Title: Five Times Dean Wasn't the Referee between John and Sam

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Lines from Salvation and In My Time of Dying

Summary: Five times Dean refuses to or can't be the mediator between John and Sam

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Supernatural or the Winchesters, no matter how much I may want to.

-1-

Sammy is crying. His little nose scrunching up his forehead, his face red and angry, his mouth open and slimy.

Dean can handle all these things. He knows that a binkie will stop Sammy's crying, that a goofy face will make him laugh, that a small bag of frozen peas makes a really good teething ring. And besides who wants to eat those things anyway?

What Dean can't handle is the really, really gross smell coming from Sammy's diaper-padded butt. Dean knows what's wrong and knows how to fix, but there's no way he's doing it. Not this time.

Last time he changed a diaper that dirty he hadn't been able to look at anything brown for a whole month afterwards, which meant no mud pies and, more importantly, no chocolate.

Nope, no way, he isn't giving up chocolate for this.

Dean looks up at Dad standing beside him. He shakes his head, refuses to accept the Cherry Blow Pop his dad's trying to bribe him with.

"This is between you and him, Dad."

Dad frowns, pockets the Blow Pop, and bends down to pick up Sammy.

"Should've tried Peanut M&Ms," he grumbles to himself.

-2-

The voices seem far away and too damn close at the same time. They keep fading in and out, but basically this is what Dean gathers.

Sam is yelling at Dad.

Dad is yelling at Sam.

And Dean is in a lot of pain, pretty much "I just got hit by a semi" pain if semi meant a pissed off spirit who'd thrown him against the wall like a freakin' tennis ball.

"Why do you keep doing this?" Sammy's still yelling.

"I'm trying to save people. Hunt evil. You know how this works, Sammy." Naturally, Dad's still yelling back.

"It's Sam," the disembodied voice predictably corrects.

And Dad, predictably, ignores it.

"Dean's unconscious, Dad. And it's not the first time. He doesn't even want this!"

"Do you mean him or you? Because I know your brother . . ."

And this is when Dean stops listening because if either of them thinks they know what he wants then they really don't know him at all.

He sighs inwardly, keeps his eyes shut.

Dean figures this isn't the best time to regain consciousness, especially if he wants this headache to ever go away.

-3-

"If you walk out that door, don't bother coming back." Dad's said it, put it out there, and Dean knows instantly that everything's changed.

Sam's got a duffle bag in one hand and an acceptance letter in the other, and Dean can't find the words to make it all stop.

Dean's pressed against the wall, unable to move, speak. He stares and blinks and wonders if the world will ever look right again.

He sees Sam as a baby, birth red, crying in their mother's arms as she introduces them for the first time. He sees Sam's first day of kindergarten, how he wouldn't let go of Dean's hand. He sees the first time those too-small hands held a gun and pulled the trigger. He sees the moment he realizes his little brother is now the bigger brother as the Hormonal Teen Giant holds his favorite Metallica mixed tape just out of his reach.

He doesn't really see this moment now because the past is mixing with the present and the only thing Dean could ever count on is two steps away from walking out the door.

Here, now, Sam's life flashes before his eyes because he no longer wants Dean to be a part of it.

-4-

"You ignored a direct order back there," Dad tells them.

"Yes, sir," Sam responds as Dean usually does.

"But we saved your ass." There Dean's done, said it. Can't take it back now.

It feels wrong. Squaring off face to face with his dad, Sam at his side. He's challenging John head on, and he can only see Sam out of the corner of his eye.

Everything looks different from here. He's used to the sides of their faces, their matching profiles as he presses in between, pushes his hands against immovable chests for just one second of goddamn peace.

"You're right," Dad says, but everything in Dean tells him he's wrong.

"I am?"

He has to ask, doesn't quite believe it.

He's just not used to this view. Doesn't know if he ever wants to be.

-5-

"You care more about killing this demon than you do about saving your own son!"

"Don't tell me how I feel."

Sam and Dad are fighting, always a refreshing change of pace.

This fight escalates, as they all do. They fling accusations and anger back and forth, tearing into bruises and gunshot wounds that haven't even started to heal.

He tries to stop them, place himself bodily between them like he has so many times in the past. Trouble is you actually need a body to do that and somehow the familiar sounds of their yelling have made him briefly forget what his real problem is.

His pleas of "Guys don't do this," fall on deaf ears, but somehow he knocks a glass off John's bed side, halting their argument before the beeping down the hall is immediately followed by a pain in Dean's chest.

He's stopped them, two different ways, both effective, but they don't know that.

All they see is the broken glass of water, and Dean thinks that's appropriate.

When they go at each other like they seemed hardwired to, he is invisible to them anyway.

Peace doesn't matter when all you want to do is conquer.