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It's not until now that I realize how much I screwed up that one time in Indiana. Not that I'd ever admit it to Dean, and at this point, I don't know that it even matters all that much anymore. At least, not to him.
Because Dean's got this way of forgiving you for something and yet, nursing the hurt anyway and letting it chew a hole in him until it's just a part of him that he can't erase. Granted, he's not the only one; we Winchesters seem to have a knack for doing that. Just ask Dad. Up until the day he died, Dad and I were going at each other's throats in a way that Dean and I never do.
Except for that one time.
Even now, months--almost years--later, he still looks at me uncertainly, like he can't imagine me staying of my own free will. I know he'd like to stop hunting, take a break, let things cool down. Get the feds off his ass, let the other hunters forget about the Winchesters, maybe just go to ground for a year or two.
But he won't.
He keeps going, he keeps hunting, he keeps fighting and following me and protecting me and promising to help save me from the Demon when sometimes, I think *I'm* the Demon that Dean needs saving from. Is this how it's going to start? Is this the thing that sends me down the Demon's path?
Where does it end, Dean? When do you let me stop hurting you? When do you stand up and say that's enough, Sammy, we're gonna do it my way?
It chafes when you say it, but God, I miss it.
Did Dad really break you that badly? Not just in the way that he brought us up but when he died. Did that burden break you down so much that you're afraid to push me? Afraid to piss me off? Or is it you're just that scared of me?
Are you that scared of being alone? Did Meg get that right? That you're so afraid of being alone that you'll let anything else happen; that you'll let other people die, that you'll let me kill you, slowly by the minute, just so you and I can stay together?
If I'd never left Dean in Indiana, then maybe, just maybe, he'd have trusted me with Dad's secret earlier on, right away, *something* enough to give both of us a fighting chance, instead of making us just fight each other.
Maybe it's not either of our faults. Dad never should have put that burden on Dean; he should have trusted me enough to tell me. Dad should've let us in on everything from the start of it. He knew what happened to Jessica, Dean said he came by Stanford all the time to make sure I was okay. He should've told me then, he should have found Dean and me and told us from the first what was going on. He should've waited for us in Jericho, or Blackwater Ridge, or any of the other places he texted us coordinates to instead of ordering us to work jobs while he screwed around with the Demon.
Dean should have told me from the first. He should have told me the night we burned Dad's body. I should have made him tell me, because I knew he was hiding something from me. But look at what happened when he did. I left him again, just like I did in Indiana.
Is it any wonder he doesn't trust me now?
It always comes back to the things I should've done. Or shouldn't have done.
Dean, I'm sorry.
But you gotta meet me halfway. You gotta give me something to work with here, and I promise, I won't let you down again.
- = - = -
Dean snapped his fingers in front of Sam's face. "Hey. Dude. Enough with the navel-gazing, did you even hear a word I just said?"
"Huh? Yeah, I was listening. Disappearing men, all of them saw the same thing a few days before they disappeared, uh, and they were all engaged to be married," Sam echoed, dropping his hand from the back of his neck.
"So?" Dean prodded. "What do you think? Our kinda thing?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. Our kind of thing," he agreed. "We'll leave in the morning, cause it's nearly midnight now."
"Sounds good to me." Dean kicked back in the bed, closing the laptop and tossing it back to Sam, who caught it reflexively and put it on the nightstand. "Night, Sammy."
"Night, Dean." Sam reached over and flicked off the lamp between the beds, casting the room in darkness. The only light came from the window, where the silver moonlight twisted together with the yellow cast of streetlights to throw strange shadows over Dean's face.
In the half-flickering darkness, Sam could have sworn he saw Dean watching him covertly, listening for the click of the hotel door, but when he turned over in the bed to fully face his brother, Dean's eyes were shut and Dean's back was to him.
The End