Chapter Text
If Dean could've had his pick of cases to follow their disastrous and illuminating trip to Heaven, he would not have chosen witches.
Especially not witches who were making people's lives miserable.
There was an itch under Dean's skin, and all he really felt like doing was killing something. Figures they'd find a case where no one was actually being killed, since the lack of apparent homicidal intent from the coven had Sam insisting on non-lethal means of dealing with them.
They'd fought about it, because what weren't they fighting about these days, and Dean had stormed out, intending to deal with the coven himself, damn the consequences.
No one ever accused him of making the best choices when he was angry. He was self-aware enough to know that much.
But he was angry. At the Apocalypse, the angels, the demons, Sam. Hell, even himself. It was too much to process, and he knew killing something would help. It always had before. It was either that or drinking, and getting rip-roaring drunk before they'd actually stopped the witches was not a smart idea.
At least they knew where the coven was. Dean parked a few blocks away, sparing a brief moment to be annoyed at how loud the Impala's engine was. On the open road? It was awesome. When he wanted to be sneaky? Not so much.
He admitted to himself as he approached the house that he did not actually have a plan. For as much as he'd argued in favor of killing the witches with Sam less than an hour ago, he wasn't actually sure if that was the right call. Plus, there were at least three of them, and he'd made the snap decision to go after them alone, which definitely wasn't the right call.
Finding himself near an open window, Dean smirked at the lucky break and sidled up beside it, peering in carefully and listening hard for any indications of what his quarry was up to.
"You might as well come inside, hunter. We know you're here."
Shit.
Dean tightened his grip on the gun in his hands, weighing his options. Maybe he could still spin this. Make them think he wasn't here to hurt them, and find out what their deal was in the process.
He made for the back door, reluctantly shoving the gun in his waistband, though he didn't tuck his shirt over it, keeping it accessible in case this didn't work. As he strolled into the house, he put on the charming grin that had gotten him into the hearts and pants of girls all across the nation and offered the witches gathered in the kitchen a cheery wave.
"Hey there, ladies. How're you doing this fine evening?"
All three witches were watching him, their expressions ranging from annoyed to amused. Ingredients were strewn around them, but Dean had no idea what they'd been in the middle of. That was more Sam's area, which was another reason why coming alone hadn't been well thought through.
The witch in the middle, who had long blonde hair and the most amused expression of the three nodded to him. "We haven't killed anyone, but we know that doesn't always matter to hunters. We're going to leave though, to spare you having to make a moral choice that I'm sure would incapacitate your poor, narrow mind."
Dean's eyes narrowed and his stance tensed, ready for the fight he'd been itching to have. "If that were true, you'd already be dead. I came in here ready to talk."
"Good," she allowed, glancing down at the bowl of ingredients before her. "But you won't be talking to us. And rather, you'll mostly be listening."
Dean opened his mouth to ask what the hell that meant, but the witch to his left lit a match and dropped it in the bowl before Dean could even think of reacting. Smoke began to waft from the burning ingredients, and in a mere second, Dean was out like a light.
When Dean woke up, the house was empty. Of witches, signs of their activity, and even some of the furniture. He groaned, getting to his feet and holding his head in an effort to keep it from spinning too badly.
How long had he been out?
Nothing hurt, other than his head, so he reluctantly made his way out of the house, heading for the Impala. It seemed like the witches had just wanted him out of the way so they could flee town. Which, whatever. At least he didn't have to figure out whether or not he should kill them. Sam would be happy.
Sam. Shit.
Dean dug his phone out of his back pocket as he neared the Impala, seeing that he'd missed a couple calls from Sam while he'd had his phone on silent, but only about a half an hour had passed since he'd entered the house. Damn, those witches had moved fast if they'd managed to clear that house out before he came to. Maybe it was witchcraft. Huh.
His head had mostly stopped spinning, so Dean allowed himself to drive back to the motel. He had no idea what he was going to tell Sam. With everything that had been happening lately, they weren't on the best of terms, but this had been a stupid fight, and Dean really shouldn't have gone off alone. He owed Sam an apology, probably, and that was not a conversation he was looking forward to.
When Dean finally reached the motel and used his key to open the door to their room, Sam was on his feet before Dean even had time to react, blatant relief on his face.
"Dean." Sam said his name almost like a sigh, the younger hunter dragging a hand down his face and relaxing back into the chair he'd been sitting in.
"Yeah." Dean closed the door behind him with a wince. He really didn't want to have this conversation.
"I was pretty close to stealing a car and looking for you," Sam admitted, his tone hesitant. "I was afraid you'd gone after the coven alone."
Dean winced again. "About that."
Sam inhaled sharply. "Are you kidding me? Are you okay? What the hell happened?"
Dean took a seat on the bed closest to the door and pulled his shoes off, shaking his head. "I'm fine, Sam. Nothing happened. I shouldn't have stormed out, shouldn't have gone in without back up. I was just pent up and being an ass about it. They didn't hurt me. I was mostly just gonna do recon, but they saw I was there, told me they were going to leave the city, then did some mojo that knocked me out. When I woke up, the house was empty, so I just came back."
A muscle in Sam's jaw seemed to be working overtime, which Dean knew meant his little brother was working hard not to yell at him. He appreciated that, since his head still didn't feel awesome.
"I'm glad you're okay," Sam finally said, his tone level.
Dean huffed. "Yeah, me too. And at least we don't need to decide what to do about them if they're gone."
The tight expression on Sam's face came back at that, but he just nodded.
Dean didn't want to start another fight, but he couldn't help but ask, "Look, Sam, why do you care so much about whether we took out these witches anyway? It's only a matter of time before they go too far, even if they haven't yet."
Without a moment's hesitation, Sam replied, "Because every time we face something in that gray area between 100% evil and 100% good, I worry that you're going to finally make up your mind about me."
Dean lurched upright, his eyes wide as he took in Sam's startled expression. "What the hell?" Dean blurted, fighting the urge to rush toward his brother. "What are you talking about? What's that supposed to mean?"
Again, there was no hesitation before Sam spoke. "I've been waiting for years for you to decide I'm too much on the black side of the gray area and take care of it. Take care of me."
Now that Dean was really looking at him, he could see the tightness in Sam's face. It was glaringly obvious that Sam had no intention of speaking the words he'd just uttered.
"Okay, hang on, we're circling back to that in a second, believe me, but I think..." Dean trailed off, grabbing the other chair in the room and dragging it over so he could sit in front of Sam, more or less at eye level with his brother. "Sam, why do you keep your hair long like that?"
"Because I like how it looks and off and on in my life it's felt like the only thing I could have any control over," Sam said immediately. His entire body radiated tension.
Dean sighed heavily and nodded. He hadn't known that, not for sure, but it sounded true enough, and was pretty close to what he'd guessed when he'd bothered to wonder seriously about it in the past. More importantly, it wasn't the kind of thing Sam would've shared with him voluntarily. Not like this.
"So, apparently the witches didn't just knock me out," he said wryly. "Seems like people have to tell me the truth."
Sam gritted his teeth and nodded. "Seems like. Is it just me, or everybody?"
Dean shrugged. "Haven't asked anybody else a direct question. But since they whammied me, not you, it's probably everybody I talk to. Unless it's hyper specific and only works on family or something."
"Awesome. Don't ask me any more direct questions." Sam exhaled, then reached for his phone.
"Who you calling?"
"Bobby. Dammit, Dean!"
"Sorry, that one was an accident."
The sound of the phone ringing on speaker from Sam's phone was cut off by Bobby's grumpy, "Hello?"
"Hey, Bobby. It's me. Dean got himself bewitched and I want to test something. If you know how to fix him, that would also be awesome." Sam leveled a glare at Dean, but there wasn't much heat to it. If anything, he looked uncomfortable.
Bobby grunted. "Figures. He dying?"
"Not unless he goes charging after a coven alone again," Sam huffed, "cause then I'll kill him myself."
"We already established it was dumb!" Dean scowled at Sam and the phone, even though Bobby couldn't see him. "Still, it's not like they killed anyone. Sam was all in favor of letting 'em walk anyway."
"That's not exactly what I said," Sam grumbled. "Whatever, just ask Bobby something."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Bobby, who do you think is more handsome, me or Sam?"
"It's not like I think about it or nothin', but you're the more classically handsome type I guess, although Sam's got that runner's figure thing going, and he's got a sweet face, so I reckon he'd do great on a catwalk."
There was a long pause, where Dean valiantly attempted to suppress his laughter, Sam turned bright pink, and Bobby said nothing at all.
"What the hell, Dean?!" Bobby exploded.
Dean was abruptly very glad they were no where near South Dakota. "Sorry, Bobby, apparently whatever the witches did to knock me out also made it so people have to answer my direct questions honestly. Although I think people can still lie to me if I didn't ask the question."
"You sure it's a honesty thing? Cause I definitely don't think either of you are model material!" Bobby made a scoffing noise.
Dean grinned at the phone. "See? If I don't ask a question, you can totally lie to me."
Bobby grumbled something Dean couldn't make out in response to that.
Sam sighed. "Look, Bobby, I don't think this is an emergency necessarily, but if you could do some digging and help us find out if there's any side effects we need to worry about, or even better, a way to get rid of it, that would be great."
"I'm on it," Bobby said gruffly before abruptly hanging up.
Dean snickered to himself again, then sat back and leveled a glare at Sam. "Don't think this lets you off the hook for what you said before."
"Dean-"
Dean held up his hand, cutting Sam off. "I'll try not to ask you direct questions, but I'm not letting this go. I need to know what the hell you're talking about. I don't think you're evil, Sam. I never have."
Something in Dean's chest seized at the look on Sam's face. It was absolutely clear that his younger brother didn't believe him.
"Sam..." Dean hesitated. What was so broken between them that Sam could so clearly doubt what Dean saw as a fundamental truth?
"All right!" Sam held up his hands, like he could stop Dean from asking questions he'd be forced to answer. "Fine, you don't think I'm evil. I believe you. It's fine."
"You obviously don't believe me," Dean pointed out, working hard to keep his voice even. "I'm sorry about this, but why do you think I think you're evil, Sam?" He rushed the words out, not wanting to give Sam a chance to get away from them.
Sam's expression looked pained, but he replied right away. "Before I killed Lilith, you called me and left a voicemail where you told me I was a vampire, that there was no going back. I've been waiting for you to kill me ever since."
Dean couldn't see his own expression, but he would hazard a guess that he looked bewildered, because that was certainly how he felt. "What the hell? No I didn't! I think I said I owed you a beat down or something like that, but I definitely said we were still brothers, and that I wasn't Dad. I was a dick when we fought, and I tried to fix it. I just assumed you didn't get the message, since you never said anything. I mean, for all I know I wasn't even really on Earth when I called, since Zachariah-" Dean inhaled sharply. "Son of a bitch! That has to be it - Zachariah did something to the message! Dammit, I didn't even think - he told me that you were going to need a nudge in the right direction, but I didn't know what he meant, and when I finally got to you everything was so crazy it never even occurred to me to ask-" Dean cut himself off, looking properly at Sam for the first time since he'd started talking. His brother was crying.
Sam inhaled shakily when he noticed Dean looking at him. Tears fell silently from his watery eyes, but to Dean it looked more like his brother was overwhelmed, not in pain or mourning like other times he'd seen him cry.
"I'm okay," Sam said after a moment. His voice almost sounded like normal. If they'd been on the phone, Dean might not have even been able to tell his brother was crying. "Thank you, for telling me."
Dean winced. "You don't need to thank me for not being a dick, Sam."
Sam actually laughed at that, reaching up to wipe away the rest of the moisture in his eyes. In mere seconds, he almost looked normal, just a little bit of redness in his eyes betraying the emotional rollercoaster he'd just been on. "Still, thank you."
"Great. Now that we've taken care of that garbage fire, anything other emotional trauma you're hiding from me?" Dean said the words wryly, almost as a joke, before remembering his questions had extra weight right now. His eyes went wide and he blurted, "Sorry, Sam, you don't have to-"
"Yes."
Dean cut himself off abruptly. "Yes?"
"Yes." Everything in Sam's eyes was clearly begging Dean not to ask.
How could he not ask?
"Sam," Dean said carefully, "I'm going to try and respect your privacy here, but knowing you're keeping stuff from me makes that real hard. So, a compromise. Are any of these secrets putting you in danger?"
There was a brief pause, like Sam had to figure out how to answer that, rather than the magic pulling an automatic truth from him. "Not exactly."
Dean exhaled, wanting to be relieved by that, but unsure if it was a good enough answer. "Okay, well, we'll circle back to that. Are any of these secrets putting me in danger?"
Sam answered that much faster. "Not that I know of."
"Still not instilling me with a ton of confidence here," Dean said wryly. "All right, any of these secrets going to make me want to kill anyone?"
Sam winced. "Yes."
Dean could feel his expression darkening. "Sam. I need you to tell me. Please don't make me ask. I want to know this stuff."
Sam exhaled, the sound shaky again. "None of my secrets or whatever you want to call them matter," he finally said. "I mean, they matter to me, but not in the grand scheme of things. It's nothing you can do anything about, or that you would care about, so just leave it."
Dean rolled his eyes. "If it's about you, I care. I don't see what's so complicated about that."
Sam's expression did a few things Dean couldn't quite identify, but at least one of the emotions that danced across his face was surprise.
Unable to keep the question in, Dean blurted, "Sam, why in the world would you think I don't care about what's going on with you?"
Looking crushed by the words the magic forced out of him, Sam replied, "Because you threw us away." There was the briefest pause, then Sam winced and added, "It's fine, I don't mean that, I understand, it's fine."
"Sam, what the hell are you-" Dean abruptly cut himself off, understanding in an instant exactly what the hell Sam was talking about. His hand went to his chest, where an amulet had resided for years. He'd only somewhat consciously been sending a message to Sam with that move. The news that there was a God, he just didn't care had done a bigger number on Dean's faith than he was willing to admit, so throwing away the one symbol he had of that absent God just made sense. The fact that he was a gift from Sam, and he'd felt completely abandoned by Sam in their Heaven, well, that was just the symbolic cherry on top.
"That's not what I meant," Dean offered with a sigh, knowing it wasn't enough. "I was pissed, yeah, but it's not like I disowned you, Sam. You gotta know that." Shit, this was uncomfortable. Maybe it would be easier if he was the one being forced to spill his guts.
"Didn't you?" Sam all but whispered.
"Of course I didn't!" Dean's voice was too loud in the room, and he winced at his own volume. "Look, Heaven was a shit show. I'm not saying I've dealt with that yet, but none of that means that I'm going to leave you, okay?" When Sam visibly flinched at Dean's chosen emphasis, he threw up his hands in frustration. "Hell, why haven't you left me?"
"Because I love you more than I hate myself," Sam answered, the blatant honesty ripped from him as every other answer had been, though this was the first one to make the blood drain so immediately from the younger Winchester's face.