DISCLAIMER: Sadly, still own nothing. Supernatural belongs to Kripke who is graciously letting me play in his sandbox. Thanks, man!
SPOILER ALERT: Tag to Jus in Bello
A/N: First let me say THANK YOU to all the people who have reviewed and alerted this story. Your support and kind words mean more than you can possibly imagine. I will in due time answer every review – promise.
Second, let me apologize for taking so long to post. When I started writing this, it seemed so obvious what I wanted to say and it has just been a war to get it down. I'm not convinced that I won this particular battle…. But I'll let you be the judge of that.
Bobby dozed throughout the night. He got Dean to drink a few times and gave him another round of pills. By the time Bobby heard Sam stirring, Dean's temperature was down to 100.5. Bobby heard Sam go into the bathroom in the other room.
The door between the rooms creaked open slightly as Sam appeared. He hovered on the threshold. As if in response to Sam's presence, Dean moaned softly and stirred toward consciousness.
"Come in Sam," Bobby instructed softly.
"How is he?"
"Fever's pretty much gone."
"Huh. Good." Sam sank onto the bed that Bobby was on facing his brother.
Bobby stood up and moved to the other bed.
"Dean?" Bobby sank down beside the boy gently laying his hand on his wounded shoulder. There was no heat coming from either Dean's body or more specifically, the wound site.
"C'mon Dean, we need you to wake up."
Dean's lashes fluttered and he blinked open his eyes. Bobby could see the doubt and pain there for a moment before the wall slammed up between them.
Uh oh. I hope that I didn't wait too long in confronting the boy, Bobby thought. There was always the possibility that Dean would continue to just try to bury his feelings and try to assume more of a burden of guilt for the lives so recently lost.
Bobby helped Dean to a sitting position against the head of the bed and pressed him to drink some more. It was still a bit early for more pills.
"Thanks," Dean murmured as he passed the bottle back to Bobby. He looked down at his lap. He avoided looking at his brother.
"How are you, Dude?" Sam broke the silence. He envied Bobby's proximity to his brother.
Dean didn't answer.
"Dean. Your brother asked you a question. We'd both like to know the answer," Bobby pressed.
"Fine. I'm fine." He said it quietly with almost no emotion.
"I really was hoping we were past the one and two word answers." Bobby sighed.
"Let's get some things straight." Bobby's voice hardened and both boys sat a bit more to attention.
"Dean," Bobby's tone forced Dean to look up at him. "What happened was not your fault. Sam's filled me in about what went down. Frankly, I'm impressed by your tactics. I've been hunting demons my whole life, and I don't think that I could have come up with a plan half that good. It was the safest possible plan for civilians too."
Dean's cheeks flushed. The first flush was caused by shame when Bobby mentioned the recent action at the police station. That flush quickly changed to one of gratitude, relief and maybe even a little pride at Bobby's words of praise.
But then reality crashed down. Civilians did die. And it was his fault. Bobby and Sam both watched the flush of colour drain from Dean's face.
"No. It's my fault they're dead." Dean breathed.
"Based on what?" Bobby's voice rose. "The word of a demon? Based on Ruby's word?"
Bobby stood up and started pacing at the end of the beds.
Dean just shrugged and Sam remained disturbingly silent. Bobby spared a quick glance at the youngest Winchester. Sam's face was unreadable.
"God. I sometimes wonder how you idgits even manage to feed yourselves," Bobby shook his head and muttered under his breath.
"You do remember the part where demons lie, right?"
"She's tried to help us Bobby. She re-built the colt with you, and she saved Dean's life," Sam defended.
Bobby couldn't believe what he was hearing, and he wasn't surprised to see Dean squeeze his eyes closed.
"Did it ever occur to you that the entire incident could have been orchestrated by that bitch?" Bobby's voice had gone up another notch. But it wasn't the volume that captured both boys' attention - it was the idea that they had both been duped by Ruby.
Bobby stopped his pacing to better gage the reaction of the two young hunters.
Slowly, Dean's eyes rose from his lap and met his brother's. Sam devoured his brother's gaze like a man lost in the desert quenching his thirst. Dean searched his brother's face for any indication that his brother's infatuation with Ruby had finally been crushed. Dean tore his gaze from his brother and back to Bobby.
"What are you saying, Bobby?" Dean's voice was low.
"I'm saying that you two halfwits are basing an awful lot of your conclusions on the word of a god damn demon. She is the one who told you about Lilith and where she was. She is the one who waltzed in and out of that damn police station. She is the one who said that her plan would work. And speaking of her plan… wasn't it just a little too convenient that Nancy was a virgin? I mean c'mon, how many police stations have a virgin working in them?"
Bobby checked to see if any of this seemed to be registering with the brothers and was relieved to see that the penny seemed to be at least starting to drop for both of them.
"You have absolutely no proof that her spell would have worked the way she said. And even if it did, how do you know that Lilith would have been close enough to be affected? She could still have waltzed in afterwards and killed those people at the station."
"Damn," Dean breathed.
"And Sam? How do you think you would have felt after helping to kill a virgin?"
Sam paled a little and looked at the floor. He'd had plenty of time in the Impala to think about that, and he knew that as bad as he felt about Nancy's death, he would feel infinitely worse if he had played an active role in her death. It was a choice he had been willing to make at the time, and he knew with absolute certainty, in hindsight, that he would never have been able to live with that choice.
"I thought so. So. The end result? Ruby has driven a wedge between the two of you and made you doubt yourselves." Bobby shook his head.
"Sonuvabitch," Dean said. It lacked some of his customary enthusiasm but was definitely a step in the right direction.
"The two of you have always made a formidable team. You're stronger together. You know it. And so does your enemies."
Again, the brothers shared a long look.
"I'm getting us all something to eat," Bobby said. "Then we are all going back to sleep for a while."
Both boys watched Bobby walk towards the door. Just before he walked into the other room, he sighed and turned around.
"Talk," was all he said as he gently pulled the door to, to give the brothers some privacy.
Dean glanced up at his brother again. His mouth quirked into his customary smirk. Sam's face remained thoughtful.
"Who knew he could be so bossy? It's a wonder he doesn't give up on us. Seeing as we are so damn stupid." Dean's smirk became a fond half smile for the older hunter as he glanced toward the door through which he had left.
"We're pretty lucky to have him," Sam agreed, his eyes also sliding to the adjoining door.
"I guess he figures that your brain will surface sometime; I mean you did go to college after all," Dean's voice was teasing. There was no malice behind the words.
Sam just humpfed.
"He'll always be there for you, Sam. You can trust him to be."
Sam's eyes searched his brother's face. He could see that trust for Bobby reflected on Dean's face and the comfort that Dean had drawn from that trust. Sam's heart ached, and he wondered if he'd ever have that ability with his brother again – to give him comfort that he could count on. He knew that he had before he'd left to go to Stanford. He thought that he'd finally earned that trust back, but looking at his brother, he realized that he had lost that trust again. Bobby's words haunted him. Are you really here for your brother? Have you abandoned him?
"As much as I trust Bobby and I appreciate everything he's done for us, he's not the one that I trust the most. He's not the one that I want to be there for me." Sam held his brother's gaze.
"Hasn't seemed that way for a while Sam. I…" Dean looked down at the blankets and picked at them absently.
"Dean? I'm sorry, man. I don't know what else to say. I don't know how to make this up to you."
It was Dean's turn to humpf.
"Sam…" God. He hated this. He didn't want to think about this.
"Please, Dean." Sam's voice pleaded quietly with his brother.
"It's just…I…Sam…I … sometimes….I feel like I don't even know you anymore," Dean's voice was barely audible by the time he forced the confession out.
"I'm sorry." Sam's voice matched Dean's in volume. He cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I know myself anymore. Don't you see, Dean? I need you. Maybe more than either of us ever realized. The choices I've been making. I… I'm trying so hard to do the right thing. I'm trying so damn hard to save you. But the choices I'm making. Maybe neither of us can live with those." Sam's words tumbled out of him.
"Maybe you don't know yourself anymore because you're trying to be something you're not."
"I'm just trying to save you. You don't believe that I can save you, do you?"
"I don't know if you can or you can't, Sammy, but that's not what I'm getting at."
"What are you getting at?" Sam's eyebrows knit together.
"You told me not long ago that you were trying to be me," Dean looked up sideways at his brother.
"You've always been my role model. I told you that not long ago too."
"But who do you think I am, Sam?"
"Huh?" Sam was puzzled by his brother's words.
"Do you really know who I am? I hope I'm not the person I see you trying to become," Dean's voice was so quiet, Sam had to lean closer to hear him.
"Do you think that I'm some kind of cold-blooded monster? That I can just kill and not be affected by it? Cuz that's NOT me. Not me by a long shot." Dean's voice was raw with emotion as he railed against his bother's hurtful misconception.
"Dean," the younger man breathed, "No!"
"Looks like you are using me as an excuse to become the cold-blooded killer Ruby wants you to be. To lose yourself in some insane shadow image of me. Don't fool yourself that I have no emotions. That I don't feel what I have to do sometimes. I remember the face of everything that I've ever had to kill." It seemed as if now that the dam had been breached, he couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of himself.
"It's your strength that I'm trying to channel," Sam tried to explain.
"Well, good luck with that cuz I gotta tell ya most of the time I'm just barely holding it together. Just because I don't want to talk about it doesn't mean I can shut it off completely, but we each of deal with things differently. You? You can't NOT talk about it, can't not feel it and think it to death."
"I don't think that of you. That you are a monster. Don't you see that I'm afraid of becoming a monster and you are the farthest thing from a monster in my life? You're my big brother, Dean. I still need you to help me. Don't you see that's why I'm so afraid? What will I do when you aren't here? To help me make the right choices."
"Do you still trust me to help you make those choices, Sammy?" Dean's stomach clenched as he waited for his brother to answer. He'd never been so scared to hear an answer in his life.
"Yes." Dean had barely finished speaking before Sam answered him. Gone was the hesitation. It was the one choice Sam had made in a long time that felt one hundred percent right.
"I want you to do something for me then." Dean's voice held the strength again that Sam had always heard in it. The voice he had drawn strength from.
"Anything…Except…" Sam's initial immediate response suddenly tapered off.
"No conditions. This is non-negotiable," Dean was almost growling which only made Sam want to smile.
"Anything, except stop trying to save you," Sam explained.
Dean sighed. "I told you I was on board for that one. I'm not saying you were the only one making bad choices here." He rolled his eyes.
"What then?"
Dean looked down again, avoiding Sam's eyes.
"Dean?" he pushed gently.
Dean slowly lifted his eyes again, locking with his brother's.
"You have to start being my little brother again."
Sam looked at his brother, and finally, Dean looked back at him.
"I never stopped."
"Bobby was right, you know. We are better as a team, acting as a check and balance. But we can't be a check and balance without those things that make us different."
Sam regarded his brother. So many had underestimated Dean over the years, ultimately to their detriment. Anyone who thought that Dean was just the brawn was sadly mistaken. Sam couldn't believe that he had fallen into the same trap.
"And as my little brother, the first thing you have to do is take my advice on women…" Sam rolled his eyes and smiled and Dean grinned back. Some things about his brother would never change, and for that, Sam was eternally grateful.
There was a soft knock on the adjoining door.
"C'mon in, Bobby. It's safe," Sam encouraged.
Bobby opened the door and studied the two young men in front of him. A smile tugged at his grizzled features. These were the young men that he knew. Sure, they were a sight more careworn than they had any right to be at their age, but it still looked as if a huge weight had been lifted from both their shoulders. The dark circles under both sets of hazel eyes seemed to have lightened in the short time he had been gone.
"Think you boys could eat something?"
"I'm always willing to try," Dean smiled back at Bobby. His colour was still a little off, but the pain etched into his face was almost gone.
"Sure, Bobby," Sam said. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Why don't you come and grab the coffees?"
"Coffee?" Dean breathed.
"Yeah. But you get one cup, and then it's back to the Gatoraid and water for you – dehydrated, remember?"
Dean pouted.
"Well, I can't be too dehydrated, cuz I gotta make a pit stop." Dean grabbed the blankets to swing them off of himself so he could get up and use the bathroom, but stopped in horror as soon as he raised the blankets. The colour drained from his face.
"Dean! What is it?" Sam immediately noticed the change in his brother.
"Dude? Where the hell are my pants?" he breathed.
Sam and Bobby both sputtered and then burst out laughing.
"We both decided that you would choose to provide circulation to all of your anatomy in exchange for us having to live through the removal of your pants."
Dean just stared at them.
"Don't worry, bro. We kept our eyes shut the entire time."
"That's good. I'd hate for the two of you to have to live the rest of your lives with feelings of inadequacy." Dean wrapped the blanket around his waist and trailing it made his way slowly into the bathroom followed by the continued howls of Sam and Bobby.
A/N: I was reluctant to post this as I'm still not happy with it, but I just didn't want to keep people hanging any longer. I was hoping to use this fic to exorcise many of the demons that have popped up this season that have really been bugging me – in particular Sam's behaviour. Not sure that I've entirely accomplished that but I guess there is always the next fic! Thanks again for reading – please let me know what you thought. ducks and runs from room
