Title: Mind the Gap
Author: Zubeneschamali
Rating: K+
Summary: Missing scene from "Metamorphosis": more of that much-needed conversation between the boys.

Disclaimer: Not mine, but not complaining about it as long as the episodes keep being this good.

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Sam barely kept from slamming the motel door shut as he left. He knew damn well that his passionate defense of Jack Montgomery had nothing to do with the man's well-being, although there were certainly times in the past when he'd strongly argued against killing someone until there was incontrovertible proof they were evil. From the expression on Dean's face, he'd damn well known it, too, even if he wasn't about to say a word. Travis was sure to be confused as hell, but Sam didn't care. He couldn't face either of them right now: they were both too much of a reminder of who and what he used to be.

Normal. The word came ghosting across his mind, and he almost laughed out loud. Who knew that the spirit-chasing and creature-hunting of his childhood was something he would be looking back on with nostalgia as a simpler time?

He'd gotten in the driver's seat of the Impala without thinking about it, and it was only as he reached up to adjust the rearview mirror that he remembered—he wasn't the driver. Little things like that still threw him, little reminders that Dean was back, even if things weren't the way they used to be. And now after Dean coming across him and Ruby the other night (and he still had no idea how his brother had found the place), he wasn't sure things could ever be the way they used to be.

He had just finished sliding across the seat when Dean yanked the door open and swung into position behind the wheel. "You all right?" he asked brusquely.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam replied automatically.

"Good. 'Cause it's kind of hard to miss the parallels here. On the one hand, there's this guy being a freak and us maybe having to kill him. On the other hand, there's you being a mathlete and all." Dean shook his head solemnly. "I know it's gotta be rough, Sammy, but I'm here for you."

The corner of Sam's mouth twitched upwards in spite of himself, and he quickly looked down to hide it. Dean was still Dean, no matter what crap he'd gone through in the last year, or in his whole life, for that matter. He'd walked back into Sam's life in Palo Alto as if he'd never missed a beat – same car, same hunting skills, same music, same uncanny instincts – and he hadn't changed a bit since. Even four months in hell seemingly hadn't done anything to alter his personality, including the mixture of raw honesty and frightened anger he'd unleashed on Sam right before Travis's call. Including the concern that he would (almost) never come out and admit even though it was rolling off his leather-clad shoulders in waves at the moment. Instead, he would cover it over with a teasing jibe, even after informing Sam he'd moved to the wrong side of the hunt/don't hunt list.

Before the silence in the car could get too thick, Sam retorted, "This from the guy who spent every day after school with the A/V Club for half of junior year."

"Hey, how d'you think I built our EMF detectors, huh?" Dean turned the car on and pulled out of the parking lot. "Besides, there was Linda Petersen. Man, did she appreciate the one guy in the club who wasn't wearing taped-up glasses." He pointed a finger at himself. "Taught me a few things about how to make sure we were getting the best use out of our equipment, if you know what I mean."

Yeah, Dean was still Dean. Sam, on the other hand, was at least five iterations away from where he'd been as a mathlete. There was the rebellious teen who'd gone off to college; the grieving hunter who'd had to learn to channel his emotions into killing; the scared kid whose brother told him he might become enough of a threat to be hunted himself; the desperate brother who'd hardened into a shell after too many Tuesdays; and the broken man who'd made his own deal with a demon to try and make some good out of the awful hand he'd been dealt. He was so far away from who he'd been that most days he avoided looking in the mirror altogether.

Which told him that deep down, he knew there was something wrong with what he was doing. No matter how good the results felt.

The car was quiet as they rolled towards Carthage. Sam turned over in his head the bursts of conversation they'd had since leaving for Missouri: the story Dean had told him about his journey to the past, the conversation about Jack back in the motel room that wasn't really about Jack, and the frustrated attempts on both of their parts to reach across the gap that had somehow appeared between them. Sam knew full well what had made that gap, but he didn't know if he could bridge it the same way.

Still, as Dean's hand reached for the cassette player, Sam blurted out, "It was in Cold Oak that he told me. About the blood."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean's head swivel towards him, but the older man didn't say a word. Instead he put his right hand back on the wheel and aimed his gaze straight ahead out the windshield, his silence an invitation.

Sam licked his lips and looked down at his hands. "He, uh, showed me what happened that night. Not like you, though, not like 1973. We were there, and we could see what was going on, but nobody there could see or hear us."

Dean cleared his throat. "So you, uh, saw…"

"He was standing over my crib," Sam answered. "And he was – " He took a deep breath to steel himself. Sometimes he understood Dean's preference for keeping his mouth shut about sensitive topics. At the moment, he'd rather be hunting almost anything than spelling out the horror of what he'd seen over a year ago and never mentioned to a soul since. Staring out the windshield without seeing a thing, he went on in a flat voice, "He cut his arm with a blade and let a few drops of blood drip down. Right into my mouth." Just the thought of it made him shudder, and he hated the quick tremor that spread over his body.

"Is that when Mom came in?" Dean's voice was calm and straightforward, the tone he used when questioning someone whose loved one had died unexpectedly and gruesomely. It was not a tone Sam was used to hearing directed at him.

"Yeah." Sam fidgeted a little and then added, "And she said, 'You!' Like she knew him." He shook his head. "I'd been wondering about that as much as I'd been wondering about what he did to me. How could she have known him?" That wasn't quite true: over the past year, he'd wanted to think about his mother's words even less than about demon blood dripping between a baby's rosebud lips. What did it mean that their mother had recognized a demon?

"Because she saw him before," Dean muttered. "When he killed her parents."

Sam supposed it was a sad commentary on their lives that he actually found that answer reassuring. It was so much better than some of the scenarios his fevered imagination had put into play. "Yeah, I guess so." He shot Dean a sideways glance, noticing the grim set to the other man's jaw, and offered another olive branch. "It's one of the reasons why I didn't tell you."

"Oh yeah? You, uh, want to elaborate on that?"

"Dean, you have this – this perfect memory of her, and I didn't want to taint that. I didn't want you to be wondering if she was really everything you thought she was."

"So instead you did that?" The reply was sharp and quick. "You've been wondering if Mom made a deal with the devil over you. For the past year and a half, Sam?"

"No, that's not the point, I – " Sam briefly closed his eyes and tried again. "Look, he told me he wanted me to lead his damn army. Do you have any idea how terrifying that was? To be told by the thing you've wanted to kill all your life that it chose you to do its work?" His voice was involuntarily rising, and he reined it back in, his tone turning bitter. "'Course the first time I saw you after that, we didn't really get to have much of a conversation."

A snort from the driver's seat was all he got in reply. He went on, "And then all that mattered was getting you out of the deal, Dean. All that mattered." For all the good that did, he added to himself.

There was silence for a few miles. Then Dean spoke, his voice barely audible over the engine still purring in the background. "Tell me one thing, Sam. Just one thing."

He turned to face his brother. "If I can," he quietly replied.

Dean's eyes were searching his, and Sam realized with a pang that he was trying too hard to read him. All his life, Dean had known him so much better than anyone else ever could. To see the traces of wariness and puzzlement in his brother's eyes, wondering who this tall guy with the untidy brown hair was in front of him, would have broken his heart if it hadn't hardened beyond any further breaking.

Dean pressed his lips together. Then he said, "Did you ever try to – " he gestured abruptly, awkwardly at Sam's head. "To use that to get me out?"

Sam had already confessed that he'd offered up his soul in exchange for Dean's and found no takers, back in those first unbelievable moments of Dean standing before him and Bobby, alive and well. That wasn't what his brother was asking. No, if Azazel had wanted him to be a leader, if Sam was that powerful, then surely someone else from down under would have accepted a trade not of Sam's soul, but his abilities.

Let my brother go and I'll do whatever you want.

Sam swallowed and forced the words back down into the dark corners of his memory. "You killed the yellow-eyed demon, Dean. There was no one else to make that kind of offer to."

It wasn't really an answer to the question. But it was all he was prepared to give. If Dean was freaking out over him exorcising demons in an unapproved manner, he really didn't want to hear about what Sam had tried to do to get him back.

From the tightening around the corners of Dean's mouth, Sam could tell both of them knew he had dodged the question. But all Dean did was to look away and say, "Okay."

Sam looked at him for a moment longer before tearing his gaze away. Silence filled the interior of the Impala.

Apparently olive branches weren't strong enough to build a bridge with.

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A/N: Here's the interactive part of the story: press that little button below and tell me what you thought. Thanks in advance!