Contains dialogue from the episode Metamorphosis, it belongs to Eric Kripke and Cathryn Humphris.

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. :)

Dean doesn't know what exactly he was expecting to find at the address Cas gave him, but it sure as shit wasn't what he does find. Sam's standing in front of a man tied up in a chair – a demon, it looks like, and Dean can't hear what they're saying but he gets the gist. He has no idea what Sam does or how in the hell he does it, but the black smoke spills from the demon's mouth and fades away without Sam even touching him. Sam doesn't speak, it isn't an exorcism. It's something he's doing with his mind. Some kind of power he has now that he conveniently forgot to tell Dean about. Dean is equal parts furious and terrified. Sam just pulled a demon from a human body by just wishing it. Cas saying Sam's powers have evolved is maybe the biggest understatement of Dean's life. He knows Sam has some kinda psychic thing, with the visions and everything, but he thought those were gone. And having premonitions is pretty damn far from being able to pull a demon out of a person by just willing it to happen. Dean has no clue what he's supposed to do with that information. He feels physically ill.

He storms in and gets in their faces about it because it's the only thing he can think of to do. He's so livid he thinks there might actually be steam coming out of his ears like in a cartoon. Sam looks like a deer trapped in the headlights – and yeah, it really, really sucks that he's been keeping all this from Dean for almost a month – and the girl is Ruby, and of course it is. Dean should have guessed that. She always was way too interested in Sam. He'd been under the assumption that she was dead, but then when he thinks about it he realizes he never had any evidence to support that. And Dean does recognize her from that motel in Illinois, like Cas said he would, but Dean thought she was just a one-night-stand. He thought Sam was sleeping with her, because that's what Sam led him to believe. Sam lied about her, right to Dean's face. Dean would be more than willing to bet this was her plan all along. He should have sent her lying, scheming, skank ass back to Hell the second she showed up last year. She probably never had any intention of helping them keep Dean from going to Hell, she just said that to get closer to Sam. She used Dean's death to take advantage of Sam, to make him trust her, and now she's got him so twisted up he's doing … this.

This is not what Dean wanted. He made the deal to save Sam's life. He did not get torn to pieces by a hellhound and sent into the pit, tied up and carved into endlessly for forty years, until his body was confetti, until agony was the only feeling he knew, until he'd screamed his throat raw, just so Sam could live and become this. Whatever the fuck this is. So Sam could sneak around with a demon and end up on the angel no-fly-list. He wanted Sam to live, to hunt, to grow old. Hell was nothing like Dean expected. It was a billion times worse in every possible way. He can't even think about it without breaking down, can't look at himself in the mirror without loathing every cell in his body for what he did down there to save his own cowardly, worthless ass. But it was all supposed to be worth it. It was supposed to be for Sam. Dean's ultimate sacrifice, for the only person he's ever wanted to sacrifice anything for. And Sam took the gift Dean gave him and threw it right back in his face.

Dean wants to slice Ruby up like sushi right then and there, but Sam doesn't let him. Sam defends her, and Dean just leaves, because if he doesn't he's going to do or say something he'll regret. Or maybe both. But he fumes as he drives away. He's never been this furious in his whole life. He's also never wanted to find a hunt so much before. Something that would die good and bloody, something he could really get his hands into. Ripping a vampire or a werewolf a lifetime of new-ones would probably feel pretty fantastic right now. So would beating the pretty right off his brother's stupid face. In that moment, Dean hates him.

He drives in circles around the small, unfamiliar town until he gets lost. Then he locates a street he recognizes, gets his bearings, and then drives until he's lost a second time. Eventually there's nothing left for Dean to do but go back to the motel, but the time alone with his baby didn't calm him down the way he hoped it would. He's still furious. He parks the car and slams its door behind himself so forcefully the hinges groan and the scrape of metal on metal is almost like his girl whimpering in pain, and he doesn't even care. He can see Sam's silhouette through the sheer curtains in the window – sitting at the table and bent over what's probably a book. Somehow, that makes a good chunk of the anger deflate right out of Dean. He's been driving around trying not to shout at the top of his lungs in frustration, and Sam's just sitting there reading like nothing's even wrong.

Dean doesn't want to hit him anymore. He never wants to see him again.

He goes right for his duffel when he steps casually into the motel room, purposely avoiding eye contact with Sam and focusing on locating his meager belongings and stuffing them into the old bag.

"Dean, what are you doing?" Sam asks.

Dean ignores him.

"What, are you – are you leaving?"

"You don't need me," Dean tells him bitterly. That much is obvious, especially considering Sam replaced him with a god-damn demon the second Dean was dragged down to Hell. As if Dean never meant a thing to him in the first place. "You and Ruby go fight demons."

He starts to walk back towards the door, and Sam grabs his elbow to stop him.

"Hold on. Dean, come on, man," he says, like Dean's the one who's being irrational.

Dean's blood boils with anger, so he whips around and swings, a full 360 set-up, socking Sam right in the jaw as hard as he possibly can. Sam whirls around with the force of it, hunched over on himself, and pain blooms up Dean's arm but it was more than worth it.

"You satisfied?" Sam asks sarcastically, standing back up after a moment, and Dean isn't even close to satisfied so he hits him again. Sam stumbles back for a second time, and then wipes blood off his lip when he stands back up. "I guess not."

"Do you even know how far off the reservation you've gone?" Dean asks, glaring at his brother so hard his eyes hurt. "How far from normal? From human?"

"I'm just exorcising demons," Sam protests weakly.

"With your mind!" Dean shouts. "What else can you do?"

"I can send them back to Hell. It only works with demons, and that's it."

Dean doesn't buy it for a second. He grabs the front of Sam's shirt and pushes him backwards, getting right in his face and yelling, "What else can you do?!"

"I told you!" Sam cries, shoving Dean away.

"And I have every reason to believe that." Dean turns away from him because if he has to look at Sam's stupid, beautiful, infuriating face for one more second he's going to punch it again.

"Look, I should have said something," Sam starts, while Dean walks a few steps away. "I'm sorry, Dean. I am. But try to see the other side, here."

Dean turns around to face him. Something has gone wrong in Sam. Really, really wrong. Dean knows his brother. Knows him better than he knows himself. And the person standing in front of him right now is not Sam. Not even close. "The other side?"

"I'm pulling demons out of innocent people!"

"Use the knife!"

"The knife kills the victim! What I do, most of 'em survive!"

Dean just stares at him. Something has gone seriously wrong in Sam. Dean doesn't care if this person looks and sounds and feels like Sam, the person standing in front of Dean right now is not his little brother. He knows that person. Knows him better than he knows himself. And this isn't Sam.

"Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year!" not-Sam continues, as if that's supposed to make it better.

"That what Ruby wants you to think?" Dean asks unkindly. "Huh? Kind of like the way she tricked you into using your powers? Slippery slope, brother. Just wait and see. 'Cause it's gonna get darker and darker, and God knows where it ends."

"I'm not gonna let it go too far," Sam insists, and if Dean wasn't so pissed off he'd be laughing.

He walks another few steps away and sweeps the lamp violently off the night-table, sending it flying toward the wall and smashing into pieces when it connects.

"It's already gone too far, Sam! If I didn't know you? I would wanna hunt you. And so would other hunters." Dean's not sure he quite means that, but the wounded look on Sam's face is a hundred times more satisfying than the punches were.

"You were gone," Sam mumbles, emotions puncturing his voice and his eyes filled with tears. "I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you."

Something's gone wrong in Dean too, because before Hell, that look on Sam's face would have slayed him. He would've had Sam in his arms so fast both their heads would spin, would've said he was sorry and that he'd make everything okay again somehow. Right now? He's just happy Sam hurt so much. He's happy Sam was broken after Dean died. So maybe Dean isn't Dean anymore either.

"And what I'm doing … it works."

"Well tell me, if it's so terrific, then why'd you lie about it?" Dean asks. Sam doesn't answer, so he continues, "Why did an angel tell me to stop you?"

Sam looks up in surprise. "What?"

"Cas said that if I don't stop you, he will. See, what that means, Sam? That means that God doesn't want you doing this. So are you just gonna stand there and tell me everything is all good?"

Sam blinks back tears and stares at Dean like he's suddenly terrified, but then his phone rings and cuts their conversation short. It's a hunt. So, good. Maybe stringing some monster up with its own intestines will make Dean feel better about all this.

In what's maybe the world's tiniest silver-living, a little piece of the old Sam does surface during the hunt. He believes the monster they're hunting can be saved, can choose not to be what he is, and it's so classic Sam that it makes Dean all achy and nostalgic for times gone by. But he suspects Sam wants to think the guy can fight what's inside him because then Sam might be able to do the same thing, and Dean doesn't want him drawing that parallel. Sam is a lot of things, and he's clearly made some bad choices since Dean's been gone, but he isn't a monster. Not yet, anyway.

"You sure your emotions aren't getting in the way, here?" Dean asks him, when Sam brings it up in the car on their way over to the guy's house.

Sam frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, nice dude, but he's got something evil inside. Something in his blood. Maybe you can relate." Dean looks over at him, and Sam's face darkens.

"Stop the car," he grinds out.

"What?" Dean asks.

"Stop the car, or I will!" Sam yells.

He isn't kidding, so Dean pulls over to the wide gravel shoulder on the other side of the road. Sam's up and out of his seat before the car's even stopped moving.

"You wanna know why I've been lying to you, Dean? Because of crap like this."

"Like what?" Dean asks defensively.

"The way you talk to me!" Sam storms past him as he rants. "The way you look at me, like I'm a freak!"

"I do not," Dean protests, but Sam ignores him.

"Or even worse, like I'm an idiot. Like I don't know the difference between right and wrong!"

He steps back and turns away from Dean. Dean stares at Sam's back, not sure exactly what he's supposed to say to that when he can't very well tell Sam he's wrong. Sam turns back around after a moment, and Dean looks away, down at the ground.

"What?" Sam snaps.

Dean sighs and looks back up. "Do you know the difference, Sam? I mean, you've been kinda strolling a dark road lately."

"You have no idea what I'm going through," Sam says angrily. "None."

"Then enlighten me!"

"I've got demon blood in me, Dean!" Sam explodes. Dean can't remember the last time he saw Sam this angry. It's been years, even before the forty from Hell. "This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean!"

The way he says it makes Dean think he's already tried to do both those things; the thought makes him sick.

"I'm a whole new level of freak!" Sam continues. "And I'm just trying to take this – this curse … and make something good out of it! Because I have to."

He sighs and looks away, and Dean watches him for a moment. He gets it, sort of, but Cas said Sam had to be stopped and Dean doesn't know what to think anymore. It scared him right to his core when he found out what Yellow-Eyes did to his little brother, and to find out that Sam's known for a whole year and has been dealing with it on his own instead of letting Dean in … it sucks too much to even think about. Sam's always been so perfect in Dean's eyes, regardless of all the ways he isn't, and Dean hates to think Sam thinks he's tainted in some way.

"Let's just go talk to the guy," Dean says eventually, and Sam scoffs at his choice of pronoun. "I mean Jack. Okay?"

Sam nods minutely after a moment, but then he doesn't make any move toward the car.

"Sam, we'll figure this out, alright? What happened to you, it sucks. And yeah, you're right, I guess I don't know what you're going through. But I'm in this with you, just like I always am. Everything's – "

"Don't," Sam cuts in. "Don't tell me everything's gonna be okay. You don't know that. You never know that! It's just something you say to shut me up about whatever horrible thing we're dealing with at the moment!"

"That's not true," Dean insists, even though it kind of is. "We've got some shit to work out right now, but c'mon, Sammy. You know I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you."

"Oh yeah?" Sam returns sarcastically. "Like you didn't let anything bad happen to me the last time my psychic stuff was an issue? When Dad told you to save me or kill me and you didn't do either and someone else beat you to it? You can't just say things are gonna work out and then expect it to come true because you want it to! You saying it would be okay didn't do a god-damn thing then, so what makes you think this time will be any different?"

It's the truth, but it's a low-blow and it makes Dean feel like shit. Sam's right, though. If Dean had found a way to fix all this back then, if he hadn't stuck his head in the sand and pretending nothing was wrong until it was too late, then Sam wouldn't have died, Dean wouldn't have made the deal and gone to Hell, and none of this would be happening. Just another way Dean's screwed up and let everybody down.

"Sam," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"Forget it. Let's just go," Sam mumbles in response, brushing past Dean on his way back to the passenger's seat.

Dean closes his eyes for a moment, clenching his jaw and pushing the uncomfortable emotions back down, and then he follows his brother into the Impala.

In the end, they couldn't stop any of it from happening. Jack turned, just like Travis said he would, and Sam had to kill him. Dean wishes every bit of it had gone differently, but mostly he wishes he'd been the one to kill Jack, so Sam wasn't. Sam should've have had to do that. Not when he was so invested in the hope that Jack could fight what was inside him. He doesn't want to talk about it much in the car, but he does say he's done with Ruby and with using his powers, so Dean's thankful for small miracles.

They drive until Dean's eyelids are heavy, and Sam could probably drive while Dean sleeps in the passenger's seat, but it's been a long day and Dean figures they both deserve a good night's sleep in a decent bed after this one. He drops his bag down onto the rickety little table when they step into the musty-smelling room, and smiles a little as he nods at the enormous bruise on Sam's forehead.

"He got you pretty good."

"You too," Sam says, with a small smile that doesn't quite make it to his eyes.

"Poor Travis," Dean adds, momentarily sad for the loss of their old friend and a good hunter. He shouldn't have gone in there alone, should have waited for back-up, but he still didn't deserve to die like that. Dean doesn't even know if the man has any family they should be calling. But then, most hunters don't.

"Yeah," Sam agrees. He leans against the wooden dresser in front of the beds and crosses his arms over his chest, eyes fixated on a spot on the floor a few feet in front of him, and Dean isn't sure what else to say. Sam is despondent and Dean's head hurts from the blow and he's too exhausted to think straight about much of anything.

He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over a chair. Then he reaches into his bag a pulls out a gun, disassembling it on autopilot for cleaning. Halfway through, though, the silence gets to him, and he sets the gun down on the table in pieces. Hopefully he won't need it tonight. He turns back around and finds his brother hasn't moved an inch, but Dean can hear him angsting about everything that happened even if Sam isn't saying it out loud.

"I know you didn't wanna have to kill him," Dean says softly. He doesn't say again that Sam did the right thing. Sam knows he did, he just isn't happy about what the right thing was, and saying it again would probably just piss him off.

"Yeah," Sam says again. He shifts a little and turns his head just a little more in the opposite direction of Dean. "You were right, though. It wasn't really about him. I wanted him to fight it, so …"

He doesn't finish the sentence, but Dean doesn't need him to. He knows exactly why Sam wanted to think Jack could fight the darkness in him. "Just because he couldn't doesn't mean you can't. Sam, this thing has been in you since you were six months old. And the worst thing you've ever done is, what, cheated on a math test when you were ten?"

Sam shrugs, and he still won't look at Dean and it's starting to make Dean itchy. He's still the older brother, no matter what else has changed between them, and he still has that ever-present need to fix things when Sam looks like he does now.

"Okay, so you have demon blood in you. That sucks. But there's a whole lotta good stuff in there too. And it seems to me like the good stuff is mostly what's winning."

Sam nods a little, just as blank and emotionless as he was earlier in the car. "I guess."

"Sam, I'm sorry."

"I know. You already said that."

Dean sighs. "Well, then I'm sorry twice. I was a dick to you the last couple'a days, you didn't deserve it."

Sam shrugs again. "I kinda did. I should've told you about Ruby, about everything. M'sorry I didn't."

"I didn't exactly love finding out from Cas," Dean says carefully. There are some things he feels like he needs to say, but he really doesn't want this turning into another fight.

"I know. I just … I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you to react … exactly the way you did."

Dean nods and chews at his bottom lip again. He still thinks he had every right to be pissed off, but he also gets where Sam's coming from. "You're not a freak, you know."

Sam huffs. "Yeah, I am. And that's fine, I gave up wanting to be normal a long time ago. But this thing, it's still in me. It always has been and it always will be and I can't change that. I just wanted to use it for something good, 'cause … 'cause then maybe it won't turn me bad. I can't get rid of it, so I thought maybe I could find a way to balance it out, you know?"

"Nothing can turn you bad if you don't let it," Dean says firmly. He wishes Sam would look at him. "It's about choices, right? Remember those vampires we let go a few years ago? The world tried to make them monsters but they chose not to be. You were the one that made me see that when I didn't want to, remember? And Jack had a choice too. He just made the wrong one. You don't have to be like him."

Sam nods, but he doesn't look like he quite believes Dean, and for probably the millionth time in his adult life, Dean misses the days when Sam used to believe every word that came out of his big brother's mouth, simply because it was Dean who'd said it. Dean drops his tired body down into one of the chairs and scrubs his hands over his face, resting his elbows on the table and holding his head up.

"What?" Sam asks quietly.

"I just don't like this. What Yellow-Eyes did to you, what you can do because of it, all of it."

"You think I do?" There's just the slightest bite to Sam's voice. "I was freaked out at first too. When I first started having visions? Do you even remember that whole year? I was scared to death about this, about what was happening to me, this thing inside me that I couldn't control."

"I know you were."

Sam looks away for a moment, emotions finally surfacing, and when he looks back at Dean there are tears in his eyes. "And you were the one who kept promising me it would be okay. And I believed you. And then it wasn't."

Dean's chest clenches and he closes his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry. I tried, Sam."

"Yeah, I know you did, that's not what I meant."

"But it's more than that now, Sam. Now you can control it. And it isn't your fault, okay? That's not what I'm saying. I just don't like that you can do something that …"

"Something that you can't?" Sam suggests.

Dean glances up at him and glares a little. "Don't do that. You know that isn't what this is about. I'm scared, Sammy. It's my job to protect you, and I can't do that if I don't know what's goin' on with you. When Cas said that I had to stop you or he would? I mean, that's … if you don't stop this thing you're lookin' at a freaking angel intervention. Do you get how serious that is? You're a tough son-of-a-bitch but I don't like your odds in that fight."

"When did you start calling him Cas?" Sam asks, absently scratching at his wrist and looking away from Dean again.

Dean blinks, confused for a second. "What?"

Sam just raises an eyebrow at him instead of answering.

"I … don't know," Dean says honestly. Truthfully, he hadn't actually noticed he'd been doing that.

"Are you guys, like, friends now?" Sam asks, and Dean thinks there might be just a hint of jealousy in his voice.

"Are you gonna talk to me about this or just keep changing the subject?"

"I already said I'm gonna stop, I don't understand what there is to talk about."

"Because I want you to get why I freaked on you. I don't want you to think I'm just some jerk who likes punching people."

"I don't think that." Sam inhales deeply and lets it out through his nose, and he runs his hands through his hair. Then he pushes up off the dresser and goes to sit on the edges of the bed closest to Dean. "Like I said in the car, I'm sick of trying to explain. My whole life, there was something different about me. I was never like everybody else, and I never knew why. Now I do. And I hate it, but at least it makes things make sense. Maybe this is just something you can't understand."

Dean shakes his head. He absolutely refuses to believe that. He gets up and joins Sam on the bed, and as he's sitting down Sam says, "You don't know what it was like."

Dean frowns. "What what was like?"

"When you … I watched you get ripped to shreds, Dean. And then you were gone," Sam says softly, his elbows resting on his knees and his head bowed so his bangs hide his eyes. "I had to bury you, I had to wake up every day without you, knowing the whole time exactly where you were and imagining all the horrible things that were probably happening to you. It made me sick. It made me want to put a gun to my head just so I could come down there with you so at least you wouldn't have to be alone."

Dean doesn't know what to say. He reaches out tentatively and touches Sam's shoulder, but Sam doesn't react at all to it so Dean lets his hand fall back down to his own lap.

"I was a mess," Sam continues sadly. "Worse than a mess. So yeah, maybe what I was doing with Ruby was a little reckless, or whatever you wanna call it, but it was something to do. It was a way for me to keep going. You don't get to sit here and judge anything I did while you were gone, because you weren't there. You don't know."

Dean nods and swallows thickly over a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry," he says for the hundredth time, but the words sound hollow. He can't help thinking again that if he'd gotten to Cold Oak just a minute sooner, he could've saved Sam and none of this would've happened. One way or another, everything always circles back around to how much Dean's screwed everything up. Sam shakes his head, but Dean knows even Sam couldn't find a way to spin this so that Dean isn't the reason all these bad things are happening. It doesn't even really hurt anymore. Dean's just used to the feeling.

"M'sorry I didn't tell you about the demon blood back when I first found out," Sam says after a few minutes of tension thick silence. "I should have."

"Why didn't you?" Dean asks, trying not to feel wounded by the fact that Sam kept something so important to himself. "Did you think, what, I wouldn't understand?"

Sam shakes his head. "It wasn't like that."

"Then what?"

"I don't know. I found out when I was in that – whatever, that frontier town, when he had us all there. And then I died and you made the deal and we opened the devil's gate and all that, and I don't know, I guess it kinda slipped my mind. Other stuff became more important."

"How do you forget something like that?"

"I didn't forget. I just forgot I hadn't told you."

"Oh."

Dean chews on his bottom lip and falls silent again. There was a time, years ago now, when everything wasn't so twisted up and complicated. Dean's almost sure of it, but he can't actually remember it. It's been happening a lot in the month since he's been back. His childhood feels blurry and out of reach, like Dean can sense it's there but can't quite access it. Like his happy memories are just one more thing Hell took away from him. As if the list wasn't long enough already.

"Guess we should get some sleep," Sam says after another minute, but then it's a while before he moves.

Eventually he gets up and starts slowly pulling off his clothes, and Dean does the same. He strips down to just his boxers and a t-shirt, carrying his jeans and overshirt to his bag and stuffing them inside. While Sam's in the bathroom brushing his teeth, Dean dead-bolts the door, and then he takes a can of red spray-paint out of his bag and draws a small devil's trap just inside the door. He doesn't care if they have to pay for the damages. If Ruby shows up looking for Sam, Dean wants to be able to put her in their rearview and know she'll be stuck there for a nice, long time while Dean puts enough distance between them that she won't be able to track them down.

Dean takes his turn in the bathroom, purposely avoiding his own reflection in the mirror like he's trained himself to do the last few weeks. When he comes back out, Sam's in the bed furthest from the door, the one that's always his, and Dean hovers for a moment, unsure of what to do. They've messed around a few times since he's been back, but it hasn't been the same as it was before he went to Hell. Probably because they've both been keeping so many things from each other. Two separate times, Sam's pulled Dean into his arms and kissed him breathless before pushing a tube of lube into his hand, but Dean reluctantly rejected him and then Sam stopped trying. Dean knows what Sam wants, and he wants it too, God help him he does, but he can't. He let Sam fuck him when he first got back but he can't have it the other way. Not after the things he's done, not after what he now knows he's capable of. If he ever hurt Sam, he'd never forgive himself. So he can't go there, he can't have Sam underneath him like that; trusting him. Dean doesn't deserve to be trusted.

Still, he misses the closeness, and when Sam looks up at him with a tiny, hopeful smile on his face, Dean isn't strong enough to resist. He climbs into the bed next to his brother, and Sam pulls him in and brushes his lips lightly against Dean's. There's no real heat to it – it feels more like another apology than anything else. But Dean still likes it. He lets Sam kiss him for a few minutes and then he shifts around until he can get Sam comfortably into his arms; Sam's head tucked up against Dean's neck. Dean's not sure if he was expecting this part of them to fall right back into how it used to be, but it hasn't quite. Sam still feels good in his arms, but it's like the Diet Coke version of what they once had. Even still, it's better than nothing.

"Can we just make a deal, right now, that we're not gonna lie to each other anymore?" Dean says softly. He's the biggest hypocrite in the history of hypocrites, since he's lying to Sam about not remembering Hell and probably five or six other things he can't think of at the moment, but for the most part Dean's okay with that. His job is to protect Sam, not the other way around. As long as he can get Sam to start telling him the truth about things, he can do his job, and everything else he'll work out later.

"Yeah," Sam answers. "I'm – "

"Don't," Dean interrupts gently. "No more sorrys, okay? We both fucked up. Let's just leave it at that."

Sam nods and kisses Dean's neck. "Okay."

He relaxes just a little further into Dean's chest, and then suddenly it almost feels like it used to. It isn't perfect but it's close enough, and for now Dean will take it.