did he look past you, or did he try his damnedest to live up to not disappointing you for as long as he could?"
"That wasn't very long."
"You wanna know exactly how long it was? Sam told me. He stopped drinking blood from the second he knew it was you in that motel room, and he didn't start up again until that damn magician's convention when you told him you expected to die young, sad, and bloody. All Sam wanted, all Sam ever wanted, was to save you, avenge you, protect you. All he knew was that killing Lilith was the way to do it and he was willing to die himself to make that happen."
"And I told him I had to take care of it." Dean said.
"And Sam thought you were just planning to sacrifice yourself – again – for his sake, and he just wasn't having that."
"I told him – "
"Yeah, you told him, all right." Bobby said. "Y'ever ask yourself why Sam butted heads with John every step but worshipped you all those years?"
Dean felt his heart recoil at the word worship, at the image of his little brother dogging his steps, hanging on every word, trusting him implicitly through every situation, all of their lives. Almost all of their lives.
"I'll tell you why." Bobby went on before Dean could answer. "Because John was forever telling Sam, but you always explained things. John talked at Sam, you talked to Sam. Until this past year when you turned into John Winchester 2.0 and started telling Sam instead of asking him. Instead of listening to him. You let those angels get their wings in you and Sam never had another chance with you. As far as he could tell, same as when you were in hell, he was on his own. And Sam on his own when he doesn't want to be is a mighty shaky thing."
Dean didn't answer but the truth of Bobby's words fell down around him. He'd left Sam out to dry. He'd yelled and punched and demanded and ignored Sam, but had he ever just sat down and talked to him? He'd been so scared of what might happen to Sam, he didn't look at what was happening to Sam, right there in front of him. Not until it was too late.
"I was only trying to protect him." Dean finally answered Bobby. His voice came out dry and not strong. "I'd just come from hell and I didn't want my little brother going there. I had to do whatever it took to keep him safe. I had to."
"I know you had to." Bobby said. "I ain't saying that I agree with your methods, but I know you had to protect him. Just remember – Sam was trying to protect you too, the only way he knew how."
A long pause followed, until Dean found his voice again.
"Yeah, I know."
"How're you doing tonight, sir?" A voice asked, breaking Sam out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw a security guard walking towards him.
"Uh – I'm okay. I guess."
"You waiting on somebody inside?" He asked, gesturing with his head toward the ER doors.
"No. Yeah. I mean – not waiting. My friend, he's up on the fourth floor. I just came from there, a little while ago. I just – he was attacked and now he can't walk. I just – it's hard to leave him."
"What's his name?" The guard asked, pulling his walkie-talkie out of its holster.
"Um – Singer. Bobby Singer."
The security guard nodded and buzzed somebody on his walkie-talkie.
"Hey, Janet. This is Sean. You got a Bob Singer up there?"
"Sure do."
"I've got a friend of his down here. Any chance he could come up for a little bit longer?"
Sam heard a deep sigh over the walkie-talkie.
"I just got the old coot to go to sleep and I'd kinda like to keep it that way…no offense."
Despite being disappointed and a dozen other things, Sam managed to laugh at her description.
"Thanks for checking." He told the guard.
"Sure. You should go home and get some sleep yourself. Come back fresh tomorrow."
"Yeah, I will. I just – yeah."
Sam stood up. Time to face Dean and the music, again.
"Can you tell me where the motels are around here? I have to meet up with my brother."
"You from out of town?"
"Yeah. We were just passing through town and –"
Sam realized he was just too tired to keep up any pretense and so he just left it at that. The security guard nodded like he got the idea and gestured down the street behind Sam.
"Motel Row is down that way. Fast food and restaurants, too. Just past the Medical Complex."
"Thanks."
Sam turned and walked down the long sidewalk that bordered the medical building. If Dean wasn't in the first motel he ought to be in, Sam was going to get himself a room and worry about his life in the morning.
If Dean was where he ought to be – well, Sam would deal with that when he got there.
Three blocks past the hospital, Sam found the Impala at the motel he expected to find it at. He stood at the back of the car for several minutes, wondering exactly what he wanted to do – go into the motel room and endure a night full of icy silence and recriminations, or just get himself his own room and endure a night of silent self-recriminations.
He opened the back door of the car to get his backpack out. Almost as soon as he slammed the door shut again, the motel room door opened, and there was Dean.
"Oh. Hey." Dean said. He stood there a second or two and then turned and went back inside, and Sam figured he was on his own for the night.
But Dean didn't shut the motel room door. He went back in and left the door open far enough for Sam to see two beds and two bags of takeout food and two huge takeout cups of soda pop on the table.
Two.
Two.
Sam felt suddenly momentarily dizzy. There behind that open door was food and shelter and the brother he'd thought was so completely done with him, providing both.
His boots scraped against the pavement as he walked towards that door, that shelter. His brother.
He stepped into the room and shut the door behind himself. Dean was at the first bed, sifting through his duffel bag and Sam put his backpack on the second bed. For a few minutes they sifted and sorted in silence.
"I – uh – I got dinner." Dean finally said. "They didn't have that dressing you usually like, so I had them give me all of the other ones they had. Just – 'cause I wasn't' sure."
"Oh. Okay. Thanks."
"Sure."
Dean moved to the table and started unpacking the bags. Sam followed him and stood behind a chair.
"I – before I left the hospital – the nurse said Bobby was sleeping."
"Oh." Dean sounded surprised. "Good. Yeah. He called me after we – after we left."
"Oh." Sam didn't ask what they'd talked about. Probably him.
"We should get him some balloons or something tomorrow." Dean said. "Maybe a teddy-bear."
"He'll hate it."
"I know – that's why we should do it." Dean grinned, though it didn't last. He finished emptying the bags and sat down to start eating.
Sam hesitated. He knew Dean still didn't trust him. He knew the arguments weren't over. In this family, sometimes the arguments were never over. But in this family, a waiting meal and an open door meant more than any argument. Meant more than anything. He sat down and started to eat, too.
The End.