A/N: Hello, my corpuscular caterpillars! I've missed you all so very very much. Oh, why yes, I DO have a three-hour final tomorrow at 8:30 am. And why yes, I AM using this time to write and post gay fanfiction! No, no, my priorities are PERFECTLY in order and all of this makes complete sense for me to do. Yes, I am truly a healthy individual!

Yeah, I may have a problem.

This chapter was honestly really difficult to compose, because I had several different competing objectives and I'm always trying to keep a good handle on the pacing/tone of the overall story, as well as the individual chapter. There were literally thousands of words that I wrote and subsequently cut from this thing, some of which may appear in later chapters but a bunch of which just have to be tossed out. It's times like these that make an author say, "JESUS I should just SALT AND BURN the entire thing and start a NEW FIC called JODY MILLS' HOME FOR WAYWARD GIRLS and it will just be JODY AND CLAIRE AND WHAT'S-HER-FACE SHOOTING THINGS and EVERYTHING WILL BE BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING WILL HURT!" However, it was you, my dear readers - the thought of you, pining for a new chapter - that gave me the strength to go on. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I love you so much.

So, here's what I ended up with, after all that editing, and hopefully you'll enjoy it. As always, please review, because reviews make me okay with the fact that I'm going to flunk this damn final tomorrow.

Enjoy the chapter!

Twenty six years ago

Dean puts five cold hotdogs into a pot of water.

"I want two," Sammy insists, standing on his tiptoes to peer up onto the stove.

"Not until you finish the first one," Dean says. "I don't want your gross leftovers." Then he eyes his little brother and adds, "And don't stand so close. You're gonna get burned." He turns up the burner to high and puts the lid on.

Sammy inches backwards slightly, but still keeps his face pointed eagerly towards the stovetop, nose in the air. "Mrs. Ross says I'm very responsible," he says. "So probably I can use the stove."

"No."

Dean gets the ketchup and mustard out of the fridge and drags the kitchen stool up to the cupboards. He's getting taller all the time, but he's still not tall enough to reach the plates. He gets Sammy's favorite plate (red with lots of scratches on it) and a couple of glass dinner plates for himself and Dad. He gets the bread from the pantry and puts one slice for Sammy, two for himself, two for Dad. He drizzles each slice with ketchup first (this is important) and then mustard.

He has a system, and the system works.

"Today Mrs. Ross told us about the planets," Sammy says. "And I told her I already knew about the planets, and she said that was great, and then I told her all the planets' names, and then Joey S. said I left out the moon, and so I told him about how the moon isn't a planet because planets go around the sun and the moon goes around the earth. And then he got mad, and later at recess he kicked me in the leg."

"Which one is Joey S.?" Dean asks. "The one with the curly red hair?"

"No, that's Joey H., Joey S. has spiky blonde hair."

"How come you didn't get me? I was over by the monkey bars."

Sammy takes a big breath and exhales loudly, and he puts his hand on his hip, and he looks at Dean very seriously. "I have to be my own man now," he says.

Dean frowns. "Who told you that? You're not a man. You're just a little kid."

Sammy makes a face. "Nuh-uh! I'm six! I'm one of the big kids!"

"Well, I'm ten," Dean retorts, "which means I'm a teen-ager." He lifts the lid to the hotdog pot and mutters under his breath, "… technically."

"What?"

"I'm a teenager!" Dean repeats emphatically. "And your teens is when you become a man. So it's fine, you don't gotta be a man yet." He makes a fist and punches it into his hand threateningly. "You already got the baddest man at Ridge Hill Elementary looking out for ya."

"Well, Dad'll be mad if you get in a fight," Sammy points out.

"Wouldn't be a fight," Dean scoffs. "One look at me, and little Joey S. would be runnin' for his mommy."

"Dean," Sam says in a patronizing tone, "sometimes you just have to let me fight my own babbles."

"Who is telling you this stuff?" Dean demands angrily.

"Nobody!"

"Oh yeah? Then what's a babble?"

"It's a bad guy," Sammy answers confidently. "Like an enemy."

"No it's not!" Dean snaps. "You said it wrong, it's 'you have to fight your own battles,' stupid!"

"I'm not stupid!" Sammy shouts.

"You're stupid and a baby!" Dean shouts back.

"I'm not a baby!" Sammy shrieks. He hurls himself at Dean and kicks and hits him, flailing his arms and screeching.

Dean fights back, hitting him and wrestling him to the kitchen floor, and Sam claws at his face with his sharp little fingernails and Dean resists the urge to bite, but he drives his elbow into Sam's stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and pins him to the ground with his knee and rattles him by the shoulders. "Baby!" he shouts. "You're a baby!"

The boiling pot rattles on the stove.

Sammy gasps for air, tears rolling down his red cheeks, and he doesn't normally cry, he doesn't usually cry in a fight.

"Owww," he sobs, "oww, Dean…"

And all of a sudden Dean feels a hot, awful twisting in his stomach, and he looks at his hands squeezed bruise-tight around Sammy's small shoulders, and he realizes too late that he's hurting him, really hurting him.

He lets go of Sammy and stands up.

"I didn't mean to," he says. "I didn't mean to."

Sammy curls on the floor and hugs his shoulders, tears still streaming.

Dean turns off the stove and moves the hotdogs off the burner. "Sammy," he says, "dinner's ready."

Sammy keeps crying, rubbing his eyes with his hand. He gets up, but instead of going to sit at the table, he runs out of the kitchen.

"Sammy!"

The bedroom door slams.

The feeling in Dean's stomach gets worse.

He divvies up the hotdogs and folds the bread into buns around them. Then he takes Dad's plate upstairs, to the office.

Dad is on the phone when he opens the door, sitting at his desk staring at his computer. The screen is bright blue – not a good sign. He rattles off technical gibberish that Dean doesn't understand, but it all sounds very important.

Dean quietly waits for Dad to notice him.

Finally he sees him. "Alright, Zach, I gotta go. See you tomorrow." He hangs up and rubs his eyes. "Is it six already?" he groans. "Sorry, I forgot about dinner."

"It's okay," Dean says, handing his father the plate. "I took care of it."

"Thanks." Dad takes a big bite of one of the hotdogs, and then looks up at Dean. "I'm lucky to have you around," he says. "You really keep this household running, Dean. You're a big help."

Dean blushes and stands a little straighter. He walks toward the desk hopefully. "I like helping out. Maybe I could help you with work sometime," he offers.

Dad gives him a serious look. "Not yet," he says. "But you keep working hard at school, you keep doing the worksheets I give you, and one day, you're gonna run this company with me."

"And Sammy too?" Dean prompts him. "When he's big enough?"

Dad smiles. "When he's big enough." He takes another bite of his hotdog.

Dean feels the guilt chewing at him, that awful twisting still churning in his stomach, and he knows he has to say something before Dad finds out from Sammy. He blurts out, "Sammy and I were fighting. And… I knocked him down. I think I hurt him a little."

Dad looks at him darkly. "You did what?"

"He started it!" Dean exclaims. "He's such a little stuck-up know-it-all, and he kept saying he was a man and he's not! He thinks he's so smart but he's just a little kid, and he acts like he doesn't need my help but he does. And he –"

"Stop! Enough." Dad sets down his hotdog with a frustrated sigh. "I don't care who started it, Dean! Sammy's half your size. Do you think that's a fair fight?"

Dean swallows. "Guess not," he mumbles.

"I said, do you think that's a fair fight?" Dad asks sharply.

Dean clears his throat. "No, sir."

"You're the older one. You need to act your age, Dean," Dad says. "I don't care what Sammy says, you can't be brawling with him. He's six. It's your job to rise above it. That's just the way it is. You're his big brother – you're supposed to protect him and take care of him, not hurt him!"

Dean's eyes are focused on his shoes. "Yes, sir."

"Look at me."

Dean looks up.

Dad stares him down for a long moment, his dark brows furrowed. "I expect better from you, Dean. Is that clear?"

Dean can feel the shame curling up the sides of his neck and eating into the pit of his stomach. "Yes, sir."

Dad gazes at him for another moment, and then turns back to his computer.

"Go apologize to Sammy," he says. "And tell him to come talk to me when you're done."

Dean walks back downstairs with a heavy heart.

He gets Sammy's dinner, and takes it to their bedroom.

Sammy is lying on his bed, facing the wall, towards the pictures he has taped up in a scattered collage – pictures cut out of magazines, of planets and tigers and ice skaters and astronauts, all the things Sammy likes. The lights are out, and he lays there on his side in the dark.

"I brought you dinner," Dean says, flipping on the light.

"Go away," Sammy says. "I hate you."

Dean stops in his tracks.

"You don't hate me," he says. "Right, Sammy? You don't really hate me."

"Yes I do," Sammy insists, sitting up in his bed. His eyes are red and his cheeks are still damp. "I hate you more than anybody else in the world!"

He puts Sammy's plate on his dresser and sits on the edge of Sammy's bed. "I'm sorry I hurt you," he says. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard."

"Yes you did," Sammy argues. "You wanted to prove I'm a baby, so you hit me as hard as you could so I'd cry like a baby!" He flings himself back towards the wall and shouts into his pillow, "Why are you so mean to me?"

Dean sits there for a minute, looking at Sammy's back, trying to come up with an answer.

"I don't know," he says. "I'm not trying to be mean to you, Sammy, it just happens and… I wasn't trying to prove you're a baby, I know you're not really a baby, I was just mad because, because sometimes the way you act, I dunno, like you don't need me around, it makes me mad, but I shouldn't have pushed you down like that, but sometimes you can be so annoying, but I know you're not trying to be and I'm older and I should know better, and I can't be –" He sighs. "Never mind. What I'm trying to say is… I didn't do it on purpose. I'm just… kind of a jerk, sometimes. So, I'm sorry."

Sammy's shoulders hunch inward.

"So, I'm sorry," Dean says.

No response.

"I said, I'm sorry."

Nothing.

Dean exhales heavily. "Sammy, I'm sorry. Really. You're not a baby."

Silence.

"You're the least babyish kid I know," Dean says. "Way tougher than Joey S."

Sammy continues ignoring him.

Then Dean leans over him and says casually, "That's not saying much though, because…" He drops his voice to a whisper. "Joey S. is a little bitch."

Sammy flings upright with an outraged gasp. "You cussed!"

"Barely!" Dean argues.

"You're gonna be in trouble!"

"Who's gonna tell?" Dean challenges. "I ain't gonna tell. You gonna go tattle on me?"

Sammy looks at him for a moment, as though weighing his options.

Then he makes up his mind. "Joey S. is an asshole," he says loudly, relishing the forbidden word.

Dean laughs. "Yeah, he is." He reaches over and grabs Sammy's plate. "Anyway, I made you dinner and everything, but if you don't want it…"

"You made hotdogs," Sammy scoffs, snatching the plate from him. "You only make easy food."

"All the best food is easy!"

"Bet you can't make chicken parmagiana."

"What the hell is chicken parmajonna?!"

"I saw it on Julia Child."

"Do I look like Julia Child to you? Sheesh, course I'm not gonna make some weird chicken thing, you dork…"

….

….

….

Now

Dean is asleep in the passenger seat, and Castiel drives.

The afternoon sun is hot and glaring; the heat waves rise off the asphalt in rippling sheets in the distance. Castiel has put on a pair of sunglasses, but it's still uncomfortably bright. At least now they're out of the desert and the landscape has a little more variation, occasional distractions flashing by to break up the boredom.

He peeks over at his passenger every so often. Dean is dead to the world, slack-jawed and snoring lightly, his face mashed against the window. He looks guileless in this state, child-like.

It's amusing, somehow.

He isn't quite sure why Dean is so obsessed with propositioning him, except that he views it as some sort of challenge. Dean seems baffled by the idea that Castiel doesn't find him sexually attractive. Cas glances over at him again.

His mouth hangs open as he snores, dried spit collecting in the corners of his lips.

Castiel smiles to himself. You're right, Dean. I just don't know how anyone could resist you.

….

An hour or so later, Castiel stops for gas, and Dean groans awake. They buy food and coffee, and stretch their legs before getting back on the road.

They're closer to the city now, though thankfully they won't have to drive into it to get home. Instead it's outskirts and backroads, forests and turn-offs for lake resorts. Dean doesn't go back to sleep, but he doesn't talk either. He's withdrawn, absorbed in his own thoughts. He just sips on his paper cup of gas station coffee, and stares absently out the window.

"Sam mentioned that you left him some sort of message," Castiel says.

Dean chuckles. "Yes, I did. I did indeed."

"Maybe you should call him. Let him know you're alright."

Dean groans and rubs his forehead. "Yeahhh, I don't talk to Sam without a drink in my hand if I can avoid it. So that's gonna be a hard pass."

Castiel frowns. "Why?"

"Because talking to Sam is like a fucking Nickelback song," Dean retorts. "All he ever does is tell me what a shitbag I am, and then I get mad and act like a shitbag, and then I have to go around feeling like a shitbag until I can drink it off. So I don't like to talk to him unless I'm at least halfway to intoxicated."

"But you were dry for three months," Castiel says. "You must have talked to him then."

Dean groans. "Man, that was the woooorst. As soon as I signed up, he went from being the world's biggest nag to a fucking Hallmark movie. Every sentence out of his mouth was another goddamn platitude." He puts on a false smile and does a high-voiced imitation of Sam. "Just take it one day at a time! The night is darkest before the dawn! You can do it, Dean, I believe in you!" He rolls his eyes. "Shovel after shovel of bullshit. I told him straight up that I was just doing it so I could get my license back eventually. He didn't listen. He didn't want to listen. He really believed some 12 step higher-power mumbo jumbo was gonna magically fix me."

"It works for some people," Castiel remarks.

"You gotta believe in it for it to work," Dean replies. "Like the placebo effect. I fuckin' knew I was getting sugar pills."

Castiel glances over at Dean, and chooses his next words carefully.

"When we get back, I'm going to ask you to make some changes," he says.

Dean sighs. "Yeah, I figured."

"You don't have to believe in everything I ask you to do," Castiel continues. "But you do need to sincerely commit yourself to trying."

Dean just looks out the window and takes a drink of his coffee.

"Can you at least give me that?" Castiel asks. "A sincere effort?"

Dean doesn't answer.

Castiel sighs inwardly and turns his attention back to the road. It was a long shot, anyway. He only just got Dean to stop fighting him tooth and nail; perhaps in a few days –

"It wasn't overnight," Dean says.

Castiel glances at him. "What?"

"You said I changed overnight." Dean looks at him. "That's just how it seemed from the outside. But actually it was brewing for years. More than years. Really, I think my entire life was building me up for it, just…. Piece by piece, one domino lined up after another."

"How?" Cas asks.

Dean takes a long sip of his coffee. "You know where Sam got the idea to hire me a handler, right?"

"No."

"My dad did the same thing to Sam, when he was in high school," Dean explains. "Sam was a rebellious little shit, and my dad caught him and his stoner friends with smoking pot in the garden when they were supposed to be in school. Dad blew a gasket, threatened to send him to military school, threatened to turn him into the police, and he ended up hiring a handler to babysit him and keep his ass in check. All because Sammy had a joint."

Dean takes another drink of his coffee, and turns towards Castiel, shifting in his seat. "But what nobody else knew, not even Sam," he continues, "is that my dad had already caught me smoking pot a year earlier."

Castiel looks at him in surprise.

"I was in my room, by myself. Dad must have smelled it." Dean stares off into space, engrossed in the memory. "He took one look at me, grabbed the joint out of my hand, and said, 'Don't you ever smoke weed again.'" He sips his coffee. "And I didn't. Not until after he died."

"Then why was he so angry with Sam?" Castiel asks.

Dean takes a deep breath. "It wasn't about the pot," he explains. "It was about control. Dad knew that Sam didn't give a shit about what he said. If Dad forbid him from smoking again, he'd just sneak off and do it in secret somewhere. The threats, the handler, he did all that stuff to try and get Sam to obey him, to rein him in. But with me…" He exhales heavily. "Dad knew. Sit, stay, heel." He snaps his fingers. "Good boy. All he had to do was give the command." His hand tightens on his coffee cup. "And at the time, I actually took that as a source of pride. I thought it meant he trusted me."

"I'm sure he did," Castiel says.

Dean barks a laugh. "Sure. He trusted me to do whatever he said. I was so well trained, Cas, so well trained…" He tips up the coffee up and gulps down the last ounce. "I did everything I could to please him. I modeled my entire life after him. And for most of my life, that was exactly what he was looking for – a perfect clone to succeed him. But then he had his arrhythmia, about three years before he died, and suddenly his perspective changed. I think he realized that he was wrong, trying to make me into something I wasn't. I couldn't be him, I could only be an imitation. That creative spark he had, he could never teach it to me, no matter how hard I tried. He needed to leave the company with somebody who had that spark, who could actually innovate, try new things, go in directions he'd never even thought of." He crunches the paper cup in his fist. "Not a yes-man sycophant."

Castiel frowns in confusion. "Wait. Are you saying he didn't want you to run the company?"

"You didn't know?" It's Dean's turn to be surprised. "It was all hush-hush at the time, but… I brought Sam back from Cambodia so he could train to be the new CEO."

Castiel blinks. "What?"

Dean laughs. "Oh my God, your face!"

"Sam?" Castiel exclaims. "Software, certainly, but – he's never had any interest in business! We all – everyone thought you were taking over!"

"Nope." Dean shakes his head. "See, this is what I mean, Cas. Years in the making. Three years before Dad died, I find out he wants Sam as CEO. He doesn't want me, I'm just his lapdog. And the sick thing is –" He laughs, a little too loudly. "The sick thing is, I agreed with him! That's how deep it went!" He laughs and crumples the cup tighter. "I was so obsessed with being the perfect copy of my dad that I even copied his disappointment in me! Isn't that insane?!"

"Dean," Castiel says.

"Sometimes, I think maybe that was the real test," Dean concludes. "Maybe he just wanted to see if I had the balls for the job. If I'd had the balls, I wouldn't have taken no for an answer. I would have fought him. But I just… accepted it. I was happy to train Sam." He puts the crumpled cup in the cupholder. "I failed the test."

"Dean," Castiel says again. "You were never your father's lapdog. Not ever."

Dean looks at him.

"You were an excellent businessman and a dedicated employee. All of your teachers unequivocally regarded you as gifted. You were admired by your peers and respected by your competitors, and I –" He stops himself short, on the edge of saying more than he should.

He can feel Dean's eyes on him, waiting.

He reels himself in, rephrases, forces himself to choose his words. He speaks firmly and clearly. "I studied your company," Cas says. "I studied your father. I studied you. So believe me when say from an objective, unbiased standpoint: you were, in every way imaginable, deserving to be his successor."

And Dean turns his face towards the window, and his mouth twists tightly to one side, and he clears his throat. He props his elbow on the window and rubs his hand across his mouth and leaves it there, his thumb pressed hard against his jaw, his fingers curled over his lips, as though physically holding himself silent. His nostrils flare.

Castiel glances at him, trying to assess the reaction.

"You said that was three years before you left the company," Cas says. "What changed?"

Dean is silent for another long moment.

Then he takes a deep breath, blinks quickly, clears his throat again, and removes the hand from his mouth. "Oh, bunch of crap with Sam and my dad," he sighs. "Big surprise there. But I – I don't wanna talk about it right now."

Castiel decides not to press him on the matter. He's picked at enough wounds today.

"Ugh, going for the sixteen ounce coffee was a mistake," Dean mutters. "I gotta piss like a racehorse. Pull over, will ya?"

"We're nowhere near a rest stop," Cas says.

"I know that!" Dean replies indignantly. "I'm gonna take a leak on the side of the road, like God intended. Now pull over."

"God intended for you to urinate on a public highway? I don't remember that from the Bible."

"It's Genesis, chapter one. And on the sixth day God said, 'Let Castiel shut his trap and pull over before I piss in his car!'"

"Oh, yes, I remember now. It was right before God banished Adam and Eve from Garden for ruining the upholstery –"

"For fuck's sake Cas pull over!"