Work Text:
Dean didn't get what Sam's problem was. Sam hadn't even been talking when he'd started going by Dean. He had always just accepted it.
Teenage rebellion. That's all it is like the kids in the movies, always yelling "I hate you". He didn't mean it. Not really. He'd grow out of it. But it hurt. So bad.
And Sam trying to say that it's Dad's fault. That Dad didn't want a daughter so he made a son. That Dean's just an over eager pup with no thought of his own. That Dean's such a good little soldier he just followed orders.
That Sam can fix it. By calling him by a girl s name and reminding him what he's not.Like it's just that simple. Like the regret of his shape doesn't gnaw at his bones as he lays his head to sleep.
Dean had told Dad that he'd handle it. Dad understood what it took to be Dean. Dad didn't like how Sam was trying to undermine it. But any kind of trouble with Dad would make this worse. So Dean would handle it.
Dean would handle it. When he had to. Maybe Sam would get his shit together and he wouldn't have to. Maybe he'll would freeze over and he could dance on the Devils grave.
It was either way to late at night or way to early in the morning, depending on which neighbor you ask, when Dean busted through a shitty apartment door that had been busted so many to we before it wouldn't shut to gentle treatment anymore. It squealed and wailed like mabey this would be the last it could take before dragging to a crooked hang just shy of shut. It would last a short while yet but the way Dean was set Sam might not.
"Sam, get you ass up," Dean bellowed through the house, so red you could barely see the blood trickling down his jaw.
Sam was making a groggy stagger out of bed when the door flew open. His eyes widen up like sink holes at the state of his brother. Dean looked like he'd been amutuer mma fighting again. His head was busted right over his ear. That side of his face swelling already. So much he could tell if his nose might be broke. His elbow where skint and one of his knees sticking out the pants. Dean hadn't come home this bad in a long while.
"Sam, if you want to kick my ass you better well do it yourself," Dean said with only a bit of a lisp as he squared up to his brother.
"What?" Was all Sam could manage at the moment.
"You! Spilling my business to every back woods cousin fucker you can find!"
"I didn't say anything. Maybe your not so good at your act as you thought."
"Goddanmit Sam! This means we've go to go. The whole staying till Christmas thing? YOU'VE fucked it to he'll!"
"You promised."
"Nothing I can do now, Sam. A couple more months and I'd just leave you here."
" Fuck you!""
"Danm it, Sam. You remember Westing, right? Yeah. Well imagine that but with out Dad. Cps will still take your ass away!"
"Let 'em. Then you and Dad can gallavant around the country hunting monsters. Nobody holding you back."
" Sam you don't..... Just start packing and we'll talk about it in the morning. "
"No. I'm not running again because I've got a psycho dad and a tranny sister," Sam said, eyes full of fire.
"Yeah and I've got a selfish bastarad for a brother."
"I'm the selfish bastarad? Why don't you look in the mirror? Oh wait, you can't take it can you, Deanna?"
" Not the time Sam. Start packing. I'll be making calls," Dean sighed as he walked out. He didn't want to handle it right now. Right now he had to figure out where they where going. He was hoping for anywhere but Bobby's. Bobby would say to handle it or he would.
It took two hours and the sun was rising, but he'd found a place to go. Good-Sense, Alabama. It's a back woods train wreck and he's down a few more favors, but its a place to go.
It took some doing but he did finally manage to get Sam in the car. Sam wouldn't say anything to him, just sat there like a pile of sticks in the backseat with Dean’s old Walkman. They rode that way for two hours. With Dean occasionally looking back to see if Sam was done mopping yet, facing disappointment every time.
“Sam, we need to talk,” Dean said as his brother was swapping out tapes.
“What.”
“Before we get there we need to go over things. Like what’s my name?”
“Dean.”
“So you do know it. And how are we related?”
“Brothers,” he said rolling his eyes.
“So what do you tell people?”
“Whatever they want to hear.”
“Sam I need your word that you’ll keep private things private.”
“Sure I’ll keep your goddanm secret.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about the fourth time we’ve had to leave town. Do you want to get hanged by association, Sam? Because I’m running out of favors.”
“I won’t tell anybody.”
“I need you to promise me Sam.”
“I promise.”
And he kept that promise for a while.