Thanks to NightReader22, Catz Chaos, and freetobescary for the consistent feedback on this. You guys rock. And to anyone else who left a review. Love the feedback. Thank you. Please feed the muse...and boy this scene was fun to write. I got to overdose on Youtube videos of the boys coming to blows. I highly recommend "Dueling Winchesters-2 Cellos." Look it up. It's awesome.

"Come on, little brother." Dean motioned him forward with his fingers, hands up defensively. "Come on. Take a shot. You know you want to."

Sam cracked his neck to the side and rolled his shoulders. As he stepped forward Dean realized that his "little" brother might just knock him on his ass. Sam was six-foot-four of pure muscle. The kid was in his early twenties but he still seemed to keep growing, if not in height then in sheer mass.

"Come on, bitch, hit me."

Sam swung at him and Dean ducked under the outstretched arm, grabbed Sam's loose Carhartt jacket and used it as leverage to swing him sideways as he swept a foot under the long legs. Sam slammed into the Impala, hand grabbing onto the hood for purchase with a loud hollow thud.

"Don't dent my car, Sammy."

"I'm going to dent your head when I get a hold of you, Dean."

Dean huffed. "Sure you are." He was up on the balls of his feet, ready to move, when Sam dove for him again. He danced out of his brother's way. "Float like a butterfly... sting like a b-" his taunt cut off when Sam grabbed him by the arm and snapped him sideways like a dog with a chew toy.

"Fall like a tree..." Sam quipped with a dimpled smile as Dean landed on his ass in the dirt. He rolled with the momentum and was up on his feet again in the blink of an eye. The stinging pain that lanced up his hip with the fall only served to piss him off further. He limped forward a step and shook the numbness out of his leg. Sam's eyes darted to the injury, concern furrowed his brow and in that instant, Dean rushed him, using his body weight like a battering ram. Sam was pushed back several steps with the blow, but didn't lose his balance completely due to his sheer size. He grabbed Dean's shoulders and they grappled in a tangled mass of angry Winchester, each testing for an opening.

They were fairly evenly matched and they knew each other's moves like lifelong dance partners. They could predict what the other's intentions were in the micro-seconds before they happened. Dean finally got ahold of a fistful of Sam's hair, tugged viciously, and bent him double while bringing a knee up to crack him in the ribs. He was rewarded with a whoof of air escaping Sam's lungs.

The move was dirty. Unfair. He knew it. He brought his knee up again and this time Sam grabbed his leg and pulled him off balance. He almost went on his ass again, but managed to save himself by grabbing Sam's jacket.

Sam brought his arms up between the hold and broke it while he aimed a kick at Dean's midsection. He connected solidly with his older brother's torso and sent him flying back like a marionette. Dean regained his balance and spat out the blood that had begun to pool in his mouth from an errant elbow that had caught him in the lip.

Sam backed off a step and Dean saw his expression change. "Come on, Dean. Let it go."

Dean aimed a punch at his brother that Sam barely dodged. The second one connected with Sam's jaw and dazed him for a minute. Sam was ready for the third one, and he grabbed Dean's arm and twisted it behind his back in an arm lock and slammed him against the Impala hard enough to rattle Dean's teeth.

Dean tried to twist out of the hold until Sam deftly bent Dean's wrist into a wrist lock and dug his thumb into a pressure point that almost made his older brother's knees buckle. Sam pressed his weight into Dean's back and leaned his mouth close to his brother's ear. "Stop it!" He hissed.

"Get off!" Dean snarled.

"What is wrong with you?! You're acting like we're in a death match."

There was no answer as Dean stood immobilized, his cheek pressed against the cool metal of the car roof. He was panting. Sam's grip loosened incrementally and Dean used the moment to reach back blindly and stomp his heel down as hard as he could on Sam's foot. Sam's steel-toed work boots made the gesture mostly pointless, and Sam reapplied the pressure.

It felt like his wrist was on fire. He gritted his teeth.

"Knock it off!" his brother's voice was a growl in his ear. "We get hurt enough on hunts. We don't need to be hurt in drunken brawls among ourselves as well."

"Not drunk, Sammy." Dean gritted out.

"Oh great. So that just means you're psycho without any help." A pause punctuated by their breathing. "What is going on with you?"

"Let me go!"

"Oh yeah, so you can bum rush me again? No thanks."

Another pause. Dean's mid-back was starting to cramp from the unnatural arch his taut muscles were pulled into.

"What is going on with you?" Sam applied a little pressure to his hold and Dean yelled involuntarily. "Spill it!"

"Okay, Sammy! You gotta not break my wrist, dude!"

Sam released him and Dean turned around to face his brother, shaking the feeling back into his arm. "That wrist lock is nasty."

"I learned it at a martial arts class I took at Stanford."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Effective."

Sam put his hands on his hips. "What is wrong with you?"

"Your face," Dean quipped.

"Oh no- we are not doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Deflecting. Evading. Something's bothering you. You need to tell me what. You need to tell me why you'd rather knock my teeth in then tell me why you're hurting." Sam's eyes took on that concerned look again. Dean hated it. It said, 'my poor broken brother. I absolve you from your douchey actions because you are so pathetic I can excuse them.'

"I am not hurting, Sam."

Sam snorted, shook his head with a humorless smile. "Yeah. Yeah that's totally obvious."

"This coming from the poster boy of well-adjusted."

Sam shrugged. "You know, Dean, that's the difference between us. I don't pretend to be okay. I'm still not over Jessica. I'm not sure when I will be. If you weren't so allergic to feelings I'd probably talk to you about it more... This isn't about me though. It's about you. What's wrong?"

Dean kicked one of the tires of the Impala. "Nothing, Sam!" He realized how stupid it sounded as soon as it left his mouth. He followed it up with "I don't know." As he said it, he felt the fight go out of him. All the pressure released at once like a deflating balloon. His shoulders sagged at the sudden adrenaline let down. "I don't know."