Title: I Met Myself The Other Day…

Summary: Tag For Dream A Little Dream. I don't do a lot of tags but I HAD to do this one, Dean's dream so hit home with me.

AN: Forgive me, I KNOW Candle is still in Limbo, I can't get it out of my head I just wish I could finish the friggin' chapter. It's half done but it's a crucial plot chapter and I CAN"T make it work!!!!!! (Throws clumps of hair on floor) This came to me and I thought if I got it written and posted it might help me get on with Candle. I'm in the process of answering all your wonderful reviews on the last chapter and hope to get it done tonite. God love you all. God knows I do.

To Gaelic, because she knows me and still likes me. But then there's no accounting for taste.

Sam looked over at Dean, who was still sitting silently in the corner of the room. He was leaning to one side, resting his weight on the arm of the chair, his lower lip pinched lightly between his fingers, eyes unfocused as he stared at some midpoint Sam was unable to discern.

Sam made no attempt to draw Dean from his thoughts, his own mind still to caught up in what Dean had said to him earlier

The words Sam had bitterly forsaken ever hearing from Dean's lips had come unexpectedly that morning, reluctantly, a shy confession of need and fear.

Of vulnerability.

Sam had felt his heart start to race as the weight of watching Dean casually throw himself toward self-destruction fell away as though it had never existed and hope burst like the breaking rays of dawn.

Dean wanted to live.

Nothing else mattered. Sam's nod and reassurance that they would find a way to save him had been answered with a small, relieved, Okay, good, the tiniest question mark trailing along at the end. Dean wanted to believe, the look in his eyes said so; it was a look Sam had never seen before.

This look wasn't for the father, the son, the soldier, the protector or the brother. The tiny spark, struggling to burn in Dean's haunted green gaze was for his own sake. This one time, after a lifetime, this was something for Dean.

What, Sam wondered, had changed …

So lost in his confused thoughts, Dean was oblivious to the fact that Sam had been staring at him off and on since they had called it a night and found a room at the local No-Tell Motel.

While Sam had showered Dean had settled his thrumming body into a chair and the inner war was on.

He could still hear the words coming from his mouth, screamed, so berserk with anger at this copy of himself telling him the worthless story of his own life he couldn't stop them. The words he heard ripping open every festering wound, every secret he kept from himself, every thought and memory, dream and feeling he had ever had that had been instantly buried so nothing stood in the way of becoming the man his father expected him to be, fulfilling the only destiny he had ever known.

Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Don't look back! Now, Dean, go!

Even twenty-four years later he could cradle his arms and still feel the warm bundle that had been given to him, entrusted to him, that he had spent his entire life protecting. Stepping up to take the bullet without thought, never questioning his role in this bizarre life they had led.

My father was an obsessed bastard! It wasn't fair!

His eyes closed at the memory of those words, the taste of them on his tongue, the anger that went with them, pouring out of him in a torrential roar, declaring, even if only, finally, to himself that he had deserved better, deserved more than being the perennial guard dog, the faithful, mindless drone raised to follow orders without question. That he had deserved the same love from their father that had been Sam's.

He'd been a finely-honed weapon, serving its purpose and then forgotten until it was needed once more.

Even as that thought appeared he refuted it. Weapon he may have been, but he also knew he had been more than that, more than a carefully forged tool.

Dad had loved him, just not in the same way…

How can you care so little about yourself? Sam, half drunk, had asked him. What's wrong with you?

What was wrong with him? How had he reached adulthood attaching no value to his existence?

He had saved countless lives, righted wrongs, thrown himself in harm's way without thought for the sake of innocents. He'd bartered his own life and soul to pull his brother from the arms of death, taking his promise to protect Sammy as far as it was possible to go.

It wasn't fair!

I don't deserve to die!

And I don't deserve to go to hell!

Blasts of the shotgun punctuating his words as the part of him he had fought the hardest to keep locked away turned him inside out and forced him to face the words he never realized had been there to say.

And having said them, he waited for the guilt, the remorse for those words, those thoughts, the betrayal, to wash over him like a tidal wave, the sensation of selfishness that he associated with his own wants and needs, barricaded behind a door for so long he no longer even knew what he wanted. What he wanted had never been an issue. It had always been what Dad wanted or what Sam needed.

But strangely, the guilt didn't come. It was almost frightening, to have such thoughts and not be punished for them by his own mind. It had been such a part of his life for so long it suddenly felt as though something was missing.

Was this how Sam felt, when he had stood toe-to-toe with their father, yelled back in his face and damn the consequences of his actions? Taken his life into his own hands to live as he wanted?

Dean clutched the arms of the chair as he felt a hole opening up beneath him at the thought.

Dad had done what he thought was best, even if it had meant leaving a frightened, lonely child to watch an even more frightened child for days at a time in the pursuit of monsters.

It was too much to take in all at once. Dad's death had left Dean reeling, unable to come to terms with having no one to rely on but himself, no one to turn to for direction on how to live a life that had never been his. Fumbling to maintain control when he realized he didn't have any to start with.

Even grappling with this sudden new sense of self, Dean knew he didn't regret what he had done to save Sam, would have done it again in a heartbeat. Lifetime of conditioning not withstanding he'd be damned if was giving up the last of his family without a fight.

At least this way, something good could come out of it. You know? It's like my life can mean something…

And it doesn't now? Do you have that low of an opinion of yourself? Bobby had stood in the junkyard and berated him. Are you that screwed in the head?

Dean had seen the look on Bobby's face, never understanding the pain in those eyes when Bobby looked at Dean, never realizing that Bobby saw the beautiful broken boy in the broken man before him. The lost child behind the man's eyes, struggling to live up to impossible expectations and willing to sacrifice something he considered worthless for the sake of a life he considered beyond price.

Sam's life.

Was his own life worth fighting for? Did he have dreams? Needs? Wants that existed for no other reason than to fulfill his own selfish desires, with no one else to consider?

Did he even dare to have them? If he could escape this deal, if somehow they could figure a way to stop it without endangering Sam- and Dean would have put a bullet through is own head first before he would allow that to happen- was it possible there could be more for him than he had always thought?

He tried to reject this thought the instant it appeared but it refused to be shoved behind the door and locked away. Like a weed it took swift root and refused to die.

By admitting to Sam he didn't want to die, he admitted that he wanted to live, almost as surprised as Sam by the confession.

And he did want to live.

Even with a bleak future, or possibly no future, certainly nothing that would include picnics in the woods and baseball games, nothing to solace him from his past but the tall form of his brother standing next to him, staring a war in the face, knowing he could go down tomorrow and it would have been for nothing.

He wanted to live.

Those words he had heard himself say and screamed back to himself in his head, the words that had burned and bled out of him, held back for so long, pouring out of the mightiest dam that had ever been built, that had forced him to fight back, to declare he deserved better, that he'd had hopes and dreams that had been burned to ash and left in the dust.

This was his life. It belonged to him. He made his own choices. Just because they were influenced by a man he loved and admired-- no matter how fucked up that man had been-- didn't make them any less his. Didn't make his life worthless.

Didn't make him worthless.

But it scared the shit out of him...

"Dean…"

Dean gasped and jerked away from the touch on his shoulder, heart thudding.

"Christ, Sam! What the hell?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Sam said, equally startled. "You been sitting there for hours, I thought we could get something to eat, I'm hungry, aren't you?"

When Dean continued to just look at him, Sam shifted uncomfortably. "If you don't want to, that's fine. I just thought we could celebrate a little, eat, maybe grab a few beers, shoot some pool…or not," he concluded lamely, fading under that intense green stare.

Dean's mouth quirked on one side. "Celebrate what? I forget our anniversary again?"

"No! Just…just kinda felt like celebrating…something." Sam shrugged. "Never mind…it was just an idea…"

Dean reached out and caught Sam's wrist, tugging gently on his arm, his face softening. "I think that sounds like a helluvan idea. I'm starving."

Dean could feel the light from Sam's sudden smile on his face.

Long fingers wrapped around Dean's wrist and Sam pulled Dean to his feet. "Great!"

Dean stretched, joints cracking and aching as they straightened from the long session in the chair. He pulled the car keys from his pocket and started toward the door.

"Wait," Sam said walking over to the chair where John's leather jacket lay. Sam grabbed it and held it out. "Don't you want your jacket? It's cool out."

Dean paused at the door, turning back to give Sam and his jacket a long look. He smiled softly and shook his head.

"Nah, I think I got what I need without the jacket."

End Notes: Goes away quietly…