Author: Oldach's Dream

Summary: A hypothetical question after a hunt gone wrong leads to a conversation that assures Sam, if not in a slightly amusing way, that Dean will be okay. One-shot.

Disclaimer: If they were mine, there would be substantially more chick-flick moments.

Rating: T for a little bit of naughty language.

A/N: Can take place pretty much anytime you want, there are no specific spoilers for any episode. And, yeah, I think that's all I have to say...so, enjoy!

Childlike

The hunt was simple. Childlike in nature for the two grown Winchester men.

A possessed couple in Maine. The eldest scoffed at the simplicity of it.

A couple rounds with a rock salt filled rifle, a banishing right, a few handshakes and a well placed alibi and they'd be good to go.

He'd have time to get laid tonight.

The younger was slightly more cautious.

At least read the police report again. He warned, voice still thick with exhaustion, sleep hadn't come easy in the moving Impala that day.

It's the same as the last time I read it.

He didn't have time for his little brother's unjust concerns; he was bored enough as it was.

Fine. Sammy huffed. But his anger was not long lived; it was forgotten altogether at the next rest station.

A large coffee and a few dozens donuts can fix anything when you're on the road with two guys.

They arrived at Maine about an hour before sunset.

Perfect.

Everything was going perfectly. It was a hunt that could not be denied. Simple.

Childlike in nature.

A possessed couple in a rundown barn in Maine. Trying to make a living day to day, probably dug past their property line and disrupted an old grave.

Pissed off spirits could be a bitch.

But not for the Winchesters. It was childlike. Easy.

Neither boy expected the old man to be a gun collector.

Yet that was a mishap they could deal with. One farmer with a loaded rifle was expected. But two possessed old people with a cellar full of them...

Well, the next half hour hadn't been exactly entertaining, but they had dealt well.

Neither boy had expected the old man to completely blindside Sam when he'd been flipping though their dad's journal. Searching desperately for the lost page of the, now much needed, ritual.

No one had expected the old man's body - possessed as it may have been - to be able to take down Sam. A hunter, a warrior, a Winchester.

But it had.

It wasn't shocking that Dean's first concern had been his brother, and that when Sammy hit the edge of the coffee table, that's exactly where Dean's eyes went.

He was a few milliseconds from letting his instincts take over and have his feet carry him in that direction. The pissed off old people could go screw themselves, he was almost certain that Sam's head had collided with the edge of the table. And that was all that registered.

But it hadn't happened like that.

Dean didn't rush over to his brother. There was no pulling Sam to his feet, karate kicking the old guy and uttering the banishing rite just in the nick of time. There was no heroic ending.

Because what the two Winchesters really, really hadn't expected, was for the old couple to have a twenty-year-old daughter. And for that daughter to stroll into her parents home just as her possessed mother had picked up her husband's earlier discarded handgun.

They hadn't expected the bullet to go through her forehead so fast that she didn't even have time to make a different face. She died staring at her mother with a look of disbelief - almost amused disbelief.

What's going on? What's the joke?

And her life was over.

Killing her own daughter hadn't even slowed the possessed lady down. Not even a little. And when she raised the gun again at Sam, Dean shot without thinking.

He'd run out of rock salt guns within the first fifteen minutes they'd been there.

The gun he shot with was one of the old couple's. Bullets.

And when Dean couldn't pull his eyes away from the woman he had just murdered, the sprit inhabiting the old man became rightfully ticked off.

Sam fired before the man had the chance to end his brother's life.

His head screamed with the effort. Dean didn't even flinch.

A hunt gone wrong.

The Impala was cold that night.

"How's your head?" Dean inquired for the third time after Sam had woken up that morning. They had stopped at a motel after they'd left the farmer family. Not a word had been spoken between the two regarding anything other than Sam's injury.

"Headache's gone." He relied honestly. "Just a little sore."

Dean nodded. "We'll kick it here for a couple days. Regroup."

"Kay." Because Sam didn't feel up to stimulated conversation.

So one wasn't breached for the next thirty hours.

Finally, in the safety provided by the shadow of night, Sam uttered those fateful words, that unanswerable question; "Was it our fault?"

Dean sighed. Sam already knew what his brother thought on the matter. His big brother had had the same set of morals since he was a child. And they never changed.

Good was good. Innocent was innocent and guilty...well, they were guilty. Sam already knew what Dean was going to say.

It was a simple question. Childlike in nature.

Yes, they were responsible.

"Sometimes these things happen Sam."

The younger Winchester actually pulled himself up. Propped on an elbow, he could not believe what he'd just heard.

"...stuff happens...people...death...interfere..." but the ringing in his ears cut out most of the words he was saying.

"What?" Sam snapped. "How are we not responsible for this? Three innocent people are dead because of us!"

"If you already had an opinion on the matter, why the hell'd you ask!" Dean was angry, laying back down with an angry thump; he refused to look at his brother again until morning.

I wanted you to tell me that everything was okay. I wanted you to tell me that you were okay.

But Sam said nothing, just laid back down with a heavy sigh.

Neither slept that night.

Sam thought that maybe hunting was killing his older brother. Perhaps it was turning Dean cold, making his insides rot away, leaving nothing behind except the numb, empty shell of a man who didn't believe in his childlike morals anymore.

Sam could not accept this. Wouldn't let it be. If the hunt was killing Dean, the younger Winchester would do something to stop it. He'd have to. He owed his big brother that much, at least.

They were in the Impala a week later, driving through never ending dessert roads. An idea came to Sam. Something inspired by vague thoughts of his life at Stanford. He started speaking before the plan was even half formed.

He couldn't let his brother die. Physically or emotionally. He had to make sure Dean was alright.

"Hey," he started uneasily. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No." They'd been at odds since that night in the motel.

"It's hypothetical." He assured, he would not back down from this.

"No." Dean repeated.

Sam went for brutally honest. "It has nothing to do with Maine, or that family."

A look of pain flashed through his eyes. But it was gone in an instant.

Warning sign? Or was that just his brother - being the stoic guy he knew and loved.

"Nothing?" He confirmed after a moment.

"Nothing." Sam repeated.

"Fine."

"If a guy jumps off a building..."

"The fuck?" Dean interrupted, shooting Sam a look that said clearly, 'mental help - isle one'

"Just, hear me out, okay?"

Dean shook his head in an accepting kind of way, and Sam went on.

"So this guy jumps off a building,"

"Like suicide?" Dean confirms, trying to humor Sam, no doubt.

"Yeah." Sam nods shortly. "Only when he's like... Six feet from the ground, someone shoots him."

"Why would they do that?" Dean questions.

"It's hypothetical." Sam reminds.

"But that's stupid." He insists.

"Just go with it?" Sam pleads, and Dean finally nods.

"Now," Sam went on after a brief pause. "Is the shooter guilty of murder?"

"Well, yeah." Dean shrugs as if that should have been obvious. "Where do you get this shit?"

"It was a scenario from one of my pre-law classes." Sam answered honestly, then started gesturing with his hands slightly. "The teacher broke us up and told us which side of the argument we had to defend. I had to defend that he was innocent."

"But he wasn't." Dean said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. "He shot someone."

"But he was gonna die anyway." Sam keeps his tone neutral. "No doubt about it, what difference does it make?"

"He shot him." Dean said, slower still, glancing away from the road and over to Sam. "That's murder. I don't get the point of this, college boy."

"Well the point," Sam could barely keep from smiling. "Was that, as a lawyer, you don't always get to pick your clients."

"Wait, wait, wait." Dean scrunched up his face in confusion and disbelief. "You tellin' me that if you went ahead with this whole lawyer thing, you'd actually have to defend murderers and shit like that?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe, sometimes. It's part of the job."

"That's a load of crap." Dean snapped. "You wouldn't be able to do it."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Not every single case would be like our job, Dean. It's not always good guys versus the bad guys, there's a lot of gray in reality."

"There's no gray in murder like that." Dean said firmly. "If there's no reason behind it...if the guy's just falling off a building, I don't care if a bomb goes off two seconds later to boot, its still murder."

And Sam knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Dean's childhood morals were still very much in tact.

"You really believe that." Sam stated, as if truly realizing it for the first time.

"Of course I do, Sammy." He sounded annoyed. "What the hell was the point of that question?"

Sam smiled, full on grinned at his brother, because Dean may be irritated with Sam right now. May think he was somehow pulled into a chick flick moment of sorts, without even being aware of it, but Sam had figured something out.

"You're gonna be okay."

And only after Dean started slightly and turned his head, narrowing his eyes, did Sam realize he had spoken aloud. "Huh?" He demanded sharply.

"This whole thing..." Sam sighed. "The hunting...that couple..."

"Sam," Dean let out a breath. "Those people, that family...what happened there, it was a tragedy. And, yeah, I think a big chunk of that is on us."

Sam felt the weight of his words, the weight of murder, but also unparalleled relief. Because a hunt gone wrong, they could deal with, God knows they'd dealt with worse.

But Dean not caring anymore, Dean giving up...that, Sam could not handle.

"It is." Sam agreed with the spoken words. "But I thought..." he shook his head, no wanting to explain. "Nah, I just...I guess I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Dude," Dean deadpanned, "I'm not the one who got whacked by the coffee table."

Sam's hand went automatically to the still swollen spot on the side of his head, grinning sheepishly. "Yeah, that hurt." He looked over to the driver's side. "But I meant more like, you now, emotionally, after something like that..."

"I'm fine," he sad at once. "I told you before, you just can't take this stuff home with you. You're the one that always does. I should be worried about you."

And for the past few days, Sam could tell that he had been. He just had to joke it away now.

Time to move on.

"I'm fine." Sam stated. "You're the one that's been all quiet and...broody."

"Man, that's you," Dean smirked. "I hook up too much to be broody."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Okay." He gave easily. He had already received the answers he went looking for. "As long as you're alright."

Dean turned his head, and for a solid few seconds, their eyes met, and a world of understanding passed between them. And both knew, without question, that the other would be fine.

It was just a matter of time.

Time, that they were just lucky enough to be in possession of.

Then Dean raised half his lip in a show of older brother confidence. Reaching towards the stereo, he broke eye contact, but Sam had already found what he'd been looking for, so it was okay.

"Sam," Dean said seriously, hand resting on the knob. "Stop being such a chick."

One flick of the wrist later, rock music was blasting loudly all around them, and Sam wondered how the stereo always seemed to be set to come on right on the middle of a song. Smiling widely, he didn't even think about protesting the obnoxious sounds.

It was good to hear the music again.

Good to know everything would be okay.

And secretly, Sam was glad that there was something there to mask his sarcastically muttered, "My brother, the most sensitive jerk in the whole freaking world."

End.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed, drop me a line and let me know. Feedback is kinda like a drug - only much cheaper than the real ones. Review!