Notes: Takes place in 7.01, while Sam and Dean are holed up at Bobby's and Cas is out being God. It goes back and forth between Sam and Dean, flashbacks are in italics.

Warnings/triggers: child abuse (nothing really graphic), language, angst, bro mo's. Also, spoilers for all episodes of season 7 currently aired in the USA, plus episode 6.21 if you haven't seen it.

Pari Delicto

Dean's been acting weird.

Sam gets it. In fact, he'd be worried if Dean wasn't acting weird (because you know, one of their closest friends just went off the rails and Sam's seeing shit that isn't real), but this is different.

When Dean's hurting but won't admit it, when the world's going to shit and they can't do anything about it, Dean gets angry. He's the definition of 'poking the bear.' Only this time, Dean's floating around Bobby's place silently. He works on the car and stares at Sam with blatant worry, but only asks the mandatory, "Everything ok?" once a day and leaves it at that. There's no classic sarcasm or snark, or any fits of anger. He's not mother-henning Sam despite the wall breaking, which may be the biggest clue that something's up. The only thing completely in character with this situation is the alarming amount of liquor Dean's been consuming.

Bobby's noticed (he notices everything) but hasn't mentioned it, and Sam's followed suit. Until now. Because it's been two weeks and enough is enough; Sam has to say something if not for his brother's mental health, then at least for his poor liver. He's going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes.

For years all Dean wanted was to be like his dad. He modeled everything after John Winchester: his music, his clothes, his attitude, his fighting technique, everything. The only thing Dean didn't pick up from his dad was parenting skills; that he honed all on his own and it was a skill he was proud of. Sure, his dad taught him the basics: how to hold Sam so he had enough head support, how to dress him and give him a bath, how to take his temperature when he was sick, and how to steer Sam away from hazards in the house. But all the other stuff was all Dean. Dean taught Sam how to fight, how to shoot, how to tie his shoes, how to talk to girls, how to drive, and how to drink without getting a bitch of a hangover. He was there when Sam woke up from nightmares or came home with a bloody nose from the town's bullies; he handled nosey teachers, went to Sam's soccer games and plays, and made sure Sam had food when he got home. He was Sam's parent, his brother, his best friend; he knows that now. So while he was trying to be everything John Winchester was, he was also busy trying to be everything he wasn't.

Dean always understood his father. John was a man on a mission fueled by grief and rage, and hunting was the perfect outlet. Sometimes the hunt was enough but other times it wasn't, and that's when Jack D. came into the picture. Dean got that. Sometimes when the hunt is too bloody or too close to home, you need something to silence the thoughts and erase the images. He understood it but he also hated it. John and alcohol were never a good mix. When he was sober, John managed his anger well; he took out his revenge on all the evil in the world and focused his energy on finding something new to hunt. John drunk was a different story because inebriation made the walls come down and the floodgates open. Without the sober barriers, John could be one mean sonuvabitch. When those nights came, he and Sam just shut their mouth and kept themselves scarce, knowing that things would be better in the morning. It always worked out that way.

Except for the one time it didn't.

"Don't piss him off, Sammy. The hunt didn't go well and…"

"And he's been drinking, I know."

Dean sighs. Even at fourteen Sam can tell Dean's tired, and not in the usual, "I've been out partying all night" kind of way. This is the type of exhaustion that runs deeper, the kind that can't be fixed by sleep. Sam finds his resentment for his father deepening for making Dean look that way. He wants to comfort his older brother but doesn't, because he knows Dean would hate it.

They pull into the drive of the run down shack they've been staying in the past week, and Sam feels dread pull at his stomach.

"Can't we just go out, Dean? Like, hit the arcade for a few hours or something?"

Dean looks uncomfortable, like he has a cut that stings a little too much, and sighs, "C'mon, Sammy." Then he gets out of the Impala, leaving Sam with the pit in his stomach and nowhere to go but inside.

The house is dim when they walk in; the only light source is from the tv in the living room and from the kitchen light down the hall.

"I'm gonna hit the shower; go get ready for bed," Dean says softly. Normally the order would piss Sam off; he's not a kid and he doesn't need to be told to go to bed. Nights like these are different though. Dean knows how to maneuver their dad's anger better than Sam, so when Dean says to do something, Sam does it. He was going to go to bed anyways. Sam quietly slips out of his worn sneakers and makes his way down the hall, doing his best not to draw attention to himself. He's stopped when John's voice says, "Sam," in such a way that Sam can't ignore it. He freezes in the kitchen doorway, taking in the scene with backhandssickening realization. John's standing over the kitchen table, Jack in one hand, as he stares at the weapons spread out over the wooden surface.

"Thought I told you to have these done by the time I got back."

Sam swallows, "Yes, sir. But Dean locked the keys in the Impala when we were at the store…"

"I don't care. I give you an order you follow through, are we clear?" John's words are just on this side of slurred and a lot angry, a combination that Sam knows is bad news. So why he can't keep his mouth shut is beyond him.

"The keys were locked in the car so we had to walk here to get the spare, and then all the way back. It's like a ten mile trip. I couldn't get back in time to finish cleaning the weapons."

John's glare is like fire, cutting right through Sam, making it impossible for him to move.

"This is important stuff, Sam, there's no room to mess around. You do as you're told in this family or you're not a part of it, is that understood?"

Sam feels the words like a knife to the chest – deep, blatant, and painful. He gapes at his father, who's glowering and apparently waiting for an answer.

"What's goin' on?" Relief floods Sam when he hears Dean's voice and sees his brother's shadow appear next to his own on the kitchen floor. Dean always knows what to do when it comes to their dad.

"This is between your brother n' me, Dean. Go to bed," John says with a dismissive arm wave that makes him stumble ever so slightly.

Sam can feel Dean's hesitation and he knows his brother isn't going to budge from the kitchen. They love their dad and they know that he'd never hurt them…sober. Right now John's drunk and angry, and not thinking clearly. Right now, as much as they wish they could deny it, John's a potential threat and Sam and Dean don't leave each other alone when there's a threat.

"I said, go to bed, Dean," John repeats and this time, there's an undeniable threat in his tone.

Dean wars with himself. Not obeying the order could make things worse, for both him and Sam, but obeying would leave Sam to face their dad on his own, which is something Dean's not comfortable with. One glance at Sam's shoulders tight with hidden fear, and he makes up his mind. He shifts a bit closer to Sam, close enough that their shirts brush, and says, "No, sir."

The effect is instantaneous. John's face clouds over with rage as he takes a few threatening steps forward. Dean tenses and prepares to shove Sam behind him, but Sam shrugs him off and takes a step to meet their father.

"Stop!" Sam yells, "You can't keep doing this! You can't keep drinking yourself into oblivion every time things get bad or something goes wrong! I'm sick of walking on eggshells every damn time you get drunk! What would mom think if…"

Sam's cut off when John swings his arm back, and back hands Sam hard enough to send the teen crashing into the wall. For a fraction of a moment, everyone stills. Dean looks between Sam and John in horror, John stares like he doesn't know what just happened, and Sam…Sam's on the floor, gaping in betrayal. In seconds the moment's over, and Dean's in front of Sam before any of them can blink. He grabs Sam's forearm and cuffs his hand around the back of Sam's neck, "You alright, Sammy? Lemme look." He moves the hand that's on Sam's neck to his jaw so he can tilt Sam's head. There's a tiny cut right under Sam's eye and it's sure to bruise, but it's nothing some ice and Tylenol won't fix. It's the wounds they can't see that are going to be the problem.

Dean hauls Sam up gently, making sure to keep himself between his dad and his brother, "Go wash it off, ok? I'll be there in a second."

Sam looks between Dean and their dad in fear, a protest clearly on his lips.

"Go, Sammy," Dean repeats in a tone that's impossible to argue with. A quick, silent conversation later, Sam nods and slowly inches his way out of the kitchen.

Dean tracks Sam's movements until he can no longer see his brother, then he turns to his father. John's leaning against the table with one hand, bottle of Jack forgotten, while his other hand hides his face. Dean takes a minute to study his father: the hunch of his back, the drunken way he leans, the exhaustion. Dean's seen it before, the way his father seems beaten down and broken, nothing more than a shell of the man he used to be before the fire. He remembers the way their dad used to be and to see him like this is heartbreaking; to know that Sam never knew him as anything more than this is almost too much to bear.

"Dean…"

"Shut up, Dad," Dean says, sounding just as worn out as John looks, "Just…don't."

The slump in John's shoulders deepens as the anger and fight drains out of him and is replaced with something else, something more akin to shame.

"Sam's right. You can't keep doing this. I mean, Christ, look what happened tonight," Dean swallows as he thinks of the split moment where he considered leaving Sam to face John alone. They've taken hits before – from evil things or sparring. Never like this. They're tough, they're Winchesters after all, and taking a punch is nothing new. But when that punch comes from your own father out of rage…Dean just knows that something broke in their family tonight.

"This doesn't happen again, ever," Dean says, "You come for my brother like that again and we're gone."

John stares at him with hazy, wide eyes. Dean stares back unwaveringly, making it undeniably clear that he meant every damn word. He doesn't want to give up hunting or leave John behind to watch his own back. But if it comes down to it, he'll gladly leave the life and his dad if it means keeping Sam safe. John knows it, too.

Then Dean turns and leaves the kitchen, now focused solely on making sure Sam's okay.

Dean's been re-playing that night a lot lately. He's never forgotten it, he's especially never forgotten the look on Sam's face when he hit the floor, but lately it's been haunting him like a ghost…and he knows why. It's because Dean saw the same look on Ben's face after he hit him. When Ben looked back at him, shocked and more than just a little hurt, it was Sam's fourteen-year-old face staring back at him.

Dean's tried to justify it. He tried to tell himself that Ben needed to snap out of it if Lisa was going to live, that he needed Ben to have it together so they could all get out of there alive. He tried to tell himself that if he hadn't done what he'd done then Lisa would've died, and she might've…but Dean doesn't feel any better. If anything, he feels worse.

He knows that Sam's noticed -mostly because he spends a lot of time keeping an eye on his brother. It's something he can't avoid. With the wall gone and Cas AWOL, he's been more terrified than ever that Sam's going to be ripped away from him at any second, and that's even without all the crippling guilt he's been carrying over Ben. They were both his kids at one point, Sam and Ben, and he's let them down in the worst way. How can he even face Sam knowing what he did to Ben? How can he explain? He can't, so he doesn't. He hits the Jack instead.

Like father, like son.

Sam finds Dean drinking on the hood of the nearly finished Impala. That's not out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary are the tears rolling down Dean's cheeks, dripping into his temples. It might've been inevitable, Sam supposes, considering all the crap that's happened in the past two weeks. He's just not accustomed to blatant out pours of emotion from Dean, but whiskey'll do that, he supposes. Sam sighs gently and leans against the passenger door, right behind Dean's head.

"You alright?"

Dean snorts and takes another drink of whiskey.

"Right, stupid question," Sam says and glances towards Dean, "You, uh, wanna talk about it?"

He's hesitant to ask. Dean's response to that question is always a firm no, Samantha, but Sam's determined. Whatever this is that's tearing Dean apart needs to stop before he self destructs. Plus, seeing his big brother this way makes Sam feel like something more than just the wall has broken inside him.

"I fucked it all up, Sammy."

Sam stares at this brother with a frown on his face. Dean's leaning back against the windshield, feet pulled up on the hood, knees bent. From this angle, Sam can only see the top of Dean's head and the slope of his nose. He can't help but think that the lack of eye contact is going to make this a lot easier.

"Fucked what up, Dean?" Dean could be referring to anything that's happened in the past month or two, or hell, even in their entire lives. But Sam can't think of one thing, recent history included, that was Dean's fault.

Dean takes another long pull from the whiskey bottle and Sam's fingers itch to yank it away. Alcohol has been a part of the Winchester life since he can remember, and it's never fit in well. Drinking in their family was never for fun, it was always for pain. Whether it was a filler for pain meds and anesthetic, or a substitute for anti-psychotics, alcohol was the Winchester answer to it all. Sam doesn't even have room to talk. When Dean went to hell Sam spent more time hammered than he did sober. He hated himself for every second of it too.

"All of it," Dean replies. His words are more slurred than they were earlier.

"C'mon, man, no you didn't," Sam says, meaning every word of it.

"You weren't there, Sammy. And after…how'my supposed to take care of you now?"

Sam's honestly not sure what Dean's talking about but he can take a guess. "Is this what's been bothering you the past few weeks? Dean, there's no way you could've changed anything. Cas made his choices, we did the best we could. And I know this wall thing isn't ideal but…"

"S'not what I'm talking about," Dean interrupts and takes another drink.

Sam frowns, thinking, "Then what…"

"Ben and Lisa."

Something deep and painful tugs in Sam's chest as he thinks of the family that Dean left behind, the family he deserved to have. He knows that Lisa and Ben – especially Ben - worked their way into Dean's heart like few others could. The fact that hunting had ripped them away from his big brother, the fact that once again their happiness had to be sacrificed for the greater good, makes his very soul ache. Dean deserved better.

"You tried, Dean. That's all you could've done," Sam says sympathetically and then pushes himself off the car, "Let's go inside, ok? Start up a Steve McQueen marathon."

He reaches for Dean's shoulders, intending to guide him off the car, but Dean's hand clumsily reaches up and catches Sam's wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. Sam looks at Dean questioningly.

Dean looks all of seven years old again – big bright green eyes swimming with tears, bottom lip trembling. Sam hates seeing Dean this way.

"M' Sorry, Sammy," Dean says and then grapples until he's able to bring his hand up to rest on the side of Sam's face, "You hearin' me? Sammy, I'm sorry."

"I know, it's ok," Sam placates, "You're just drunk; things won't be so bad tomorrow."

Sam uses the hand that Dean has on his face as leverage and gently hauls Dean off the Impala, making sure that Dean's boots don't scuff up or dent the hood. Then he slings Dean's arm over his shoulder, stumbling when Deanleans all his weight up against him. Sam may be the taller of the two but Dean's still a big guy; over six feet and all muscle. Once they right themselves, they make the long trek through the salvage yard back to the house, stumbling the whole way.

Once they're inside, it doesn't take much work to get Dean on the couch to sleep it off. When Dean's finally out, Sam just stands there for a minute and stares at him. He can still see a few of the drying tear tracks on Dean's skin reflecting off the small lamp in the living room. For the third time that night, Sam feels his heart break for his brother. He sighs and leaves to get some water and Tylenol to leave on the table next to the couch. Dean's gonna need it when he wakes up. Then he grabs a sleeping bag from Bobby's closet and sets up camp on the floor beside the sofa. From the corner, Lucifer laughs and makes some crack about Sam being needy. Sam ignores him.

Dean walks into the bathroom with a certain degree of trepidation. When Sam comes home bloodied up from bullies, he's usually angry or embarrassed. When Sam's hurt on a hunt, he's still high off adrenaline, and he understands that it's just part of the gig. Dean doesn't know what happens when it's their father who hits Sam.

When he pushes the door open, Sam's sitting on the closed toilet seat with a washcloth pressed to his face. When Sam notices Dean's presence, he quickly rubs his face to try and conceal the tears that Dean knows are there.

"Hey, kiddo," Dean says softly and sits on the edge of the bathtub, "Lemme take a look."

He's already inspected the wound but it gives him something to do, something to fix in such an unfixable situation. Sam lets his hand drop away and he starts wringing the washcloth in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I should've just kept my mouth shut. He was already angry when I walked in the kitchen and I just…"

"This isn't your fault, Sammy," Dean says as he takes the cloth from Sam's hands and re-wets it so it's cold, "Put this back on your face." Sam takes it back and Dean resumes his place on the edge of the bathtub.

"You wanna tell me what happened?"

Sam looks down to his lap, "He was pissed because the weapons weren't done. I tried to explain but…"

'But it's dad and he was drunk, and there's no way he'd listen.' They don't have to say it but they both know that it was a lost cause from the start.

"And then he said…he said if I wasn't ready to follow orders then I wasn't part of this family," Sam says and shakes his head, "That's about the time you walked in."

Dean nods and thinks, 'Damn you, dad,' because Sam already feels like the black sheep of the family; why'd he have to go and say one of the worst things he could say to their youngest?

"It was just a hit, I've had worse," Sam says and tosses the washcloth in the sink, "I should've just let it go."

"Hey, no. Don't you do that," Dean says, his eyes blazing as his jaw clenches in anger, "Don't you try and make this your fault. I don't care if you told the man to screw himself and did it with a smile on your face, he did not have the right to hit you. That's never ok, Sammy. You hearin' me?"

Sam nods and looks back down at his hands. Dean looks at his hunched over sibling and sees his back shake with the first sob.

"Hey, c'mere," Dean says and pulls Sam over so that his little brother's forehead is tucked into the junction of his shoulder, "It's going to be ok, Sammy. I promise." As Dean holds his brother, feeling his shirt grow wet from Sam's tears, he swears that if he ever has kids, he'll never do this to them.

The morning sun has turned Bobby's living room into a sweatbox. Beneath the sleeping bag, Sam feels like he's being cooked alive. He pushes himself out of the nylon bag and then rubs his face, grimacing at all of the sweat coating his skin.

That's when he notices Dean.

Dean's sitting up on the couch, coffee in hand in one hand, forehead in the other.

"Dean, you alright?" Sam asks, trying to keep his voice low in case his bother has a headache. Dean looks up and Sam's eyes widen. Dean looks awful; the circles under his eyes are deep and dark, his eyes are rimmed rid.

"Dean?" he asks again, feeling worry build up faster the longer his sibling stays silent.

"When you were fourteen you and dad got in that fight, remember? After we got back from the store." Dean's voice is low and kind of far away, as if he's remembering the day as it happened.

Sam nods. There's no way he'd forget it. They didn't talk about it much after that, mostly because it never happened again, but he never forgot it.

"After that…things changed. Dad was still dad but he wasn't the same, you know? None of us were."

"Dean, why're you talking about this?" Sam asks. It was years ago and yeah, it changed things, but it's kind of irrelevant to all the recent crap that's been dumped on them. But then Dean locks his eyes on Sam's, and Sam just knows. He can read it in Dean's face like a book and he wonders how he didn't put it together before. The only thing that can put that sort of guilt and self-loathing in Dean's eyes is family.

"Ben," Sam says, "You hit him?"

Dean closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face, through his hair, "Yeah."

Sam pauses, "Why?" His mind's racing, trying to figure out why Dean would do something like that. Even before the fight Sam had with their dad, Dean hated it when kids were hurt, especially if that hurt was caused by someone in their family.

"It was when Lisa got stabbed. You were missing and it was just me'n Ben left to get Lisa out, and keep our asses alive at the same time. She was bleedin' out and he wasn't with me…there wasn't time."

"He was in shock and you had to pull him out of it," Sam concludes, feeling a weird kind of relief wash over him. It wasn't out of anger. It wasn't in a drunken rage. He wasn't like their dad.

"Should've found a different way. Ben doesn't remember it but somehow that makes it worse," Dean says. "After what dad did that one time…"

"Shut up, Dean," Sam interrupts sharply, "What you did to Ben was wrong. We both know that. But you're nothing like dad. You're better."

Dean snorts and shakes his head.

"No, listen. Dad didn't put himself through hell like this afterwards. He didn't question it. He was drunk, I pissed him off, and that was that. You care, Dean. You care that you made the wrong choice. That in itself makes you better than dad ever was."

Sam stares at Dean and thinks back over the past few weeks, adding up all of Dean's weird behavior and elusiveness. "That's why you've been avoiding me. You thought, what, that I'd hate you or something?"

"Or something," Dean replies. Sam can hear the self-loathing beneath the sarcasm, and it hurts as much as it pisses him off.

"Well, I don't," Sam says in such a way that leaves no room for mistake or argument, "You made a mistake. As bad as it was, it was still a mistake. I'm not saying forget that it happened or even justify it. I'm saying forgive yourself for it."

"That easy, huh?"

"No. Not that easy. That's the whole point," Sam replies, staring at Dean as his brother's eyes come back up to meet his. A silent conversation passes between them.

'I don't think I can do it, Sammy.'

'Yes, you can.'

'How do you know?'

'I just do.'

"I'm gonna go get some of that coffee," Sam says after Dean looks away. He knows enough about his brother to know that Dean needs some space now. He gets up and makes it to the doorway before Dean stops him.

"Hey, Sammy?" Sam stops and turns around. Dean's staring into his coffee mug.

"Yeah?"

This time Dean looks up and Sam can see a hint of a smile on his face, "Thanks."

Sam smiles back but doesn't say anything. He knows he doesn't have to.