Chapter 74.

Sam knocked lightly on Dean's door and went in. Dean was lying on the bed, but quickly sat up. "Hey." he said.

"Hey." said Sam, "I brought you bacon and coffee. I was discreet. Nobody knows. Please tell me you got some sleep."

Dean took the mug and plate. "Yeah, I got some. Then I went out for a while."

"Out where?" said Sam. The Impala had not left the bunker, so it could not have been far, but the thought of Dean wandering off alone troubled him.

"Only on top of the bunker. I get why Cas likes to go there. It's a good place to think." He ate a piece of bacon and said, "Great bacon! Thanks."

"You're welcome. So, do I need to worry about what you were thinking about out there?"

Dean smiled. "No, but you're gonna, aren't you? It's so weird, after all these years."

"What are you talking about?" said Sam. He didn't like the wistful look on Dean's face and talk of the past was rarely happy talk from Dean.

"When you left us for Stanford, I thought you were turning your back on me forever."

"I never would have done that, Dean."

"No, you wouldn't. I was an idiot to think you could. Because whatever has happened, whatever dumb mistakes I made, you have always cared about me and I know how much that has overcomplicated your life."

Sam hated hearing him talk like that, as if he were a burden Sam had to endure or a responsibility no sane person would want. "We're brothers." he said.

"Yes we are!" said Dean, "And I won the sibling lottery when you were born. I know you don't like me saying this stuff and I don't like saying it either, but I have to, because I want you to know that I see all the things you've done for me over the years. I see them and I am so thankful."

"Stack up what I did for you and what you did for me and they won't even be close."

"I agree."

He agreed alright, just not in the right direction. He was about to reply when Dean suddenly put his coffee on the nightstand and said, "Sam, we need to talk."

"So talk." said Sam, "There's nowhere I have to be."

"Not that kind of talk."

"Any kind of talk is fine. What's on your mind?" said Sam, grabbing the chair from by the desk and moving it to Dean's side of the bed before sitting down.

"I need you thinking like a leader, Sam, not like my brother."

"Well, I am your brother, so that may be a problem." said Sam, trying to keep his voice calm and neutral as his thoughts offered various suggestions of why Dean might want him not to care.

"We need a strategy. We need to be ready."

"For Michael?"

"Yes."

"It's a little hard to form a strategy when we don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of killing him."

"That does seem to be the biggest issue." said Dean.

"For now, our strategy is to keep trying to find a strategy."

"And what do you have in place for restraining him if he retakes his vessel?"

"His vessel?"

"Me, Sam, me."

"Dean, is this what you were thinking about outside?"

"No." said Dean.

"Well, it shouldn't be what you're thinking about now."

"It should be the only thing either of us is thinking about now."

Sam could feel his brother's attention drifting. If they weren't discussing how to undo what he saw as his failure, he wasn't interested, but the conversation was flavoured too heavily with his guilt and self-destructive urges and Sam felt that any discussion on the subject now would end with him asking Sam to kill him - or at least to find a way to do so.

"When he comes back, nobody is safe." said Dean, "He hates all of you."

"Well, all of us hate him." said Sam. His number one reason for hating him was sitting in front of him. Dean had been deep in despair and regret long before Michael had taken over, but now he hated himself even more and the use of "when" and not "if" had not been accidental.

"The first time you see a sign of him taking control, you have to forget I was ever your brother. I can't live as his vessel again. You'd be doing me a favour."

"Dean ... "

"For Mom, for Jack, for Bobby, you have to stop him. I've proved that I can't."

"No. We'll find a way to fight him, but I'm not about to kill you. Besides, he'll just restore the body, possibly without you in it. If I'm gonna fight Michael, I want you there, fighting with me."

"With Michael in control, I can't fight. That's the whole problem. That's why we need ... "

"We need you to let this go." said Sam, "You're not able to think clearly about this and letting your mind constantly track back to it is doing nothing to help anyone."

"We can't just ... "

"Do you trust me?" said Sam, a little afraid of the possible answer.

"I think we need ... "

"Simple question. Do you trust me?"

"You are the only person I trust." said Dean.

"Then trust me. Let me worry about strategy. I promise, if I need your input, I'll ask for it, but for now, I need you to focus on your own needs and on taking proper care of yourself, because I am no use as a leader if all I can do is think about what new and inventive way you've found to hurl yourself off a cliff for the greater good."

"The last thing I wanna do is worry you or make anything harder than it already has to be."

"Good, then we're agreed. You trust me. You can trust me, Dean."

"I know I can. I do." Dean picked up his coffee again and took a long, slow drink of it. "I trust you." he said at last, "It's just that I feel if I'm not actively working against Michael, I'm helping him."

"Best way to work against Michael is to get your strength back and that means taking a short and deserved break from fighting alone against the universe and letting your underused brother get some of the action and maybe prove he's as good as you are. Or is that what scares you?" Ending on a joke tended to be a good idea with Dean. It defused a lot of potential arguments and Sam didn't want him to argue this time.

Dean was quiet for a long time. He ate a little bacon, sipped some coffee and neither argued nor aquiesced. Eventually, he said, "I met Cas outside."

"Yeah? How did that go?"

"We didn't fight. Actually, we talked for quite a while."

"Sounds promising." said Sam.

"He offered to reopen the link."

"Probably a little premature."

"He's trying too hard. He knows how bad it was in here before Michael and now he wants to witness the mess Michael left behind?"

"Are you saying you doubt his motives?"

"No, he's sincere enough. I doubt his sanity."

"Well, that's an improvement." said Sam. Dean was doing a great job of pushing the paranoia away and believing in Cas again.

"He said he and Jules are okay, but he won't tell me what the problem was. It's something personal for her."

"Then that's perfectly reasonable." said Sam.

"Of course it is. I'm fine with it. Of the many things we can't talk about, that's the one he has an excuse for."

"If there's anything he's not saying, I'm sure there's an equally good reason for it."

"Yeah, he doesn't trust me."

"Dean, you just said you think he's sincere."

"I do." said Dean. He put the mug and plate on the nightstand. "He called me irrational. I can't argue with that. I know I'm not doing well."

"You're doing great. You just need to remember that the negative stuff is not real."

"The negative stuff is always real." said Dean.

"Yeah, I know, but this time it isn't."

"I know I asked you, but if dealing with me ever becomes ... "

"Dean, shut up. I'm not ditching you, not now, not ever. Now, tell me what you and Cas talked about."