Contains dialogue from the episode 'Dream a Little Dream of Me', it belongs to Eric Kripke, Cathryn Humphris, and Sera Gamble.

Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)

All the note Sam left says is that he's at the bar. The bar, which is exactly the opposite of helpful because there are dozens of bars in this town. He might as well have not left a note at all, for how hard it's going to be to find him. Normally Dean would've just turned the TV on and waited for Sam to come home – he's a big boy, Dean knows he can take care of himself and he doesn't need to go running after him everywhere like when Sam was a kid – but it's the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and Sam doesn't actually like bars, so the only conclusion he can draw is that Sam went wherever he went to get away from Dean. Which, obviously, means Dean has to do the exact opposite of what Sam would want him to do, and go find him. He's the older brother, it's in his job description.

It takes him almost an hour. He passes over the trendier looking places, knowing Sam would opt for a dive where he had a better chance of being left alone. Sam's pouty like that sometimes, and sometimes Dean has to remind himself that Sam isn't fifteen anymore because sometimes he sure acts like it. Dean asks probably ten different bartenders if they've seen a tall guy with floppy brown hair and a sullen expression, and none of them have. He gets four phone numbers out of it, so it's not a complete waste of time, even if Dean has no intention of actually calling any of them. Eventually, Dean flings open the door of a place called Woody's and glances around the room briefly before he catches sight of Sam. He's sitting at the bar with his back to the door, hunched over with a half-full glass in his hand. Dean doesn't even need Sam's tense shoulders and down-trodden posture to know something is wrong, because he and Dad and Bobby always taught Sam to never sit with his back to a door. Especially when he's alone.

He walks over to Sam, breathing a tiny sigh of relief that his brother is okay but mostly pissed at him for taking off like that. "There you are. What're you doing?"

Sam looks up at him slowly, his eyes vacant like for a second he's not sure who Dean is. Then he shrugs defensively and slurs, "Havin' a drink."

Dean frowns. "It's two in the afternoon. You drinkin' whiskey?"

He shrugs again and widens his eyes, the bitch-face Dean knows all too well taking over Sam's features. "I drink whiskey all the time."

"No, you don't!"

"Wha's the big deal? You get sloppy in bars and hit on chicks all the time, why can't I?"

Ignoring the fact that Dean is physically the closest person to Sam right now by several yards, Dean glances around at the mostly middle-aged clientele and scoffs, "It's kinda slim pickins around here."

Sam looks over at a group of women sitting together across the bar, and his face falls. Like he's sad for them because Dean doesn't think they're hot. Dean nearly rolls his eyes.

"What's goin' on with you?" he asks.

Sam's face falls even more, collapses almost, and Dean watches as his lip starts quivering and his eyes go shiny. "I tried, Dean," he mumbles.

Dean glances around again, not entirely sure what Sam's talking about. Dean really, really hopes Sam doesn't mean he tried to hit on any of the women in here who are all easily old enough to be Sam's mother. "To do what?"

"To save you," Sam barely whispers, his eyes filling with tears.

Dean sighs, his heart sinking. The drink in Sam's hand is definitely not his first of the afternoon, and Sam always did get emotional when he drank. Dean sits down on the stool next to Sam and nods at the bartender. "Can I get a whiskey? Double, neat."

"M'serious, Dean."

"No, you're drunk."

Sam ignores him. "I mean, where you're goin' … what you're gonna become …"

Dean doesn't know how Sam found out about what he's gonna become because Dean certainly didn't tell him. Ruby must have. Dean's going to ring her neck. He never wanted Sam to know about that.

"I can't stop it," Sam barrels on, the consonants of his words smoother than they would be if he was sober. "M'startin' to think maybe even Ruby can't stop it."

Dean doesn't answer. He didn't want Sam to know that either. He really wanted his brother to be able to keep holding on to that little bit of hope Ruby gave him, even if it's all lies.

"But really, the thing is, no one can save you."

"That's what I've been tellin' you," Dean says emotionlessly.

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean no one can save you because you don't want to be saved. I mean, how can you care so little about yourself?" Sam asks sadly. "What's wrong with you?"

Dean exhales. He has no idea what to say to that, but then his cell phone rings and he doesn't have to. He holds it up to his ear and answers, "Hello?"

"Hi," a female voice says tentatively. "Is this, um, Mr. Sniderson?"

Dean frowns a little. He can't remember what he used that name for. "Yes, this is Mr. Sniderson."

"I'm calling from the Allegheny General Hospital. We have a Mr. Bobby Singer here. He's in a coma, and you're listed as his emergency contact."

"What?" Dean cries. "Where?"

"We're located at 320 East North Avenue – "

"What city?" Dean interrupts loudly.

"Oh. Uh, Pittsburgh."

Dean hangs up on her without bothering to say how long it'll take them to get there. Even if Dean drives like a crazy person it'll be a few hours, and that's too long.

"What?" Sam asks, his eyes wide.

"Bobby. Hospital in Pittsburgh." He reaches into his pocket for his wallet and tosses a couple bills down onto the bar for both of their drinks, even though his hasn't come yet.

"He's hurt?"

"I don't know." Dean hooks his arm under Sam's elbow and helps him stand. "C'mon, kiddo, we gotta go."

Sam lets Dean pull him a few steps toward the door, and then he stops and digs his heels in. "Wait."

"What?" Dean asks exasperatedly.

"We gonna finish this conversation first?"

Dean gapes at him. "Sam, Bobby is in the hospital. You think maybe we could talk about this later?"

"If he's in the hospital then he's gonna be okay," Sam reasons, even as he struggles to pull his arm out of Dean's grasp. "He's with doctors. Getting there ten minutes sooner won't help anything. You just don't wanna talk to me."

For a moment, Dean closes his eyes. He just wants to get to Bobby as fast as he can, because for all he knows it could be something supernatural and a doctor won't know how to help him in the way Dean could. But another part of him can't take Sam looking so sad, so broken. "Sammy," he starts slowly, but Sam leans forward into Dean's space, his hands shaking where they're gripping Dean's shirt.

"You can't go," Sam mutters, not so drunk that he won't remember all this once he sleeps it off but probably drunk enough that he doesn't have complete control over what he's saying.

"Sam, look around you. Okay? Do you see where we are?" Dean says, quietly but firmly. He glances to his left and finds the bartender and a couple of the patrons watching them warily. "This isn't the place to talk about this, alright?"

"Then where is? Nowhere is, you never wanna talk to me anymore. You're just leaving me, and you don' even care."

Dean presses his lips together. It makes him feel sick to think that Sam really believes that. "Come on," he says again, gentler this time, taking Sam's arm and leading him outside. He helps Sam into the passenger's side of the Impala, making sure he doesn't hit his head and then nudging Sam's knee over so he won't hit it with the door.

"Dean," Sam mumbles thickly, and against Dean's better judgment, he lets Sam pull him down into a messy kiss that tastes mostly like Jack Daniels.

"We'll talk about this later, okay? After we make sure Bobby's alright," Dean says into Sam's lips. He's lying, but hopefully Sam won't remember it anyway.

"You promise?" Sam asks, sounding about five years old, and Dean nods.

"Yeah." He kisses Sam on the forehead and then he shuts the door, and Sam immediately slumps against it.

Dean sighs heavily, rubbing his hands over his face, and then he shoves everything away and walks around to the driver's side of the car. It'll take him all night to get to Pittsburgh so the sooner he starts driving, the sooner he'll have something to distract him from how desperate that kiss felt.

This time, Dean might actually kill Bela. He can't believe she stole the Colt. The best weapon they have, the one they need more than anything else, and now it's gone. He doesn't care anymore that she's human. When he sees her, he's going to wrestle the Colt out of her hands and then he's going to use it to put a bullet between her eyes.

He's also not going to tell Sam about what the other Dean said to him while they were under. How he taunted him, talked about how low Dean's self-worth is, said that Dean didn't have any thoughts of his own, that he was just Dad's good little soldier whose only purpose in life is to look out for Sam. Dean already knew all that; he doesn't know why it hurt so much to hear it said out loud. And Sam would just look at him with those sad eyes and want to talk about it until he could convince Dean he's wrong about himself, and Dean isn't anywhere close to being in the mood for that. He's worried about what Sam might have seen once they got separated, though, and even though he doesn't really want to know he has to ask.

"Hey Sam, I was wonderin'," he starts as they're loading up the trunk. "When you were in my head, what did you see?"

"Uh, just Jeremy. He kept me separated from you. Easier to beat my brains out that way, I guess," Sam says with a small laugh. Dean can't quite tell if Sam's being honest or not. "What about you? You never said."

"Nothin'," Dean lies. "I was lookin' for you the whole time."

Sam probably doesn't believe him, but thankfully he lets it go. They climb into the car, and it makes Dean feel all kinds of things inside that he doesn't want to, but he forces himself to voice out loud what's been going through his mind.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I've been doing some thinking, and … well, the thing is … I don't wanna die." He can see Sam's expression soften out of the corner of his eye. "I don't wanna go to Hell."

Sam nods, and whispers. "Alright. Yeah. We'll find a way to save you."

Dean looks up at him, and there's something in Sam's eyes – determination, maybe, and love, definitely – that makes Dean feel like everything that's going on in his head right now is okay. He still won't tell Sam how scared he is, but he could, and Sam wouldn't judge him. As much as Dean tries to resist it sometimes because of the voices in his own head telling him he doesn't deserve it, the truth is Sam loves him. And the other truth is, Dean needs it. He needs Sam to love him because it's the only thing that makes all of Dean's short-comings and failures stop mattering, even if only for a while. Sam is the one ray of light in Dean's life. The Dean in the dream was wrong about one thing. Dean doesn't resent that Dad made Sam his responsibility. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair but Dean doesn't wish he could change it. More than anything, more than Dean not wanting to go to Hell, he doesn't want to leave Sammy up here alone. He can't. Taking care of Sam is his job, and Dean doesn't intend to give up on it.

"Okay. Good."

Sam smiles at him a little bit, and Dean tries really hard to focus on that instead of the memories of the dream as he starts up the Impala's engine and pulls her onto the road.

"So, you wanna tell me about Lisa?" Sam asks quietly, after they've been driving for maybe twenty minutes. "Since we're sharing, and all?"

Dean had had a small smile on his face, just from being in his baby and having Sam there next to him and good tunes filtering through the speakers, but it fades a little at Sam's question. He really, really wishes Sam hadn't seen that. He feels kinda crappy about it. "You … uh. What do you wanna know?"

"You have that dream a lot?"

"I told you I'd never had it before."

"Yeah, I know you did. And obviously you were lying, otherwise you wouldn't have said anything at all."

Dean sighs. "Look, Sammy, I …"

"I understand, you know," Sam says gently.

"No, you don't. That wasn't what it looked like. It's not like I wanna be with her or something, okay? I'm really happy with you. That's the truth."

"I know. I didn't think that."

"Then why did you ask?"

"'Cause …" Sam exhales, looking away from Dean and out the window briefly and then back to him. "'Cause you were weird about it. Seemed like maybe you felt guilty about it or something. And I just wanted you to know you shouldn't."

Dean chews on his bottom lip for a moment before he answers. "Alright, so, I've had it a few times. Or something similar. But not that much."

"Dean, I'm telling you it's okay. She's your what-if girl. Everyone has one."

Dean frowns and looks over at his brother. "My what?"

"Your what-if girl," Sam repeats. "The girl you always remember, the one you imagine when you think … what if things were different."

Dean takes a second to absorb that. He's never heard of that before, even though Sam says it like it's a real thing, but in a way it makes a little bit of sense. "Do you have one?"

He has an idea of who Sam's going to say before he does. "Sarah."

"You could've had her, you know," Dean points out.

"I didn't want her," Sam says simply, and Dean frowns even more.

"Why?"

"Because things aren't different. That's the whole point."

Dean shakes his head. "That makes no sense."

"You could've had Lisa." Sam looks at him while he talks, and Dean watches the road but he glances at Sam every few seconds. There's something both soft and intense in Sam's hazel-green eyes. "Twice. Two separate times, you chose me over her. Do you regret that? Do you wish you hadn't?"

For a moment, Dean actually thinks about it, because he wants to be sure. And it's the truth when he says, "No."

Sam nods. He doesn't say anything else, but after a minute he reaches over and takes Dean's hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing it. Dean squeezes his fingers around Sam's and then for a while they drive in comfortable silence. Dean still feels like shit inside over all the other things that happened while he was asleep, but at least he doesn't have to worry about Sam thinking Dean's been wishing he could be with Lisa all this time. It's one thing off his mind, and it helps, even if only a little.

"So, c'mon. Tell me," he says eventually, changing the subject to a lighter topic because he's tired of being so damn angsty all the time.

Sam frowns. "Tell you what?"

"Who you were dreaming about, the other day."

Sam rolls his eyes, and groans, "Dean."

"C'mon, you think I care? It was a dream, Sam. It's not like you were cheating on me."

Sam sighs and doesn't answer, so Dean pokes him in the arm.

"Sammy," he whines, being intentionally irritating and putting three or four more m's in Sam's nickname than would usually be there.

"If you don't care, why do you wanna know so bad?"

"Because I'm curious. And because you were – like, moaning. It was sexy." He waggles his eyebrows and Sam groans again and closes his eyes, his cheeks blooming bright red.

"Fine. Fine! It was Bela."

Dean blinks. "Bela? The British, Colt-stealing, constantly-messing-with-us Bela?

"Yep," Sam mumbles. "So what, you gonna bust my chops now?"

"I …" Dean laughs and shakes his head. "No. Just kind of an odd choice, since, y'know, she's a total bitch who's screwed us over so many times in the last few months I've lost count. Including today."

"Yeah, well." Sam shrugs and shifts a little in his seat like he's uncomfortable. "We weren't exactly talking."

"You dog!" Dean exclaims, reaching over and clapping Sam on the chest. "I guess she is kinda hot, if you can look past the fact that she's pure evil."

"It was a dream," Sam says, rolling his eyes. "I'm not plannin' on proposing."

"Oh man. I would not come to that wedding."

"You wouldn't come to my wedding?" Sam asks loudly. "Jerk."

"Your imaginary wedding? Definitely not."

"You're still a jerk," Sam says, but he doesn't sound mad at all. When Dean looks over at him, he thinks Sam might be fighting to hold back a smile.

"And you aren't quite as vanilla as I thought."

"I fuck you, don't I?"

Dean laughs again. "Yes you do. So tell me about it. Was it hot? How was her rack?"

"You woke me up before I could see it." Sam presses his lips together, definitely trying not to smile now.

"Damn. Next time I won't."

Sam shakes his head and doesn't say anything in response, and Dean keeps on chuckling. It feels good to just sit here in the car laughing with Sam, even if it's about something stupid like a sex dream Sam had. It's been way too long since things have felt so normal between them. And, for the first time since the night he made the deal, Dean actually believed Sam when he said they'd find a way to keep him from going to Hell. Dean's never been a very optimistic person because it almost always comes back to bite him. But right now, for the first time in a long time, he feels like just maybe everything will turn out okay.