A/N: Doing some work cleaning out the 'ol PC. This is another piece that has been steadily collecting dust. Possibly slightly AU, running parallel to S3. A little bunny that bit and didn't grow as big or as quickly as I'd thought, but wanted to share.

Are You Just Being Nice Because I'm Going to Hell for You?

Sam doesn't know exactly when he gave up on saving Dean, but he did.

For what feels like the hundredth time he pages through Bobby's dusty books, this time from nothing more than habit, not really reading anymore. It happens in the middle of the night, eyes crossed from straining to decipher the fine, rarely in English print, with Dean passed out and snoring on the other bed.

There is no solution to be found. Dean had been so determined to have him back he hadn't left a loophole for Sam to help him escape through. And now Sam's supposed to live with that, in whatever shady, unhealthy way he can.

It starts innocently enough. A reflex, a behavioral shift Sam doesn't notice in himself even as its happening.

They stop for a fill-up at the Pump N' Go in Moose Jaw, Montana. The line clunks when the car's had its fill and Dean gets out his wallet, clicking his tongue when he sees he doesn't have the cash.

He starts to pull one of the cards from its sleeve and Sam stops him, digging into his back pocket. "I got it."

"Okay." Dean acquiesces with a lazy shrug of his shoulders, slides through the open car door onto the bench seat, and sifts through his collection of cassette tapes for the right road music.

When Sam's halfway across the parking lot Dean stops him with a sharp whistle. "Get me some candy," he orders, pushing a tape into the deck.

At the counter, candy bars are on sale two for a dollar, so Sam buys eight.

"That girl at the bar's pretty hot."

Dean nothing if not smooth, but he nearly tips off of his barstool to see around Sam's bulk. "The blonde?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I guess."

"You should go talk to her."

"You feelin' okay?"

"Yeah, fine." Sam's grin is a little too big, hurting his cheeks, but Dean's had just enough to drink not to notice. "Just trying to be a good wing man."

Dean tips back his bottle, finishing off his beer in one final gulp. He shoves up from the table and slaps a hand on Sam's back as he passes, making a beeline for the blonde at the bar. "'Bout damn time, too, Sammy."

And that's how Sam ends up sleeping in the car. Again. He finds one of the Snickers bars under the seat, so it's not a total wash.

There's a break in the action in the middle of November. Dean's been throwing himself into the job like he's already got one foot out the door. Regardless of the validity of such a thought, Sam pressures him to give it a rest. He doesn't listen, predictably, and rest only comes when a possessed housewife kicks Sam into a wall and throws Dean headfirst through a first-floor picture window.

With Sam's bum knee and Dean's concussion and cracked ribs they take a couple of weeks off from the hunt, hole up in a tiny motel in Pinckneyville, Illinois with cable and a cheap weekly rate. Sam's up and about a week before Dean can even sit up unassisted, moving slowly and with a slight limp but he drives carefully to the closest convenience store to pick up enough Tylenol, frozen pizzas, donuts, and soda to last them.

On his way past the beer cooler he pauses and, despite his better judgment, grabs a six-pack of Dean's favorite brew. As he's paying he asks the clerk to hold on a moment and hobbles back down the aisle for a second six-pack.

Dean's still woozy and a little slow, propped up on extra pillows snagged from the manager's office. Sam pops the top of a beer with the keychain bottle opener and silently sets the bottle and two pills on the table next to his brother. He wouldn't normally but figures at this point, what can it really hurt.

If Dean notices the strangeness of Sam's behavior, he doesn't comment, just downs the pain killers with a healthy swig of beer, wincing as his swallows.

A couple more days pass, Sam's limp is almost gone, and he's getting antsy sitting around the hotel room. He offers to wash the car and Dean starts to act suspicious. Which, yeah, he maybe should have seen coming.

Dean tosses a hand towel onto the counter and slowly spins in the tiny bathroom, leaning lightly against an unsteady palm on the doorframe. He looks tired, but Sam's grown used to the look. "Are you high?"

Sam frowns, feigning ignorance. "What do you mean?"

"You just offered to wash the car. You know, wash? My car?"

"What? It's a nice day, and I use the car just as much as you do. I should help keep it…her, looking nice."

Dean stares at Sam like he's just disclosed he wears a thong, cocks an eyebrow. "You have never – and I emphasize the 'never' – offered to wash the car."

Sam shrugs, eyes big. "Fine. Forget it."

Dean shakes his head, looking healthier than he has in days. "No, no. Go for it, Sheila. Knock yourself out. I'm gonna have a beer."

Sam watches Dean take slow, cautious steps back to his bed, one arm held snugly to his side, then leaves the motel room and pauses on the on the concrete stoop, biting his lower lip. He stares at the dusty, suddenly huge-looking Impala and wishes he'd paid more attention on those long-lost Saturday afternoons. Wishes he knew if he's supposed to use more than just soap and water.

They're back on the road much sooner than Sam would like, but that's Dean and that's life and he's not really in any position to put up much of a fight, just watches with a drawn expression as his brother folds himself into the car behind the steering wheel, still favoring the splintered side of his ribcage.

Dean recovers fully in record time, just as he always as, but the gnawing feeling inside Sam, the guilty little boy that is the cause of this all, intensifies as the days wind down.

"You want the rest of my fries?"

"The rest?" Dean asks around a sizeable bite of burger, bacon, and cheese. "You ate, like, three."

"Eh." Sam pretends to be enthralled by the bar's drink menu. "Didn't really want 'em."

"You ordered them on the side."

Sam gives the plate a shove. "Just eat the friggin' fries."

"No. I don't want your pity fries." Dean pushes the plate back.

"Pity fries? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know. Don't make me say it."

Sam does know, and isn't going to say it, either. This is a conversation he's been hoping to avoid. He eats the entire plate of fries while his stomach protests and Dean watches, an unfamiliar look in his eyes.

"Hey, look, a strip club."

"That's it. Who are you and what have you done with Sam?"

It could have gone smoother, Sam admits, but he thinks Dean is overreacting when he pulls the Impala to the side of the road to throw holy water in Sam's face. "Happy now?"

"For the moment," Dean says, that strange look on his face.

Sam flips the light switch and yawns. "All right. Which bed do you want?"

Dean lets his bag fall to the thin carpet with a thud. "Dude, Sam. Stop."

"Stop what?"

"Stop asking me which bed I want. Stop going on beer runs and pointing out hot chicks in bars. Stop shoving cheeseburgers down my throat like it's my last friggin' meal. My cholesterol is probably…you know…well, whatever bad is. That's what it is."

"You've been eating that stuff for years. Since when do you care about your cholesterol?"

"I don't! But you should. You always bug me about crap like that and now you don't give a hoot."

"A hoot?"

"Damn it, Sam."

"You're being really dramatic about a couple of bacon cheeseburgers."

"This isn't about bacon cheeseburgers and you know it."

Sam crosses the room slowly, possibly to remove himself from striking distance. "I just, you know, want you to be comfortable."

"Comfortable? What am I, lying in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat?" Dean runs a hand over is face. "Sorry. Geez, you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. And I'm sorry, I really don't realize I'm doing it." Sam lets out a breath. "Look, it's late, and we're both pretty tired, so why don't we get some sleep and I promise, we can talk about this in the morning."

Dean's hands slap the sides of his thighs in surrender. "Sure. Whatever."

"Okay. So which bed do you want?"

There's a mark on the wall next to the bathroom door, where Dean's boot hits when Sam ducks.

They focus more on hunting than talking, and Sam can't help thinking Dean's cavalier attitude toward his own wellbeing is evidence that he'd given up on Sam saving him, too. Dean's always known he would end bloody, and he'd rather it be on his own terms, on the battlefield, not stalked and ripped to pieces by hellhounds.

The days seem shorter and shorter and as time continues slipping away Sam's beginning to feel sentimental. Not just for the good times but the old times, the not-so-good times, just times when Dean was who Dean should be. Any times better than this.

Times when Dean would raise all hell for Sam committing such heinous offenses as choosing to study for a final exam than assist in a corpse-burning.

Disappointing, but par for the course.

He's thinking about the times he knew what was going to happen, knew things were going to be better as soon as he Stanford's campus. Then, Palo Alto couldn't have seemed further away.

"What do you remember most about being a kid?"

Dean glances at the bottle in his hand, as though not sure he'd had near enough alcohol for the conversation Sam is trying to draw out of him. He takes a long drink. "What are you talking about?"

Sam stares at his own beer, so far untouched. "I don't know. Nothing."

"You don't ask a question like that for nothing. Not you, Sam."

"Forget about it."

Dean shakes his head slowly. "Don't do this to yourself, Sam. We don't need to get all teary and reminisce and crap. Don't send me out like that."

Sam doesn't want to think about sending Dean out at all. "You want another beer?"

Dean clunks his empty bottle on the table top. "What do you think?"

"You don't wanna know what I think," Sam mutters as he rises from the booth and makes his way across the dim, smoky bar.