I had a bad day, and I thought I'd give Sammy and Dean a better one. Please let me know what you think.

For those of you reading Raising Winchester, I promise I haven't forgotten about it. I'm working on the chapter right now...but it's not flowing as easily as the first four did. It's coming. I promise. I'm just blocked.

Change Up

Sam woke up, feeling like death, defrosted, but also with a burgeoning hope fluttering around an idea in his head. He clung to it, and used it to pull himself out of bed, to not think of his dead little brother, and to ignore the thumping NEED of Ruby's blood.

He stole away the first second Dean let him out of his sight, and got to work, making calls and whispering in corners.

The tension between them was mounting, morphing into a monstrous thing even they couldn't kill. It was repeling the brothers, sending them to opposing sides of the same coin. Sam was right in his decisions, in his sacrifice. He was being a good brother and paying penance for the evil he'd brought to his family as an infant. But he knew the strain he was putting on Dean, he'd lived with it for an entire year after Dean had made the deal. Sam knew that Dean was trapped in a hurricane of helplessness, watching Sam traverse a dangerous path with the knowledge that he couldn't be derailed or stopped. Sam had let his brother die once, and it wasn't going to happen again.

Sam thought if he could give him this, it wouldn't erase the pain of a lost loved one or magically fix scarred souls, but it would be a beacon of good and fun in a storm of sinister and impossible. It would show Dean that Sam wasn't slipping into wickedness, but using the tools he had to win the war, not just the battle.

When Dean arrived with steak sandwiches, they ate in silence. Dean cleaned up, picking up wrappers and perched in front of Sam with handi-wipes, cleaning his hands like he was a toddler. "Here comes the fun part," Dean warned. His face mismatched the sarcasm in his voice.

Sam nodded, and started unwrapping the bandages on his arms. Jagged lines, neatly and expertly stitched were revealed. He stared at them, remembered every second of agony when he was strapped to the table about to be devoured like an entree, but nothing of the two days after.

The injuries were violent enough that the doctors bought the story that Sam had been attacked, and hadn't tried to commit suicide. He watched as Dean gently disinfected and fussed over the wounds, checking for bleeding or weeping. He even tested the circulation in his fingers. It was Dean loving him the only way Sam would let him anymore.

His eyes filled with tears. And he believed, like that of a child, that this would fix something with the unfettered desperation.

Sam cleared his throat, hissing as his wrists burned from the antibacterial cream. "We…have to go somewhere tomorrow."

Dean lifted his eyebrows, focused on his ministrations. "You sure you're up for that? You just got out of the hospital."

"It's important."

Green eyes lifted to Sam's, cataloguing the tears and the pinched expression. "Yeah, Sammy, sure."

**

Sam didn't want to risk the Impala, so they took the bus through downtown Milwaukee, coasting along its pothole-peppered highways. The rocking and bumping of the bus threatened to tear Sam's stitches, but the bit his lip, gripped the handrail and took it.

The skyline opened in front of them, a massive metal dome in its negative space. Dean stared at it, curiously, as the bus exited the freeway and drew closer. Sam covertly watched Dean's face, and saw the spark of excitement as he picked out the signature fanned roof of Miller Park. It intensified and brightened as they got off the bus and ventured out among tailgaters grilling, drinking beer, and playing games. He was positively glowing when Sam casually slipped into line and handed him a ticket with a shaking hand.

"What is this?"

Sam smiled, grinning in the hot sun. "I'm taking you to a baseball game."

Dean's joy seemingly died, smothered by a flicker of vulnerability and grief. But Sam knew his brother and he turned away to give him time. He smiled when Dean's hand patted his shoulder and stayed there as they shuffled forward in line.