Leaving the broken man behind him, Dean ran up the stairs, once again taking a measured breath before entering his and Sam's room.

"Sammy? You still awake?" he whispered into the darkness.

A moment of silence, before Dean heard a quiet "Yeah," followed by a sniffle.

"How ya doin?" he padded over softly and sat beside the lump of blankets on his brother's bed.

A shrug. "I don't hear any sirens," Sam started. "You didn't murder Loki after all?"

"Nah, too much cleanup. Left him with a warning."

The two stayed in silence for a long moment, both not knowing what to say.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"I miss dad."

The teen sighed and dropped his head to his chest. "I miss him too kiddo," he whispered. Dean placed a hand on his brother's back and began absent-mindedly rubbing in soothing circles.

"But...just like you said, Tony's so much better," Sam finally turned to look at the teen without disrupting the hand on him. In the dim light, Dean saw that the boy's face was still glistening slightly with tears. "Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"I think I like Steve and Tony more than Dad," the boy admitted quietly. "Does that make me a bad son?"

Dean blew out the breath he was holding, thought for a second, then pulled his younger brother up to look him directly in the eyes. "Not at all, Sam. Steve and Tony give you so much more than Dad ever did. They tell you they love you, they drive you around every day, they keep up to date on all your little clubs," he paused, "it makes you human."

Sam gave a small smile and a nod before sniffling and dropping his gaze to his hands.

"Besides, if that were to make you a bad son, what the hell would that make me?" Dean tried to joke, knocking into the other boy's shoulders slightly.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, both in alarm and confusion.

"Woah, calm down, nothing. It doesn't mean anything, just trying to end the chick flick moment, Sammy," the teen raised his hands in a placating manner.

Sam studied his older brother. "No, you're jokes are usually you telling the truth in a way other people don't understand. What did you mean?"

Dean blinked in shock. "Excuse me?"

The boy shrugged. "I've been talking to Dr. Mills about you...nothing that you said in your sessions with her," he was quick to assure, "but more like, I'm trying to get to know you better through what you do and not what you say. You're not really the type to just say what's on his mind, Dean."

"You— you've been what? Psychoanalyzing me?" Dean's voice rose just a little, beginning to panic. If he couldn't hide things from Sam anymore, how could he protect him?

"Dean, chill, it's not as bad as you think, just—"

"Have you been tracking what I do?"

"Of course not, I'm just observant and—"

"You and Dr. Mills think I'm a mental case, don't you?"

"No! Dean, we would never! That has nothing to do with—"

"No, Sam," the teen stood up abruptly. "I don't care if you get into that stupid Freudian 'everyone wants to fuck their mom' crap, but keep it away from me."

Dean angrily started getting himself ready for bed, almost ripping his shirt in his carelessness to get it over his head. This couldn't be happening. Sammy doesn't get to know his ticks, he doesn't get to know when Dean's lying. He can't. He can't.

"Dean, come on. It's not that big a deal."

"Just drop it Sam, and quit tryin' to get in my head!" Dean snapped, throwing the shirt harshly to the floor.

"I'm not trying to get in your head, Dean, I'm just trying to understand you bett—"

"Understand what?" Dean finally locked eyes with the boy. "What do you possibly think that there is to understand about me? Huh? You wanna know all my secrets, Sammy?"

"I don't know why you're getting so angry! Yeah, I want to know you're secrets, Dean, I'm your brother, we shouldn't have any!"

The teen threw both his caution and his hands into the air as he started shouting, "Are you ready to go there? Do you really want to know everything that I keep from you? Do you wanna know about how I refused to cry when mom died because every time you saw me crying, you'd start too? Or how about the fact that the only thing I'm good at is taking care of you, and now that we're here, I'm fucking useless. Or, oh, I know! Do you wanna know that while you're feeling guilty about liking the nicest people we've ever met a little more than the man that basically abandoned us, I'm the one that didn't want dad to even come back in the first place!"

The room was filled with stunned silence.

Sam simply stared at the older boy.

Dean's mouth opened and closed multiple times, not a sound escaping.

"Didn't think so," the teen eventually whispered, then closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "My head isn't somewhere you wanna be. It's not something you want to understand."

The room remained quiet while Dean turned off the light and got underneath his covers, facing away from the other boy that continued to watch him in silence.

"I had no idea you were dealing with that," Sam whispered in the dark.

Giving a snort, Dean responded, "Yeah, that was kinda the point."

"Can we talk about this, Dean? Please?"

"No. Go to sleep."

"But—"

Dean sat up and turned toward his brother. "Go the fuck to sleep, Sam," he snapped before returning to his original position of completely ignoring the boy.

No more words were spoken that night. Dean listened to the sound of Sam lying back down and rolling around in the covers until he eventually did fall into a fitful sleep.

Dean didn't sleep at all.