Stare Decisis
K Hanna Korossy

"That time when I couldn't sleep and I was losing my mind."

Sam's words broke several minutes of silence. Dean was wincing over his bruises—for a dead nun, Isabella had obviously packed a punch—while Sam had been thinking furiously. Because he wasn't letting their conversation end with Dean's hopelessness.

Dean gave a slow blink, apparently taking a moment to register the non sequitur. "What?"

"And when I didn't have my soul."

His brother's confusion deepened into wrinkles across his forehead. "Are you listing our greatest hits? Because—"

"And when I was dying from the Trials," Sam continued, unperturbed.

"Sam, what the—?"

Sam never looked at him, eyes on the road. "After Azazel killed Jess. Oh, and then after Dick Roman killed Bobby."

"This walk down Memory Lane have a point?" Dean growled.

"Every time. Every single time, we had no plan, no idea where to even start. Every single time, it looked like a death sentence, or worse. And sometimes I just wanted to give up." Sam finally looked. "But you wouldn't let me, man. Not once."

Dean's jaw was bunched; he had to see where this was going now.

Sam softened his tone. "And we did it. We saved the world from Azazel, and the Leviathan, and Eve. You got my soul out of the Cage and got me through the Trials and brought me back from the dead and from insanity. Dude, you're the only guy in history who broke out of Hell and Purgatory. Dean Freakin' Winchester."

Dean rolled his eyes, but there was finally some color in his cheeks again.

"So, seriously. This is what you think is gonna take you down?" He nodded at Dean's arm and the Mark hidden there.

Dean shifted in his seat with a grimace. "Are you done?"

"Are you hearing me?"

"Yes, okay? I'm a badass, and you worship the ground I walk on."

"Yes," Sam said deadpan. "That's exactly what I said." But it sorta was.

Dean squirmed again, and sighed his resignation as Sam held out the bottle of painkillers he'd offered him not ten minutes before. Dean shook out a couple of pills this time and dry-swallowed them before Sam could dig out a bottle of water from under the seat.

Another minute of silence. Then, quietly from the passenger side, "I hear you, Sammy."

This was the first time it felt like he meant it. Sam's shoulders got a little less tight. It wasn't mission accomplished, but as long as they were both on track again, that was enough for now.

"You shoulda been a lawyer," Dean muttered as he subsided into his seat.

"No," Sam said with fierce satisfaction. "I was meant to be a hunter."

The End