Work Text:
Dean closes the door tightly behind him as he enters their room in the Willow Tree Motel.
He hears Sam get up from his spot at the table by the door and dutifully ignores him, moving towards his duffel, then the closet. Flannel. Jacket. Fold, stuff, move.
"Dean, what are you doing?" Sam's voice is hesitant. Dean can see him standing there in his peripheral, too unsure to be so tall.
"What are you— are you leaving?" He takes a step closer and Dean keeps shoving things in his duffel. Jacket. Shirt. Socks.
"You don't need me," Dean's heart thuds in his chest vaguely nauseatingly. It's been happening more since he got dragged out of the grave like a bad Jason Todd impression. "You and Ruby go fight Demons."
"Hold on, Dean, just—" Dean whips around, eyes hard despite their growing blur and stares at his baby brother.
"Do you even know how far off the reservation you've gone?"
Sam looks away, jaw clenching. He looks back.
"How far from normal?" Dean presses. "From human?"
"I'm just exorcising demons—"
"With your mind!"
Sam says nothing and Dean shakes his head disbelievingly. Castiel's voice ringing through his head — Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean—
"What else can you do?" Dean tries to make his voice hard but it wavers. Sam's wearing a stupid vacation shirt he hasn't seen before. He must've got it sometime in Dean's tenure down under.
"I can send them back to Hell," Sam's voice is tight, edging on desperation. Dean stares. "It only works with Demons, and that's it—"
"That's it." Dean echoes. His chest feels tight. Like it did when he woke up underground in a pine box with six feet of dirt between him and air. Like it did when he saw Sam's hand raised over a man screaming, congealing black mass thrashing around the convenience store floorboards after his brother told him never again. Dean turns back toward the door.
"Look, I should have said something," Sam follows after him, frantic. "I'm sorry, Dean, I am. But try to see the other side here—"
"The other side?" Dean's voice rises, his ribs are pine wood and Sammy's hair is longer.
"I'm pulling demons out of innocent people—"
"Use the knife!"
"The knife kills the victim!" Sam's brows are furrowed, desperation in the set of his jaw. "What I do, most of them survive!"
Fuck. Dean stares. The angel on his shoulder feels more like a noose.
"Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year."
Dean swallows, rough, dry. Sam's hair is longer and he can hear Ruby's voice, Lilith's voice, above him — Sic em, boys —
"Sam, you have this— this power because of him." He's desperate. "Slippery slope, Sam. You know this. Because it's gonna get darker and darker, and God knows where it ends—"
"I'm not gonna let it go too far—" Dean scoffs, turning away. He feels a wild thrumming under his skin, panic, a thrashing wild helplessness he's tried to blunt all his life with all he could.
"What happened to my dying wish, huh?" Dean spits. He feels sick. Vitriolic and scraped raw.
Sam swallows. Dean can see his eyes are shining.
"You were gone," Sam's eyes flutter like they always have when he's about to cry but trying to stamp it down. "I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you."
Dean's chest is pine wood and his heart is a hummingbird beneath his ribs. His eyes are hard and Sammy's are soft.
"And what I'm doing," Sam shakes his head. "It works."
"Well tell me," Dean's voice is rough. "If it's so terrific, then why'd you lie about it to me?"
Sam looks away. Silence.
"Why did an angel tell me to stop you?"
Sam looks up, eyes sharp again. "What?"
"Cas said that if I don't stop you, he will." Dean can feel his eyes burning and he hopes to God Sam will just listen for once.
"See, what that means, Sam—" God, he's desperate. "— is that God doesn't want you to do this. So you're just gonna stand there and tell me everything's all good?"
Sam's face is drawn tight, lost, hurt. Dean wants to press him to his chest like when they were kids but Sammy's too tall for that now. The collar of his stupid vacation shirt is turned the wrong way. Dean's fingers twitch.
Sam's cellphone rings and Dean stares as Sam grabs a notepad. He stares, and stares, and he eventually has to look up at the ceiling fan of the Willow Tree Motel so his eyes don't spill over too soon.