"Holding Your Other Shoe"

Mystic25

Summary: Tag to "The Girl Next Door" After Dean came back to their new hotel.

Disclaimer: Erik Kripke and Sara Gamble are greedy bastards with brilliant minds.

RATING: T for language, and images of violence.

A/N: There really isn't anything I can say about this beforehand, you'll just have to read it.

xxxxxxXxxxxx

"Before I drew my sword I must ask myself, not what I was killing, but what I was allowing to live."

"D'Artangain "The Man In the Iron Mask"

"Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

-Emily Bronte

xxxxxxXxxxx

The rattling of the Impala sounded like a loaded gun gone rusted from lack of firing until that moment.

Sam heard it out the window, because, in reality there was nothing more to it than Plexiglas and duct tape.

He watched through that window as Dean exited the car with a slowness that was attributed to his broken leg, but was also because of something that he was doing with his hands.

A quick sweeping motion under Dean's jacket that couldn't be attributed to his broken leg. There was a flash of silver glistening off the late afternoon sun. It was the briefest moment of sight; but, one that Sam saw and couldn't pretend that he didn't.

He had texted Dean their room number earlier, and he watched as he brother walked with his pronounced limp, no matter how hard he tried to mask it as part of his normal gait.

Limp. Step. Breath.

Limp. Step. Breath.

Dean's walking was a rhythm that Sam couldn't follow. Because, he was too busy trying to swallow something.

One part anger; one part hurt – all parts too thick to do anything other than choke on.

He watched people passing Dean on the way down the long cement hallway that boasted age and rot as part of its charm along with its swan pictures etched into the glass entrance doors of the lobby. Appearances only had to be kept up from immediate sight apparently. Anything further, you were already screwed so, you stayed inside subrate rooms pretending to be fancy.

Sam watched, wanting to make a huge scene, make eyebrows raise in question at what he would say to his brother. But, he choked on, because it hurt too much to move.

He knew what Dean had been doing – he hadn't gotten his relationship back with his brother to not know when he was lying to him. He knew all of Dean, like no one ever would, and that included the lies.

But he let him go anyway; because he knew that Dean was a stubborn ass and would have stopped him, punched him the face harder this time. And as hurtful as this was; Sam needed Dean on his side.

But, it did still hurt.

The door opened with a creek that rattled through the hotel.

Dean walked through, his slower gait making him shuffle.

And Sam bit out a smile. "Hey, you get good candy?"

Dean rattled a full orange bottle of Percocet; his smile airy, tired, but pleased. "Willy Wonka ain't got nothing on me Sammy."

Sam gave Dean a look midway between amusement and exasperation. "You sure you didn't pop a few already?"

"It's a free country," Dean said, flopping down in the nearest plastic orange chair of the hotel room's "dinette set", which consisted of two of these chairs, and a large white rectangular plastic table. He hadn't popped any pills yet; but, he liked to mess with Sam's mind. "So what if I did?"

"So what if you did anything Dean," Sam eyed his brother in an uneasy quiet, trying to mask his hurt as something flippant. "Not like you can take it back."

This time it was Dean's turn to eye Sam, and he did so with all inquiry he possessed. "Where's this coming from?"

"Nothing," Sam cleared his throat, his habit to switch to a subject that ignored the one that he couldn't face.

Dean eyed him again with a look, that vocalized would have made him go: 'uh huh' "Where's Bobby?"

"In town," Sam answered. "Apparently there's a local catholic church where he's got some of his library stashed in their basement."

"Wait, Bobby's got a cache of books on Demonic Lore, and the Hunter's Field Guide Volumes One through a Million, holed up inside a church?" Dean said this as the incredulous thing that it was. "That seem a bit ironic to you?"

"It makes sense. A church is sanctified as holy ground. This one's a cathedral, gargoyles at the entrance, the whole nine. Nothing evil can get inside its walls without those things screaming bloody murder." Sam returned, approaching the other chair across from Dean, but he didn't sit in it. Instead he grasped the back of it, feeling the hard plastic reality that was in front of him, trying not to be angry at his brother. Because, Sam didn't just need Dean on his side, he needed Dean. Period.

"Okay, fine, it makes sense," Dean spilled out one of his Percocet's into his hand, rubbing it's whiteness over with his finger, debating on whether or not to take it. His leg was starting to kill him. But, even with as much whiskey and alcohol that he drank, he hated that feeling that came from popping pain pills. It was a spacey and weird feeling, not even attributed to drinking, because he had control over how he felt then, based on how much he consumed. "Doesn't make it any less weird."

"You gonna swallow that, or fondle it some more?" Sam asked, falling into a banter that seemed so simple when everything else wasn't.

"Shut up," Dean bantered back. He slid the pills back up inside the bottle. "Maybe later. I don't understand how teenagers like opiate highs. I personally prefer binge drinking Patron to that warm fuzzy, stuffed full of cotton balls feeling." He shifted back into the chair with a bit of a wince.

"Dude, if you're hurting, you should just take one," Sam wasn't Mother Hen Number One in this relationship, but he still, what Bobby had called once: fussed over Dean when he was hurt. Even when he wanted so badly to punch Dean across the face, to release some anger about where his brother had just recently been, he couldn't take seeing him hurt.

"Just help me get my leg up on this chair Sammy," Dean growled out. He masked his pain with indifference.

Sam raised Dean's foot up onto the back of the orange chair he had been leaning at. Dean cursed a few good words under his breath when his broken leg was lifted. Sawing off his own cast three days early was necessary to track down his brother, but that didn't mean his leg appreciated being forced back in action that much earlier.

"What about you?" Dean eyed Sam up and down, even as his brother was helping him. "You doing okay? Your melon doing good?"

"I'm fine," Sam stuffed his jacket under Dean's foot to cushion it from the hard plastic surface.

"You sure? No strolls down Hellfire Lane with Lucy?" Dean was being sincere.

Which was making it hard for Sam. Because his brother cared about him. His brother would never admit it out loud, but he loved him. He loved him, had gone out and one what he had done in the name of that kind of love.

Sam knew this as much as he knew Dean would pop a pain pill when he wasn't looking so Sam wouldn't see him be weak.

Sam hated it as much as he hated the headache building up behind his eyes because of it.

"I told you I'm managing it." Sam stood 6'4" but he still felt like the little brother, whenever he looked at Dean in a moment like this.

Sam's headache seemed to be registering on his face, because Dean shifted despite how painful it was. "Hey!" Dean's voice snapped like an elastic band against Sam's brain. "No spacing out dude!"

"I'm not seeing Lucifer Dean, my head just hurts alright?" Sam snapped out, a little more on edge than he meant it to be. Because he could still see Amy, and he could see Dean, doing what he knew he did to her. "I did get cracked in the head by a freakin' crowbar remember?"

And he hated that part of Dean that made him do that; but just for a moment, because that part was Sam's part too. Because it was something they fucking did to monsters. But he had made a promise that girl when they were young enough to dream of escape in terms of hitching a ride away from their town and starting over in the next one. He had loved her, she was the first girl he had ever actually kissed. His plan of action to go about it had come from Dean's own mouth. And Dean had killed her, because she was a monster.

But, she was kind underneath the freak show, she was Sam on the reverse side of the coin, a monster trying to hide as a human. And, he loved her. He cared about her, she was, and always would be the first girl he ever fell for. She wasn't the love of his life. Sam wasn't even sure that he had one of those, not even with Jess. But, it's not like he did anything in the traditional-

"Sammy, you sure you're okay?"

-Sense.

The snarkiness from earlier was melting off Dean's words, as he sat there, broken tibia propped up with nothing but a chair and jeans, looking critically at his brother.

"I'm fine," Sam repeated his words like they were stage directed, without adding any feeling to them. "I told you I just have a headache."

Dean didn't do headaches on Sam. Not when Sam's head was aching from hellfire and brimstone and Lucifer wanting to wear that whole mess as an evening gown to parade in from of Sam's psyche. "Okay Sasquatch, that's it," Dean stood back up on his battered leg.

"Dean, what the hell are you doing?" Sam beat Dean's shadow to him; arm pressing on his brother's shoulder, trying to push him back down into the chair. "You need to stay off that!-"

"Lie down Sam."

Sam eyed Dean like he was overly full of crazy. "What?" Dean was pushing into his chest, hobbling on his broken leg to do so. "Dude, get off me! I'm fine, I'm not the one who freakin' broke his leg!"

"This isn't a debate Sam," Dean was bumping into his brother's knees, even with his bad leg, backing Sam up until he was flush against the old mattress with a yellow coverlet of the first bed he came too.

"You either lie down or I throw you down!" Dean had to look up to his brother only because he was shorter than him. Everything else was reversed otherwise.

"Dean," This was making all Sam's thoughts of Amy and Dean's last moments with her blur into a maddening reality. He wondered if she made any noise when she-afterwards.

"Options Sam. Pick one!" Dean was so close to his brother, that lying down, it would have been considered it unholy. But Dean and Sam were never holy to begin with. This was just what they did, screw the damn labels.

Sam didn't say a word, but felt for the edge of the bed, and finally sat on the mattress that sank under his weight. "You're bedside manner sucks."

"You're welcome." Dean threw back with a character that only he possessed. "All the way Sam."

Again Sam gave him a look. "What?"

"You have to be lying down to be LYING DOWN, Sam." Dean returned.

"Dude, it's five in the freakin' afternoon. Forget it! And not with you watching me, that's just creepy!"

"Again, not up for debate Sammy." Dean was pushing at Sam's shoulders, forcing him down onto the mattress.

"Dean, I said STOP!" Sam pushed Dean's hands away, making his brother scoot backwards for a few measurements, also making him swear.

"You alright?" Sam's retort was like a knee jerk remark. He knew that Amy didn't scream, Dean wasn't a masochist, he did it clean, fast. Which still fucking sucked, because, Sam started to understand that he hated Dean more for lying to him, than he hated him for the actual act.

"I'm awesome." Dean returned with a smile that was overly bright for the darkened room.

"And you're a freakin' idiot too!" Sam returned, with no smile.

"Yeah that's me Sammy. Your freakin' awesome idiot of a brother," Dean's voice was sucked up air dry. His eyes rimmed with tiredness, and more alcohol than blood in his body. There was a silence that interrupted the quiet like a vanishing of the sun behind clouds.

"I had too." Dean's voice was only quiet when he had no control over it, when his emotions did. "You understand? 10 years from now, she wouldn't be able to stop remembering how that trigger felt warm in her finger. She would've pulled it."

Dean had cleaned off his knife the second he left Amy's hotel room, after disposing of her remains. He watched her kid disappear down the street to a neighborhood, where some elderly grandmother matron took him inside, casting eyes around for the parents who had abandoned the dear sweet boy. The boys eyes were livid, and even with everything that kid was, Dean couldn't fault him on wanting to protect his family. It was a language he spoke on a daily basis.

Dean knew that Sam would chose a room nearest to the street. It was their standard Hunter Protocol. He knew that his brother would be keeping any eye out for him returning. After the terror of the last three weeks, they had both been unusually clingly around each other. Not cuddling, or hand holds, but doing things they normally wouldn't. Which included Sam leaving a note for Dean before he took off, and Dean nailing Sam in the face, but afterwards exclaiming how worried he had been thinking Sam had been taking a field trip with the Devil.

So he knew Sam had been watching for him through the window and had seen him clean off the knife, discretely, but really not.

There were things that Dean couldn't tell Sam immediately. That monsters were real, that they didn't have a mom, because a fire had eaten her, that he only had a year to live because he couldn't live without Sam breathing. That he wouldn't go after Sam after he fell into the Cage.

And this.

That he had to gut his little brother's first love because of what she was. He had killed her with clipped short words. Because he was a hunter, and that's hunters did. He couldn't just ignore over 20 years of training, just flip in off like a light switch.

But, sitting here, with Sam, there was no hunter, or what Hunter's did. There was only him and Sam.

Sam, who watching him, listening to what was said in-between the words. "Everyone has a trigger Dean," Sam's 'everyone' was directed, in reality, only at one person. "Look at me, look at all the crap I've done. Are we so back to basics, that if I fell off the rails like you think Amy did you would do what dad told you to do all those years ago?"

"It's not the same," Dean came back.

"How is it not the same Dean?" Sam didn't let his brother win arguments, and the same was true for Dean. They pushed, until the other pushed back.

"Because you're my brother Sam."

The silence from before had nothing on this. It was so loud that it screamed, and left them looking at each other like the earth had fallen away and it was just them hearing that deafening quiet.

Dean sat down next to Sam on the edge of the bed.

"You're my brother Sam; you understand! It's different," with you!" Dean watched the tiniest of something's shift in Sam's gaze, then the rest of it broke through that crack to pool into his green eyes.

"I get it man, you loved her; believe me, I get it, but I-" the pause in the words said something that Dean would never be able to say. "Sammy, I had to! You would've spent the next 80 years cleaning up after her blood trail, if I didn't! Looking out for you isn't my job anymore Sam, it's who I am! So if you wanna hate that, fine!"

Dean choked on anger that wasn't real, it was too sad to be real. It was the product of exhaustion, trying so damn hard to keep it together for Sam's sake, because both of them couldn't fall apart at the same time or they both would be completely useless.

Sam looked like something caught in freezing rain, hurt, scared, angry, tired. "I loved her Dean."

He could only say those four words at first. He loved her, she was no girl next door, not after that night, not after her mother trying to eat him. But Sam didn't love halfway, he took pieces of those he felt for with him. "She was the first girl I ever, connected with, ya know?—But, I know what you had to do it."

Dean had killed a girl that Sam had loved, the first girl he had ever loved, and Sam 'knew why he had to do it.'

There was something so very painful in that.

Dean had killed Amy because she was a monster, because she could turn in a heartbeat, revert back to her original nature, because it was so very primal that it couldn't be ignored. But, if it came to that with Sam. If his brother, finally shattered into a pile of fragmented dust from all his memories, and reverted back to something primal, something locked away on Year One, one hundred and eighty years ago in the Cage, something so tortured it had no sanity- If it ever came to that, Dean would be a filthy hypocrite.

Because, 'I had too' would never be something he could do.

"Sammy, I'm serious, lie down."

Sam could see Dean's face was too tired for an argument on this request. And, he had become too tangled up in his brother's existence to hurt him when he was stripped like this. He pulled himself up completely on the bed, lying on his elbow on the pillow, facing his brother.

"You're not going to sing me a lullaby are you?"

"Shut up."

The clipped sounds of the words were engulfed and swallowed a second when Sam felt a gliding of calloused fingers as they ghosted around the edges of his face and hair.

And, Sam couldn't help closing his eyes at the way that felt. With eyes closed he could see Amy, the way she must've looked in her last hour. Gone, in a mere moment, like she never existed in the first place. But, not from an angry hand. From his brother's. She didn't even look scared, only stunned, when it came.

"God, you fucking asshole!" Sam's voice was angry, but still quiet, then it dissolved into something else. Dean had killed his first love, he had killed her, and Sam couldn't even hate him for doing it, not really, he could only understand it. How screwed up were they?

"I know Sammy," Dean's face was enveloped by his eyes.; because they were heavy looking, and tired, and aching.

And Sam could only heave a deep breath and close his eyes again, and felt Dean's hand glide through his hair once more.

Sam might have cried a single trail once, it was possible, his face certainly felt wet for a second. Dean might have wiped it off with a hand that was rough and smelled like Jack and Jamison, it certainly felt like it.

A key card swiped the door open. There was a heavy grunting of books being held by one man. "You two idjits wanna help me with-"

It got quiet again. "I miss something?" Bobby Singer's whiskey sounding voice only rivaled Dean's. He set his load of books on the table, and turned to face the two men, because Dean and Sam Winchester didn't look like this at 5 in the afternoon unless something had happened. "You boys alright?"

"We're good Bobby-" Sam was the one to answer. He no longer saw Amy, because he had stopped closing his eyes. Instead he was staring at something that broken, and alcohol reeking, and lethal when provoked, but tired and worn-

something he called brother by choice.

Dean looked and Sam, and Sam looked at Dean.

"-Dean's just holding my other shoe."

xxxxXxxxx

End.

At first, I was pissed at Dean for killing Amy. The way he looked so indifferent towards it, the way he had promised Sam he would leave her alone. But, after starting to write this, I got it. I'm not happy with it. But, after sitting on it; I get why he did it. He was doing it because Sam couldn't. It was the same way with Madison, he offered to do it then too. It's a bloody thing, but it's Dean doing what he has to do, for Sam.

The boys were supposed to fight in this story, like angry, knocked down fighting. But when I started writing this, it's life came out, and became what it should have been.

R/R please

Mystic