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Sam’s mind was still fifty miles behind them. He could feel the deep-seated ache in his forearm, but it was a hazy sensation. The phantom touch of Lori’s lips, miles away and almost two days distant, was much more visceral.
As he shifted in his seat, his thoughts tumbled down the same, worn route they’d been traveling since he’d let Lori kiss him. He thought of her face in the darkness and wondered why the hell had he done it. Sure, she was cute, and sweet, and any other time he probably would have felt a little kick of excitement in his stomach at her obvious interest, but it was now. It was here, on the edge of spring, not quite five months after his life had gone up in flames.
Sam had seen her moving in, hopeful and needing comfort, and there hadn’t been any excitement. There had only been a sick tension that told him that this was wrong. That he wasn’t ready.
He’d tried anyway, though, and he was slowly coming to the realization that he’d tried because he wanted to be ready. He was tired of that hollow, endless ache inside of his chest. Tired of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing flames across the ceiling before he figured out that he wasn’t dreaming anymore. Tired of missing Jess so much that he wanted to lash out at the nearest person he could find.
“Fuck it,” Dean said abruptly from the driver’s seat, and then yanked hard on the wheel.
Jerked out of his thoughts as the Impala swerved toward the shoulder across two lanes of traffic, Sam instinctively grabbed at the dash. Pain pulsed up from his injured forearm and he swore, taking his left hand back and gripping the side of the door with his right. A car sped past them, the blare of its horn far too close for comfort, and then they were over.
“Damn it, Dean!" Sam spat with his heart hammering in his chest. "What the hell?”
He turned to glare at his brother, and the rest of his angry tirade dried up in his mouth. It was the first time he’d really looked at Dean since the whole thing with Karns had been settled, and he didn’t like what he was seeing.
Dean was usually a pretty pale guy, but today his skin was an ashen reflection of the overcast sky. He put the car in park and then settled his hands on the wheel and sat there, staring straight ahead at the highway. A tick jumped in his clenched jaw but, other than that slight movement, he might have been a statue. There were dark smudges under his eyes, even though he’d been sleeping like the dead since St. Louis.
Once or twice, when Sam had woken up from his nightmares, Dean had been so still that he had thought, This is it. This is what Rebecca saw; this is why Dean’s been so off. He’s sick—cancer, maybe AIDS—and he came to say goodbye and couldn’t get the words out and now he’s lying over there dead. Sam knew that those particular thoughts were paranoid and irrational—whatever was wrong with Dean (and there was something going on, no more fooling himself that it was just a matter of relearning habits and mannerisms), it wasn’t anything that simple—but he hadn’t been able to shake them off until he got up and lightly rested his palm on his brother’s chest to make sure that he was still breathing.
If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of the amulet on Dean’s chest, Sam would have felt compelled to check again now. Just to make sure.
“Dean?” he said hesitantly.
Dean unlocked his jaw with obvious difficulty and said, “You should stay here.”
“Here?” Sam repeated. It was the last thing he’d expected his brother to say, not the least because they were in the middle of farm country: nothing but flat fields spreading away on both sides of the highway. Small copse of trees in the distance on their side. Hump of a silo almost a mile away on the left.
Dean blinked, and then frowned at their surroundings as though seeing them for the first time. As though he hadn’t even been aware of driving anywhere, which was a frightening thought.
“In Cedar Bluff,” he clarified after a moment.
It was the second time Dean had offered that this morning, and Sam was no more inclined to take his brother up on it now than he had been before. But Dean obviously wasn’t going to let it go at a simple ‘no’, and Sam wanted to know why.
“And you think I should stay in this random town because …”
Dean cleared his throat and started, “That Lori chick—”
“What?” Sam snorted, surprised.
Ignoring the incredulity in Sam’s voice, Dean plunged on with, “She likes you.”
“I hardly know her!”
“Stanford, then,” Dean said, and then nodded his head like everything was settled. “We can be there in a few days if we drive straight through. You’re smart; they’ll take you back.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam demanded, his concern for his brother ebbing in the face of disbelieving anger. When Dean still wouldn’t look at him, he continued, “You came to get me, remember? And after what happened to Jessica—Jesus, how could you even think I’d just drop everything like that?”
“Sam, please.” Dean’s face was as stony and undecipherable as ever, but his voice was a cracked, bleeding thing.
Despite the pain of Jessica’s loss—despite the cold, unrelenting bite of anger in his gut—Sam wanted to say okay. He wanted to say whatever he needed to take that godawful pain from his brother’s voice. He wanted to so much, but …
“Dean—”
“Don’t,” Dean broke in harshly.
Sam winced, but continued, “I can’t. I’m sorry, man, but I have to—”
Dean was up and out of the car before Sam had even realized he was moving. The way he slammed the door in Sam’s face was as eloquent a ‘fuck you, Sammy’ as he’d ever given. Striding around the hood, he began to pace in a tight, agitated line along the dusty shoulder.
The unexpected explosion left Sam feeling stunned and a little lost. He flinched as Dean kicked out and sent a good-sized rock hurtling out into the field. It must have hurt like a bitch, but when Dean resumed moving a second later, he showed no sign of discomfort. Just kept pacing like a caged wolf.
‘Just be careful,’ Rebecca had told Sam. Like Dean was dangerous. Like he’d ever in a million years hurt Sam. Sam had brushed it away at the time—people were always misjudging his brother, taking Dean’s brash talk and bravado at face value—but now he wasn’t so sure. As he watched energy pour off of his brother like smoke, Sam wondered if Rebecca might have seen Dean a little more clearly.
After a few minutes, he got out of the car anyway. It was either that or sit there and watch until Dean worked himself up enough to haul Sam out of the car, and Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t going to come out of that without a few bruises. He approached his brother carefully, slowing further as he realized that Dean was muttering to himself as he paced.
“…never goddamned listen … revenge-obsessed assholes … ” Dean spun to stalk back in the direction of the car and drew up short as he realized he was about to run into Sam.
For a few seconds, Sam thought that Dean was going to punch him. The intention was in his brother’s eyes: a quick, flashing gleam of frustrated rage. Then, and just as quickly as it had come, all of that bitter, violent energy drained away, leaving him standing there with hunched shoulders and a lost, helpless look on his face.
“Why can’t you ever let anything go?” he whispered. “Christ, Sam.”
“What is it, Dean?” Sam pressed, inching closer. “You’ve gotta talk to me, man.”
“What, like you’ve been talking to me?” Dean shot back reflexively. Then, before Sam had even begun to think up a response, he winced and muttered, “You know what, never mind. Doesn’t matter. I just … fuck.”
Detouring around Sam, Dean headed for the car, where he rested one hand on the hood and stared down at the ground. Sam followed him cautiously.
“Is this about that thing you’re wearing around your neck?” he asked.
“What? No!”
Dean snapped around, his hand coming up to cup the amulet in a by-now familiar protective gesture. Sam just looked at him steadily and after a few seconds Dean realized what he was doing and released it with a guilty jump. They stood there in silence for a moment and then Dean’s mouth twitched.
“Yeah, Sammy,” he breathed. “It’s about the amulet.”
Finally, they were getting somewhere. And yet all of a sudden the air felt stiflingly close, like the ceiling of clouds overhead was pressing down on them. Sam couldn’t figure out if he was relieved that they were finally facing this thing head on or terrified of finding out what had the invincible Dean Winchester so spooked.
“It’s not for protection, is it?” It wasn’t a question.
Dean’s lips twisted wryly. “Sort of. It’s—” He pressed his mouth shut and then turned to stare out across the fields. After a moment, he continued, “There was this hunt. Couple of months after you ditched us. Bodies had been torn to pieces, partially eaten hearts, claw-marks on the bones.”
“A werewolf?” Sam blurted. His chest went icily cold and he grabbed his brother’s arm. “Dean, did it bite you? Are you—”
But Dean was already shaking his head. He pulled his arm back and took a few steps away. Ran a hand through his hair. “Can you—I can’t do this with you looking at me like that.”
Sam stared at his brother. “How am I supposed to be looking at you, man? Just—just tell me, okay? Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. We can—”
Dean’s laugh was bitter. “No, Sam. We can’t. This isn’t going to go away, and I can’t—no matter what I do it’s not gonna leave me alone. Guess that leaves the fucker one up on you, huh?”
Even in the middle of whatever Dean was trying to tell him, that stung. Sam felt his hackles go up and couldn’t quite keep himself from saying, “You could have come with me. I asked you, man. Hell, I practically begged you.”
It wasn’t Sam’s proudest moment, and he’d spent the last three and a half years not thinking about that conversation, which had been full of too many harsh words on both sides. Dean’s accusations of betrayal and abandonment had left Sam feeling raw inside, and it had been mostly out of self-defense that he’d forced that promise (stay away, don’t call, don’t write, don’t remind me) on his brother at the bus stop. Self-defense and an aching need not to be plagued by the constant reminder that, when it came down to it, Dean chose Dad over him.
Dean chose Dad and he never even flinched.
Still, Sam had figured out over these past few months that Dean was carrying around his own scars from those last, abrasive days. He expected anger: expected Dean to unleash some of the venom that had been festering inside of him for years now. What he didn’t expect was the heavy sigh that bowed his brother’s neck.
“I wish to God I had,” Dean confessed. “Dad would’ve kicked my ass, but at least I’d be me. At least I wouldn’t have this son of a bitch in my head.”
The world pulsed white for a moment in Sam’s vision. “Dean, what—”
“It’s an animal spirit. A wolf.” Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at nothing in particular, the muscle in his cheek jumping. “Pushy bastard.”
Sam didn’t know how his brain was still functioning, but somehow it was, and now it put everything Dean was saying together. Numbly, he said, “You’re a berserker.”
Dean’s shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“And the amulet … what, controls it?”
“More or less.”
Anger pushed past the numbness of Sam’s shock. Dean should have known better than this, damn it, no matter how betrayed he’d felt by Sam’s leaving. Pastor Jim had told them both enough horror stories about berserkers for him to know that it was a really shitty idea.
“Jesus, Dean, how fucking stupid can you—”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Dean shouted, finally rounding on him. His face was caught between the hard mask he probably wanted to be wearing and something desperate and frightened.
Sam met his brother’s eyes and felt his anger bleed into rage. Dean was still lying. Was still trying to cover his own ass for the massive mistake he’d made. Because unless he’d decided, somewhere along the line, that drinking blood and dancing around naked under a full moon while chanting in Old Norse was a good time, then nothing about this was accidental.
No, there was only one way to become a berserker, and it took a hell of a lot of preparation and intent. The fact that Dean was even trying to put something like this over on Sam was more than a little insulting.
They stared at each other silently for almost a minute, and then Dean spun and stomped off across the field toward the copse of trees in the distance. Sam watched him go and didn’t follow. Didn’t call out to him.
He didn’t know what to say.
Dean snarled as he entered the trees, hating the way that he felt calmer as this small patch of wood closed around him. He tore past the outer ring without looking back: kept moving until he was far enough in that he wouldn’t be visible from the road. Then, with his heart beating too quickly and angry tears fighting past his defenses, he hauled back and slammed his fist against a convenient tree trunk.
He felt his skin split under the impact and was savagely glad. It was easier to concentrate on that sharp pain than on the way his chest felt: hollowed out and aching. He shook his hand out and then looked down at it.
Blood smeared his knuckles, which were already swelling. Blinking away the moisture that blurred his vision, Dean slowly uncurled his fist. He flexed his hand a few times to make sure that everything still worked and then lowered it. Raised his head to stare at the smear of blood he’d left on the tree.
See? Doesn’t care. Doesn’t want. Notpack.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Dean whispered, “Shut up. You’re not even here, damn it.”
That was true—the wolf was still locked in its uneasy slumber—but it didn’t change the fact that he knew what it would say if it was awake. If it had seen.
Didn’t change the fact that it was right.
Dean had finally told Sam—had broken the news as gently as he could manage—and Sam had thrown it back in his face. Had accused Dean of doing this to himself, as if he’d ever be that stupid.
He wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t quite summon up the right emotions. Too much of him believed that he deserved this: for infecting Dad, for letting the skinwalker get a hold of him and pull the amulet free. For not being strong enough to keep the wolf at bay in the first place.
Numb acceptance settled over Dean as he stood there. Fine. Sam knew. Sam knew and he was either going to put a bullet in Dean’s head or leave him. Dean wouldn’t begrudge him either, but he really hoped that Sam picked the bullet. It would save Dean the trouble of doing it himself.
He heard his brother coming from a good ways off; the kid never had put much effort into woodcraft, even before Stanford. Now, after three years of soft living, he was as clumsy as the gangly fawns that Dean sometimes hunted in the wolf dreams. He’d never seen Sam there, and he wondered suddenly what his brother would look like: what color his voice would be.
Then again, he didn’t really want to know.
Sam crashed to a stop behind him, but Dean didn’t turn around. He was too afraid that the adrenaline suddenly flooding his veins would drive him to mark out his frustration and pent up despair onto his brother’s skin.
Or worse: he’d turn and the hatred and disgust curling Sam’s lips would release that final, frail strand tethering him to his humanity. Would send him sprinting over the fields and ripping the amulet from his neck and surrendering to the one creature left in the world that would have him.
Sam’s silence beat the air behind him with muted rage. Dean did his best to ignore it and watched a beetle trundle across the blood-smeared bark. Beetles were blue lightning flares in the wolf dream. Dean had caught one once, and swallowed it. No meat, no blood. It had tasted like air.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Sam said.
A tiny hiccup of anger bubbled through Dean and was gone. He leaned his right shoulder against the tree and hitched his left in a shrug.
“Seriously, man. I mean, you’ve done some dumb shit, but this … Were you even listening to Pastor Jim? Or were you too busy figuring out how to get into Tiffany Foster’s pants to pay attention?”
Dean jaws ached with the effort of swallowing the bitterness that flooded his mouth at his brother’s words.
After a moment, Sam continued, “I always knew you were reckless, but I never thought you were suicidal before. What were you planning on doing when the wolf takes over? Were you gonna make Dad put you down? Does he even know?”
When Dean didn’t answer, Sam repeated, more harshly, “Does he? Dean!”
“Yeah, Dad knows.” Dean didn’t quite recognize his own voice. It was too beaten.
“Is that why he left?” Sam asked. “Did he leave because you—”
“No,” Dean said quickly. “I don’t know why he left.” It was a lie, but he couldn’t give his brother the extra ammunition. Sam was doing well enough on his own without the knowledge that Dean had condemned their father as well.
“You know what? I can’t … I can’t have this conversation with you right now.”
Dean heard Sam turn to go and then his brother’s footsteps were approaching him at something close to a run. Sam changing his mind again, contrary and changeable as always. Dean had time to suck in a breath and then Sam grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around. Gripping Dean’s coat in both hands, he shoved him up against the tree.
“What the fuck were you thinking!” Sam shouted. “How the hell could you do that to yourself?” He pulled Dean forward a bit so that he could shove him back again. His face blurred and Dean felt the hot spill of tears on his cheeks.
“How the hell could you do this to me?” Sam’s voice broke and his hands loosened. “Goddamn it, Dean,” he whispered. Dean knew that if this were the wolf dream he’d be able to taste salt on the air: his own tears and his brother’s, mingling on air that was already rain-thick with moisture and didn’t need any help from them.
“Sam …” he started.
Sam shook his head, dragging in a ragged breath and getting a new, tighter grip on Dean’s coat. “No. I just want—I need you to tell me why. Tell me that you had a reason, man. Tell me this wasn’t just some desperate bid for Dad’s approval.”
Dean blinked, startled. “What?”
“I know … Dean, I know how Dad gets and I know that he … God, the man was constantly telling you that you weren’t fast enough or strong enough and if you … if he asked you to—”
Dean’s tears dried up and he stared at his brother as what Sam was suggesting sunk in. The anger that wouldn’t come on his own behalf surged up now on his father’s. He shoved Sam away and stood there, his hands curling into fists.
“Fuck you, Sam,” he spat. “Fuck you for thinking Dad would do that.”
“Well it’s better than the alternative!” Sam shouted.
“Which is what? Huh, Sam? You think I invited the son of a bitch in for fun? You think I summoned it up so I could get laid?”
“If the shoe fits,” Sam shot back. He dragged his sleeve across his face quickly and then glared at Dean with the same defiant, holier-than-thou look that he’d perfected as a teenager. Dean had seen that look directed at their father hundreds of times, but he’d never been on the receiving end himself before. Now he knew why John had lost his temper so often in those last turbulent years.
Red filmed his vision, thicker than the wash of tears had been, and that was enough to draw him back from the edge. Red was the wolf’s color, not his. Dean wouldn’t let Sam make it his.
“That what you think of me?” he asked quietly, focusing on the throbbing ache in his right hand and letting it ground him.
“Am I wrong?” Sam asked. “You going to tell me I’m wrong when you’ve got that thing around your neck and a time bomb ticking inside you? You didn’t even think about what it was going to do to you, did you? You just charged right in for—for what, Dean? So that you could be Dad’s perfect soldier for a few years before he had to put a bullet in your head?”
And that was it.
“I didn’t invite the fucker in, Sam,” Dean growled.
Sam snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right. It just waltzed right in when you weren’t looking, huh?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Sam looked even angrier, which Dean hadn’t thought possible. “Just because I went to college doesn’t mean that I don’t remember anything about hunting. I know that’s not the way it works, and if you can’t even admit—”
“Yeah, well, it’s what happened to me,” Dean interrupted. “You want to check, you go ahead and call Bobby. He was there when the son of a bitch decided to pop out and say hi.”
Sam stared at him, his lower jaw working, and then gave a curt, sharp nod. “Fine,” he said. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he started dialing and then hesitated.
“What’s wrong? Forget the number?”
Sam shot Dean a heated glance and then went back to glaring at the keypad of his phone. Dean let him stew for a few more moments and then pulled out his own cell with his left hand and tossed it over.
“Bobby’s three on speed dial,” he announced.
Sam didn’t bother thanking him. Just jabbed his finger at the phone twice and then held it up to his ear.
“Bobby? Yeah, it’s me … Thanks, I—I’m doing fine, but I had a few questions …” Sam’s expression shifted, surprise tinting his anger. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “They’re about Dean.”
Dean realized too late that Bobby might out Dad to Sam, which would open a whole new kettle of fish that he didn’t want to get into right now. Too late to do anything about it, though. He slowly unclenched his right hand, wincing a little as it uncurled only reluctantly. He was going to have to ice it tonight. If he was still himself and not crouching feral in the woods somewhere.
“… he said that he didn’t summon it …” Sam said.
Dean forced himself to pay attention. There was a bitter, hurt part of him that was eager for Sam to get handed a fat bundle of reality. That wanted to see that self-righteousness deflate a little.
He knew the instant that Sam believed him. Knew it from the way that Sam’s face went slack with horror and his eyes widened. Sam didn’t even bother saying goodbye to Bobby, just flipped Dean’s phone closed and stood there holding it.
“So,” Dean said coldly. “How’s Bobby?”
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam said faintly.
“You guys have a nice chat?”
“I didn’t know,” Sam whispered. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Yeah, well, you should’ve believed me when I told you!” Dean shouted. He whirled around—couldn’t stand looking at Sam’s numb, shamed face—and stared off through the woods. It wasn’t a thick patch, and he’d come far enough in that he could see the red wood of a farmhouse out the other side. Sheep there maybe, or cattle. Easy pickings.
“So what happened?” Sam asked in a subdued voice from behind him.
“I lit a fire and danced around naked by the moonlight and drank a few pints of rabbit’s blood.”
“Don’t,” Sam pleaded. After a few minutes of awkward silence, he tried again, saying, “The hunt you were telling me about. It wasn’t a werewolf, was it?”
“No. It wasn’t a werewolf.”
Dean drew in a deep, shuddering breath and then started talking. He told Sam about the berserker: about getting sliced up and then waking healed the next morning. About trying to research what had happened at Bobby’s, and the growing restlessness in his skin. About Dad’s decision to go back to hunting. About the goblin hunt and the girl. About the drive back to Bobby’s and the week he spent tied to the bed. About the relief when Bobby finally dropped the amulet around his neck.
Then, rubbed raw by the tumult of his emotions, Dean shut his mouth and waited for his brother’s response.
Sam stood there for a few minutes after Dean stopped talking. He didn’t know if he was giving his brother time to pull himself together or if his guilt was making him hesitant to make any more missteps today. But finally, it became obvious that Dean was willing to stand there silently for as long as Sam let him, and he couldn’t stall any longer.
Clearing his throat, Sam asked, “Is that everything?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
It wasn’t a ‘no’, and Dean had hesitated before he answered, which might have meant nothing and might have meant that he was being evasive. Sam debated whether to pursue it: to push until his brother folded and the rest of his secrets spilled out between them. But in the end, he supposed that it didn’t matter if Dean was putting him off because he was also telling the truth.
For today, for right now, that was more than enough. If there was more, Sam didn’t want to hear it.
Besides, Dean was entitled to a few secrets. Sam was holding back on a doozy himself, wasn’t he?
Not the time, he told himself. He wasn’t sure if he was being genuinely altruistic by not adding to the tangled mess between them, or if he was just too much of a coward to admit that Dean wasn’t the only one who’d been holding back. If he was too afraid that saying things aloud made them true: would bring Jessica’s accusing face back into picture perfect focus.
So he shoved all of that aside and asked, “So how long do you have?”
Dean shrugged and then went over to sit with his back against a silver maple. Keeping his eyes on the ground, he draped his hands over his knees and answered, “Long as the amulet holds out. Bobby’s not sure how long that’ll be. St. Louis didn’t help. It’s—it doesn’t work as well now. I keep having these dreams: can’t block it out.”
St. Louis. Dean’s revelation hadn’t sunk in enough yet for Sam to connect those particular dots, but now that he mentioned it, Sam realized that the wolf must have been loose. It explained the way that Dean looked when he was shooting the skinwalker, and the way he wouldn’t go near Sam until he’d come out of Rebecca’s bathroom with the amulet around his neck again.
It explained Rebecca’s warning.
“What kind of dreams?” Sam asked, his mouth dry.
Dean ran the fingers of his left hand over his knuckles, and Sam noticed for the first time that his brother was hurt; the knuckles of his right hand were painfully swollen and bloodied. Sam’s first instinct was to make sure nothing was broken, but Dean had probably already checked. As much as Sam nagged him for it sometimes, Dean was usually a good judge at just how banged up he’d gotten. The way he was sliding his fingers over his knuckles now suggested that this was a minor injury that could wait while they finished up here.
“Crazy shit,” Dean said. “Hunting, mostly. Bobby says I’m dreaming myself into the son of a bitch’s head, or it’s dreaming itself into mine.”
An uneasy silence fell over them as Sam tried to think of something constructive to say. When he finally realized that nothing was going to come, he settled for, “I’m sorry, man.”
Dean’s head came up. His eyes locked onto Sam’s, and Sam wondered how he could have been so blind. The wolf might have been asleep, but it already had its claws deep enough in Dean that even the simple action of glancing up became something predatory. Something in the way he moved, abrupt and precise. Something in the way his eyes were sharper than they used to be: the way they seemed to see more.
“You’re sorry?” Dean said incredulously. “You think that’s gonna cover it?”
“No, I … no.” Swallowing, Sam continued, “I’m an asshole. I didn’t—those things I said before, I didn’t mean them. I was scared, and angry, and I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.”
God, ‘scared and angry’ didn’t begin to cover it. Sam was still trying to regain his balance after Jessica, and Dean’s announcement had shredded the only constant he had left in his life. Dean was supposed to be invincible, damn it. He took a licking and kept on ticking, just like that stupid pink bunny on TV.
So Sam had panicked, and then he’d gotten angry at how blasé Dean was being, leaning against that tree with his back to Sam and fucking shrugging at him, like that was any kind of answer, and things had spiraled out of control from there.
He’d been so focused on cracking through to the man underneath the façade that he hadn’t even noticed Dean was crying until after. Until he’d been on the phone with Bobby and heard those four words—the wolf chose Dean—and his heart had constricted so violently in his chest that he’d made a choked, hurt noise under his breath. Only then had he seen the drying tear tracks on his brother’s face. Only then had he felt the moisture on his own cheeks, and realized just how much he’d fucked this up.
But by then, of course, it was too late.
Dean was still looking at him, waiting for more, and Sam hastened to say, “I should have believed you, man.”
“Yeah, you should have.” But Dean’s voice held no heat, and he dropped his eyes again. His hurt hand drifted down to the ground and pulled at last year’s layer of leaves.
“I should have known that you would never do something like that,” Sam added. Dean didn’t respond, and Sam had the uneasy feeling that it was because his brother could smell the lie on him.
Maybe he should have known before, when he and Dean were living in each other’s pockets and had known each other well enough that Sam had imagined that that must be what being psychic felt like. But there had been no telepathic flashes, no dreaming premonitions. He’d just known Dean well enough to read the slightest twitch of his expression: to catch the change in his brother’s mood by the way that Dean held his head. Words had been unnecessary, used only to include Dad or to communicate with strangers.
Back then, before Stanford—before that last, painful conversation—Sam had been unflinching in his certainty that Dean would never in a million years have anything to do with the supernatural. Nothing that didn’t include a shotgun or a flask of holy water, that was. All of Dean’s energy that wasn’t directed toward protecting Sam or playing Dad’s perfect soldier went toward hating that world.
But the brother Sam had left in that dusty Texas parking lot wasn’t the same one who had showed up at Palo Alto. He was traveling around with someone who walked and talked like Dean, but who felt like someone else inside. Someone that he’d been trying to fall back in step with and failing.
It was true: Sam never would have suspected Dean of messing around with supernatural forces before Stanford. But now, with Dean hiding himself and Sam’s own secrets standing between them, he couldn’t be sure what his brother was capable of any more.
How could he, when he didn’t know what he was capable of himself?
“We’ll figure something out,” Sam offered finally, trying to ease the wounded slope of his brother's shoulders. He felt ludicrous, like a man offering a Band-Aid to someone who’d just had their leg blown off, but it was all he had. “There has to be a way to get it out. A ritual, or a spell, or—”
“You don’t think Bobby’s looked? You don’t think I have? There’s nothing, Sam. I’m fucked and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do about it.” Dean drew in a deep breath, lifting his hand back into his lap. Then he plunged on, “But I’m not so far gone that I don’t care about dragging you down with me. If you wanted to split up, I’d understand.”
“What?” Sam blinked. Dean thought he wanted to leave? And miss out on what little there was left of his brother’s life? Leave Dean to face this thing alone? “Of course I don’t want to split up.”
Dean’s shrug was a declaration of disbelief. “Whatever. I’m just saying that if you did, I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Dean. I’m not leaving.” Not until they’d found Dad. Not until they’d hunted down the son of a bitch that had murdered Jessica and found some way to get the wolf out of his brother.
There was a way. There had to be.
“Maybe you should,” Dean said softly. “I’m not safe. Especially not for you.”
When he raised his head this time, Sam thought he could catch a glimpse of the wolf inside his brother’s eyes and he had to bite his tongue to keep from backing up. Dean’s lips quirked up into a sardonic smile like he could see the effort it took for Sam to stand still.
“It doesn’t like you much,” he said.
Sam’s mouth went dry and it took several attempts at swallowing before he could croak out, “You wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You sure about that, Sammy?” Dean asked.
He was just sitting there, not offering any threats of violence, and Sam’s muscles still trembled with the sudden need to run for the car. He felt naked: defenseless without a weapon.
Dean wouldn’t hurt him, that much he was still certain of, but the wolf … there was no telling what the wolf might do. No telling except for his brother’s warning, and there had been a weight to Dean’s words that told Sam he couldn’t dismiss this lightly. It made him wonder, suddenly, if there was a reason that the skinwalker had targeted him in St. Louis: something beyond Dean’s manifold issues of abandonment and betrayal.
Something bristling and snarling, its yellow eyes blazing in a warning to get away from what was rightfully its to claim.
There was just too much of the wolf in Dean’s eyes, now that Sam knew what to look for, for him to feel completely safe.
It was going to be a cold day in hell before he contributed any more to the self-doubt and hatred he saw darkening his brother’s face, though, so Sam opened his mouth and said, “Yeah, I am.”
Dean smiled up at him with weary, self-deprecating amusement. “Bullshit.”
Sam shifted under the weight of Dean's stare, reminded startlingly of the way that the lions in the San Francisco Zoo had watched him when he took Jessica there on their fourth date. How willfully blind he’d been not to see it before.
“Come on, man,” he said awkwardly, dropping his eyes. “Let’s get back to the car and patch your hand up.”
“I’m fine,” came the expected response.
Sam nodded jerkily, blinking away the tears that threatened. Dean wasn’t fine, not at all. He was living with what amounted to a death sentence over his head, and unless they found a way to get the wolf out of him, or found Dad before it slipped its leash, then Sam was going to have to be the one to carry it out.
Over by the tree, Dean sighed and pushed himself back to his feet. “Do we have to talk about this any more?” he asked.
Sam tightened his jaw and shook his head. He knew that there was probably more to say—knew that this revelation would thrust his usual nightmares to the back of his head for tonight at least—but he couldn’t take any more right now.
“Okay, then,” Dean said. He was building his walls again, and shoring them up with iron from within, but Sam could still hear a trace of pain in the hoarse, choked quality of his brother’s voice.
He wanted to offer some reassurance: a sign that he still trusted Dean, despite the thing lurking underneath his skin. But his brother wouldn’t welcome a hug, and he wasn’t wolf enough to understand the baring of Sam’s throat.
In the end, Sam settled for moving ahead of Dean as they walked back to the car and giving his brother his back. Dean didn't acknowledge the peace offering: maybe didn't notice it. Silence grated between them like twisted shards of metal, broken only by the distant rush of cars along the highway. Whatever headway they’d made toward relearning each other lay bloody and torn and painfully obvious on the ground behind them.
By the time they left the woods, the back of Sam's neck was slick with a cold sweat. His skin itched and burned with the need to turn around and look over his shoulder. He could lie to Dean as often as he needed to, but it seemed that he couldn’t lie to himself.
Sam trusted his brother with his life: always would.
The only problem was that wasn’t Dean behind him.
Not completely.
Not any more.