TRUST

Chapter 2

Summary: The brothers head out for a hunt, but before it's done the bonds of trust may be too broken to be repaired ever again.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Supernatural. They belong to Kripke. This is done strictly for fun, not profit.

Suddenly Dean's phone started to ring. He jumped at the sound and then frantically searched his pockets for the thing. He pulled it out and hit talk. "Hello?"

"Dean? Where the hell have you boys been? I've been trying to reach you for a week."

"Bobby?"

"Yeah. Who'd you think it was? What happened? I sent you on that job down in Texas but you never showed?"

Dean pushed a hand through his hair as he tried to gather his muddled thoughts. "Bobby, I don't know. I…we stopped at a motel in Oklahoma and then…"

"Dean calm down. What happened? Where's Sam?"

Dean shook his head as he looked around at the blank scenery. "I don't know. I mean…I went to sleep and then the next thing I know…I'm waking up in the fucking desert. Sam's gone. I don't know where he is. Bobby…I don't know what's happening." Dean could feel a lump in his throat as everything just became too much. Sam was gone and he didn't know where. How did this happen. He knew he was panicking, but he didn't know how to stop it.

"Dean? Dean! Calm down okay. Have you tried to call, Sam? Maybe you can reach him."

Dean nodded and swallowed hard against the emotions trying to choke him. "Yeah. Okay. I'll try him. Okay."

"Okay, Dean. When you find him…call me."

Dean nodded. "Okay." He hung up without saying goodbye. Dean stared at his phone for a second trying to calm his frazzled nerves and then dialed his brother. "Okay."

The phone rang and Dean's fingers tapped against his thigh as he waited for his brother to pick up. "Come on, Sammy. Pick up. Please, pick up." The phone continued to ring and soon Dean could hear something in the background. It took him a moment to realize it was Sam's phone. He tried to follow it, but soon it had switched to voice mail so he tried to call again. Soon he realized it was coming from the trunk of the car. What was Sam's phone doing in the trunk? Dean hunted around in his pockets for his keys and found them quickly opening the trunk.

It took Dean a moment to realize what he was looking at. "Oh my God, Sam." Dean quickly put away his phone as he took in his brother's beaten and broken body. Sam lay scrunched up in the trunk with his hands cuffed behind his back. His face was a mess of bruises and cuts, one eye almost completely swollen shut. Dean quickly searched for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief when he found one. He then shook Sam's shoulder trying to get him to wake up. "Come on, Sammy. Open your eyes for me." Dean patted Sam's face slightly and was relieved to hear his brother groan slightly. "Sam, come on wake up. Let me see those big puppy dog eyes of yours."

Sam groaned again as Dean shook him a little harder and stirred trying to open his eyes. "Dean?" His voice was soft and confused.

Dean smiled slightly, "That's right little brother. It's your fantastic big brother." Dean could feel a little of the tension leave him as Sam started to come around. "What happened to you? It looks like you went ten rounds with a wendigo and lost."

Sam's eyes blinked open and he looked groggily up at Dean. "Dean?" he asked again before his eyes got wide and he sucked in a frightened breath and started to pull away from him. "No, please. Don't hurt me. Please."

Dean froze in shock at the absolute fear that was splashed on his brother's face. Fear of him, his big brother. "Sam."

"Please, leave me alone. I won't say anything. Just…" Fear radiated off of Sam as a small tear ran down his cheek. Dean's heart fell into his stomach and he pulled back as if he'd been slapped in the face. His brother was afraid of him.

"Sammy, it's okay. It's me, Dean. Okay? It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," Dean said it softly trying to calm Sam down as he fought through his own emotions. What had happened that would make Sam so afraid of him? He reached out slowly to Sam as if approaching a scared dog. Sam tried to pull away even more, but he had nowhere to go in the small confines of the trunk. He flinched when Dean finally touched his shoulder and then the side of his face, but Dean tried not to show how much that hurt him. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help you."

Sam stared at him for a moment trembling with fear. He searched his brother's eyes for some kind of lie waiting for the act to drop, but it never did. Maybe…this was true? "Dean?" That one word was filled with so much emotion. Hope, fear, and anguish.

"Yeah, Sam, it's me. It's really me." Dean watched his brother's eyes search his eyes still not quite believing that it was truly him. "Here. Let me help you out of there." Dean moved to help Sam out of the trunk and tried not to notice that he flinched at each touch or that his eyes never left his face. Always searching, always waiting for a change. Between the two of them they got Sam out of the trunk and propped against the back of the car. Sam swayed slightly once he was fully standing and Dean kept a steady hand on his shoulder to help keep him upright.

"Thanks," Sam said quietly his gaze skittering around looking everywhere except at Dean as if he was now afraid to look him in the eye.

"No problem, little brother." Dean looked at Sam for an awkward moment before springing into action again. "Here, let me get your hands." He turned to look at the cuffs but then realized he didn't know where the key was. He searched his pockets hoping to find the key, but also holding onto the hope that if he didn't find the key in a pocket he could deny that it had probably been him who had done this to his little brother. A slight chill ran through him when he found the key in his jeans' pocket.

He swallowed the big lump forming in his throat as he slowly moved to undo the cuffs. He didn't remember anything that had happened. He didn't know why or how he had hurt his little brother, but all he knew was that he somehow had. It shouldn't be like this. He was supposed to protect, Sam. Keep him safe. It was his job. He felt sick to his stomach as he realized that he had failed miserably and didn't know if Sam would ever trust him again.

Sam winced as he brought his arms out from behind him and rubbed his wrists trying to get feeling back in his hands. He kept glancing warily at Dean but never looking too long at him.

"So what happened?" asked Dean.

Sam finally stopped and looked at Dean trying to figure out if he was joking. "What happened? Are you serious?" There was bite in those words and now Dean flinched.

"I don't remember," Dean almost whispered as he searched Sam's face for some form of understanding.

"You don't-" Sam was breathing hard trying to reel in his emotions. "Dean…what the hell. You tie me up, threaten to kill me, beat the crap out of me for God knows how long…and then you say you don't remember?"

Dean shook his head slightly not knowing what to say. "I don't."

Sam's jaw clenched and he looked away his one good eye searching the barren sand as if hoping to find answers. "Well, one things for sure, you weren't possessed by a demon," he said bitterly before looking back at Dean. "I mean I can't tell you how many times I said Christo hoping…praying that it wasn't you. That you were possessed, but…you weren't. It was you. All you."

Dean flinched and stepped away looking down at his feet trying to keep the tears at bay. He had hoped that maybe. It would explain why he couldn't remember, but that hope had just taken a big nosedive and now he didn't know what to think. "I don't know, but…it wasn't me. I could never hurt you, Sam." He looked up at his brother trying to convey how much he meant that into that one look. "Never."

Sam laughed humorlessly and looked down at his feet. "Yeah, well…you did."

Dean was silent not knowing what to say or do. He so wanted to go and put a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder. Tell him it would all be all right and that they would figure this out. But he couldn't. He was the one that had done this to, Sam. He was the one that had hurt him, and he knew that even if they did figure out an explanation for all of this. He had lost the one thing that he valued more than anything in this world…his little brother's trust.

The brother's were silent for a while trying to decide what to do neither really looking at the other. Finally, Dean moved. "Come on. Let's get out of here. Get you cleaned up." Dean looked at his brother one more time for a long moment and then moved towards the driver's side door. He got in and then waited with baited breath for Sam. He didn't move for some time. Finally he did closing the trunk and moving to the passenger side. Dean looked back as Sam opened the back door and slid in closing the door and turning to look at Dean as he scrunched as close to the door as possible. The brothers just looked at each other for a long moment before Dean turned back towards the front with a pained look on his face. He started the car and put it in gear and drove away.

As he drove through the featureless desert his mind raced with thoughts trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He couldn't remember a damn thing after going to sleep that night. If what Bobby had said was true, they had been missing for over a week. What had happened in that lost week? Dean tried to wrack his mind for the answers, but was coming up with nothing. His grip on the steering wheel tightened in frustration and he resisted the urge to smack the wheel with his fist.

He glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed Sam was looking out the window a tense look on his face as if he were searching for answers too. All Dean knew is that he had to find out what the hell had happened and knew that no matter what he wouldn't stop until somehow he won back his brothers trust because without it. Dean didn't even want to think about that. "Don't worry, Sam. We'll figure this out," he thought as he continued to study his brother in the rearview mirror. He looked back out the windshield and sighed. We will.