He is at hand that doth betray me

***

After making sure the chimeras were fried to a crisp, Dean picked up his sawed off and machete and starting stalking off to the car. Sam gulped down his anger and followed, resolving to talk this out once and for all. He couldn't carry on like this.

"Dean, you switched to Plan B without waiting for me or even letting me know."

"…"

"Again. This is the second time you've left me hanging on a job, man. What the hell??"

When Dean still didn't respond, Sam broke into a jog unti he'd overtaken Dean, then turned around and halted right in Dean's face, forcing the older man to stop as well.

"Stop it, man! I'm trying to talk to you!!"

"What the fuck do you want from me, Sammy?"

"Admit it! You still don't trust me, do you?"

Dean, who'd handled a taxing hunt pretty much all on his own and was still riding the wave of adrenaline, couldn't seem to stop the rush of words tumbling out of his mouth.

"Can you blame me if I don't?"

Sam froze, eyes wide with hurt so beyond words he couldn't possibly articulate it. But he tried anyway, his voice low and shaking uncontrollably.

"I've been trying, Dean. I do everything you say! What else do I need to do to prove myself?"

Dean nearly shouted out his response but neither the words nor the high volume helped any. "I don't know, alright?"

"…"

"Look, let's just go find a room and get some sleep. I'm ready to drop dead right now. We'll talk in the morning, alright?"

Sam didn't reply. Mutely he followed as they marched steadily back to the Impala waiting a few hundred yards away. The distance gave the brothers the time to introspect, and regret, but not enough guts to voice their festering feelings.

Dean opened the boot and started to stack their weaponry back in its place, when he noticed Sam grab his duffel bag and start to stalk off towards the highway.

"What the – where you going?"

Sam didn't respond. He'd hardly taken a few steps away from the car when Dean tackled him from behind. The duffel bag slipped off his shoulder and Sam was hurled back and against the car, with Dean's hands a stanglehold around his collar.

"This is why I can't trust you, Sam. Because I never know when you'll give in to your inner selfish brat and take off on me again."

The coldness in Dean's eyes was deeper and more frightening than the bitterness of his words. Sam blinked back the hotness in his own and didn't even try to get away. It had been nearly a month and Dean'd hardly touched him since the day he was let out of the panic room at Bobby's, so this violence was in a way, almost as comforting as it was disturbing.

"Why don't you just let me leave? Spare us both the fucking trouble?"

Dean sneered and let him go at last. "Sorry if you don't wanna hear this, little brother, but I have to watch you, precisely because I don't trust you. Hunter, remember?"

Sam closed his eyes, feeling his heart shatter to pieces again. The last time this happened, the last time he'd heard those words and felt this pain, he was hallucinating thanks to the demon blood withdrawal symptoms. But this time, there was no excuse – this time it was for real.

"Don't even think of trying to run. I'm only going to track you down, you know that."

Dean's voice shook with a strange mix of pain and anger that Sam could almost empathise with.

"Get in the car."

**

Sam waited until Dean showered and changed and headed out to find the nearest place where he could get a hard drink. Then five minutes later, he slipped into his jacket and shoes and strode over to the nearest crossroads where he could find a demon.

"Well, well. Look who's back for another hit."

The woman wore black, as usual, snake-like figure slithering out from the dark at his summoning. The conversation that followed was full of the standard demon clichés – of Sam being the To-be commander of hell's armies that wasn't, after all. It was the frame-up of the millennium and Sam Winchester was the butt of the joke, alright. Yeah yeah, been there, heard that, killed that.

It wasn't difficult to lure her into a devil's trap. And even though he didn't have the super-strength of Azazel's blood or even his own muscle density from a year ago, Sam grabbed and spun the demon bitch around, strangling her from behind and Ruby's knife one-sixths way into the side of her throat already – ready to rip it apart.

"Once a junkie, always a junkie. Right, Sammy?"

He could smell the blood now, the rich addictive stink of iron and rust and Sam licked his lips subconsciously. It'd be so easy to just… give in. After all wasn't that what Dean expected him to do sooner or later anyway?

Dean.

Sam couldn't help but remember the crushed look on his big brother's face from last year – every time he lied to Dean and Dean saw right through it , every time Sam lashed out at him physically or emotionally, every time Dean held him against his own chest, tight and immobile, while Bobby hosed them both down with holy water. Sam remembered the words Dean'd flung out not few minutes ago.

"What's the matter?" The demon said, "Not drunk enough to get it up?"

Sam raised the knife above his head, giving the demon enough time. It saw it coming and tore out of the possessed dietician's mouth in a scream and a cloud of black smoke, disappearing into the ether. The woman came to a second later, and asked pathetically where she was. Sam raised a still shaking hand and pointed in the direction of the nearest gas station.

Then he turned around and started walking, away from the motel.

*** (tbc)