Sam blinked and found himself at Bobby's house. Disorientation passed quickly and he looked around, hunter's senses kicking in and telling him that there were other people around. "What are we doing here?"
"Just watch baby."
"I thought this was about Dean. Not Bobby."
"It is about your brother." Sam gave her a confused set of hazel eyes. "I don't understand mom."
"Where would your brother have gone after you died back in Cold Oak?"
Realization danced across his features. "He would have gone to Bobby's."
"Yes. Now watch." Sam waited. No sounds other than the normal rustle outside of Bobby's windows, no sights that were unfamiliar. What could this possibly show him about his brother? That he accepted people for who they were and didn't care how they lived as long as they were nice decent people? Well, that is a dumb lesson if he ever heard of one. He knew that about his brother, that was easy, that was just an inherent part of his brother. Why would his mother come all the way here, to show him that?
He was turning to speak to her when he heard the screen door creak. Moving forward, almost on instinct, he hurried to the door. A curly haired man entered with Bobby. His face was down, and he was leaving a blood trail as he walked. Bobby was doing what he could to hold the man up. The man appeared to be injured.
"Come on son, only a little farther." Bobby said as he drug the man to the couch. "There we go." He laid the curly haired man on the couch.
Curls of hair and beard masked the man's features. Blood marred the rest of him, and Bobby pulled the man's ragged worn boots off of his feet, and pulled the stinking socks from his feet.
"Boy, you have to take better care of yourself. This isn't what they would have wanted for you."
"Doesn't matter." He slurred. The haggard man seemed to be drunk. Was he a hunter? And if he was, it most certainly wasn't a good idea to try to take anything out when you're drunk.
"It does matter. I don't want you dead."
"I'm already dead. They're gone. There's nothing left to live for. I failed. I failed. Bobby. I screwed up, and here I am. Alone, and I can't die. And this apocalypse is going to happen and I can't stop it. I'm not strong enough without them. Not good enough without them." The man curled up on his side, facing away from Bobby and his unknown audience. His shirt crept up on him and Sam's eyes widened. The scar. The scar that was a scar because it had been Sam's first time with the thread and needle. Dean had been hurt pretty bad and Dad had left Sam with Dean to get him patched up, Dean didn't complain the entire time Sam stitched him up. Not through the jabbing, the hesitant pokes and failed attempts. He just kept encouraging, kept telling him that he was all right, that he was doing a good job and not to worry, and that of course it didn't hurt because Sam had the magic touch. Sam blinked rapidly, shifted from foot to foot, swallowed hard.
"Dean." Sam said through gritted teeth.
"Yes, baby that's your brother."
"But…his hair is curly." It was lame. He knew it was. But there were so much wrong, so many things different. It was hard to pin point just one thing that made his brother so completely different. It was easier to pick something obvious, because the rest was just too hard to fathom.
"Why do you think he's kept his hair so short?" Mary said gently.
"Dean. You have to let me get you cleaned up."
"Leave me alone."
"Dean, you've got a nasty cut on your face."
"What does it matter?"
"It'll get infected."
"I don't care. Just leave me alone Bobby. Just leave me here to die."
"Dean,"
"Leave me alone Bobby."
"Son, you have to keep going. For them." Sam's shifted from foot to foot.
"Freaking Bobby uses that line on him too!" Sam spun from the scene to his mother. "See, Mom, it has nothing to do with love. It's about duty, about responsibility. It has nothing to do with the fact that he loves me so much, he just can't be alone." Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "And just telling him stuff like that…"
"Motivates him."
"What?"
"Motivates him. Dean will do anything if it's for you."
"That's the problem! God! His whole life. That's all he does. Whatever is good for Sammy! He'll freaking die for me, go to hell for me, it's all good. Just as long as Sammy gets what he needs or wants because that is what Dean is supposed to do. That is Dean's job. Dean's life goal is to take care of Sammy! Do you even think he knows why? Do you really think you can love a responsibility? Who would want to!?"
"I love you and your brother and you both were my responsibilities."
"That's different Mom. You're my mother."
"And Dean looks at you like his son."
That statement stopped Sam in his tracks. "What?"
"Oh Sam. You had to have known baby."
"Known that he looks at me like his son?"
"Yes. That's why what you are going through right now scares him so much. He looks at you like he needs to protect you, like he needs to keep you safe. That isn't how normal brothers function Sam. Your time at Stanford should have taught you that. You should have seen just how other people work, learned that not all brothers and sisters would die for one another, that while they love each other deeply, that their lives do not revolve around the other. You, Sam, are different for Dean. You are his child. He raised you to be the man you are. And with this whole demon blood drinking thing, he thinks he's failed. He thinks he has failed as a father."
Sam felt his blood boil. His fists clenched and he did everything in his power not to look at the man on the couch, dripping blood, crouched in the fetal position, trying to make himself look small, invisible. That wasn't the man that his brother was, not this broken, homeless looking man that was before him. That wasn't Dean. "It's all dad's fault." He said low in his throat.
"What?"
"Dad is the one who made him raise me, made him grow up, become this…this thing without me. He shouldn't be like this. He should have his own life, he shouldn't have made the deal, shouldn't have to be reduced to this." He gestured towards the Dean on the couch. "Dad did this to him."
Mary looked at her son. The son she hadn't been able to raise, nurture or care for, and she reached up and touched his strong features. "Baby. Your brother bonded with you long before your dad made him run out of the house with you in his arms."
"But we would have been normal brothers. We wouldn't have depended on the other so fiercely. I could have died and he wouldn't have been destroyed. He would have been able to live."
"Sam. Sweetheart. For all of your protestations of knowing your brother, you sure are clueless. He's loved you from the moment of conception, with a ferocity that even the angels can see. Why do you think that they haven't turned you to dust baby? They could have. They could have with a simple thought. Because you have been doing some very questionable things, and your loyalties aren't clear."
"My loyalties are with Dean." he said definitively.
"But you still go behind his back and drink Ruby's blood."
"It's to help Dean."
"I know you believe that. But the angels don't. Why do you think they haven't turned you to dust?" Sam shrugged.
"Maybe it's because they think I'm useful."
Mary smiled. "Sweetheart. They think you are dangerous and to be treated like any random demon on the street." Sam stood up, defiance in his posture and arrogance in his eyes, his classic defense.
"Then why haven't they done it? It's not like I could hide from them."
"Because that would destroy your brother. Because he loves you so much, he can't even take the idea of losing you. Because if Cass smites you tomorrow, Dean wouldn't do anything, he'd kill himself Sammy, he would. And the angels know that the two of you are a pair, that you two are stronger together. That together you can take on this apocalypse and kick it back to hell. They know that. You should know that. You shouldn't be fighting against your brother."
"But, I have to help him. Be stronger. Protect him."
Dean, sleeping lighter than he ever had in his entire life, heard his brother's breathing speed up and he awoke, and hurried over to the brother bound on the table. "Sammy. Shhhhh." He whispered and pushed hair off of his baby brother's face. "I'm here Sammy. I'm here. You'll be okay. I gotcha."
