Tag scene to Metamorphosis. Dean thinks Sam is pissed at him. Sam thinks Dean is pissed at him. And OK, they are pissed at each other. That doesn't mean anybody else gets to mess with them.

He's an idiot.

My brother, the smartest kid on the planet, is the stupidest man on earth.

I'm back now and nothing's changed – the priority is protecting Sam. But I came all the way back from hell only to find my little brother skanking around with that bitch Ruby, using those powers he swore up and down he hadn't been using and would never use. It's like I'm busting my ass to save him and he's playing with knives in traffic.

He's an idiot.

But the idiot still is my little brother and I'll still protect him even if I have to beat him senseless to do it.

He doesn't get it of course. I'm not trying to keep him from getting evil – I'm trying to keep evil from getting him. But the more I tell him how worried I am, the more he hears that I think he's an idiot, and I don't think that.

OK, I do think that. But he is an idiot. So I'm allowed.

I don't get why he doesn't get how worried I am about him. I told him if I didn't know him I'd hunt him, but I do know him so I'll protect him from all comers. Could I be any more explicit how worried I am about him? Could I say any plainer how important he is to me? What more does he want me to say?

What happened with that guy – Jack – tonight really freaked – um – really scared Sam. It seems like it finally got through to him that there is no 'safe' where this evil stuff is concerned. And thank God he said he was done with it, with 'everything'. I hope that includes that bitch Ruby, because I really don't need to see her, ever again.

Okay, I guess I didn't understand before how – how – traumatized Sam is by this. What he said to me by the side of the road – he was more upset than I've ever seen him. He called himself a 'whole new level of freak'. But that's not Sammy, he's not a freak. He was alone while I was gone and he did the best he could, but I'm back now and we'll figure this out. He's got to let me figure this out.

We're at a bar, a tavern supposedly, some place that supposedly serves food. Leaving poor Jack taken care of, we drove for a few hours. Sam stopped talking so I know he's in a bad way. Sammy talks when he's happy, he barks when he's angry – when he doesn't do either, he's in a real bad way.

I pulled into this place because I thought we could use the food but we've been here over an hour and neither of us has ordered anything that isn't liquid. When we came in, Sam headed straight to the far side of the room and away from me. I stayed at the bar near the door where I could keep an eye on him in case he shows any sign of thawing. Because he sure is pissed.

The idiot.

Speaking of idiots, some village must be missing theirs because he is here. Some half-drunk has-been wanna-be. He's not impressing any of the ladies at the bar and believe me, in this place that's saying a lot. But he's sure trying to impress somebody. Talking too loud, laughing too much, flashing not enough bling, and basically being a bigger pain in the ass than most of the stuff we hunt. The one thought I spare him is to hope for his sake that he stays away from Sam.

Because Sammy is pissed.

SPN*SPN*SPN

Dean's pissed. That's nothing new.

He's pissed at me. That's even less new.

He's pissed because I've been using my abilities. And because I didn't tell him I was using them. And because I didn't tell him I knew about the demon blood. And because I'm still 'skanking around' with Ruby. And because – maybe just because. He says he's not pissed, but he is. I always know when he is.

Everything feels messed up. I thought when Dean came back that everything would be fine, wonderful, happy, only sometimes it feels like it's been anything but. Sometimes it's like we don't even know each other anymore. Sometimes I wonder if we ever knew each other at all.

I'm tired, I know. Maybe I did think that if Jack could keep from going darkside so could I. Maybe I had too much junk food and not enough protein and my blood sugar is too low. Maybe I'm just pissed, too. Not at Dean. Well, not entirely. Just pissed at life and fate and my own weaknesses. After what happened with Jack, after thinking I'd found a way to make something good out of my life and finding out how completely wrong I was, after finding out just what Dean thinks of me now – other than when I lost Dean, I don't think I've ever felt so miserable in my life.

We're at a bar in a throwaway little town, somewhere between 'where were we?' and 'where are we going?' I'd rather – I think we'd both rather – be in a motel room somewhere watching mindless TV, but I think neither of us wants to be alone together either. Dean's at the far end of the bar, so pissed he's not trying to make time with any local beauty. I'm at a table at the far other end of the room, trying not to drink more beer than I should and ignoring the loudmouth who's making a nuisance of himself all over the place, drinking too much, talking too loud, trying to impress people, especially himself.

Sometimes when I look over I catch Dean looking at me. Sometimes I don't. I don't want him to be mad at me. I don't want to feel like I don't know him anymore. I don't like feeling that he doesn't like me anymore. Did I change that much while he was gone? I guess I must have because one of us did and it doesn't seem like it was Dean.

I look over again but instead of Dean, I'm looking at the loudmouth who's moved down to my end of the bar.

"What're you looking at?" He asks me, demanding, posturing, monumentally stupid to be messing with me tonight.

Just shut up and go away I think and look down at my beer. Dad raised us to know how to defend ourselves and he raised us to stay below the radar and what I'll do to this guy if he pushes me right now will put me on the radar and him on a slab.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

No – really? I am so not in the mood. He's wider than Dean and maybe a little taller, but not as tall as me. It wouldn't matter if he was. Man, I've killed things scarier than you just by thinking it. If you were smarter than your ugly shoes, you'd back away right now.

But he's apparently not that smart because he walks right up to my table. The rest of the few patrons and the waitress and bartender are watching us, which is probably why he raises his voice – he wants to impress his audience.

"I said I'm talking to you. What are you – deaf? Freak."

I've had it. He is so dead. I start to get to my feet and suddenly I'm looking at the back of Dean's jacket.

"Problem here?" He asks. He's using his 'don't mess with me' voice. I can't see the guy's face but I can hear the sneer.

"You protecting him?"

"No, I'm protecting you. From him."

I finish standing and the idiot's eyes follow me up. And up. He really didn't know how big I am. Dean obviously sees this sudden realization.

"Now, you look at him again and tell me that you want to mess with him. If you do, I'll walk away and whatever is left of you afterwards I will personally rip to shreds. Do you understand me?"

I'm trying to glare and look even more menacing but I can feel the grin trying to form. Since I was a kid, no matter how pissed I might ever be at Dean, I can't help grinning every time he gets in 'warrior mode'. Especially times like this – when my big brother, who I can see over, thinks he needs to protect me from a guy I could take one handed.

"You're both a coupla freaks." The guys says.

Dean shakes his head and I can just picture the look on his face, like he's pretending he pities the guy.

"Wrong answer."

The idiot looks up at me again and I put my hands into my jacket pockets and the movement makes him flinch. That makes Dean smile; I can hear it in his voice.

"Why don't you take a long walk away from this place? Because if you don't -" He gestures with his head over his shoulder to me, " – I will."

Finally the idiot gets the idea. He turns away, grabs his coat from a bar stool and marches out the door into the dark. When the door slams shut, everybody who is left in the bar pretends Dean and I don't exist. When a few seconds have passed and the guy doesn't come back, Dean turns to me.

"You all right?" He asks it like I actually took a punch or something.

"Yeah. Thanks." My answer comes out softer than I was intending.

Dean nods. Then he gets that look he gets when he's trying to make me forget I'm angry.

"So – you still not talking to me?"

I sit back down at the table and take a sip of my beer. Dean sits across from me.

"I'm not the one not talking." I tell him.

"Coulda fooled me."

He says it in that voice, like Dad used to have too, when he knows I'm really pissed, on the edge, and he wants me to know he's serious but he also wants me to defuse and not go ballistic.

"I'm tired."

"There's a motel a couple blocks away. We'll -."

"Dean – stop. Just stop. Stop trying to make everything all better."

That stops him, but not for long. After a brief consideration he tells me,

"I'm not trying to make everything all better. I mean, no matter what – you'll still have lousy taste in music. And shirts."

"At least I don't wear purple plaid."

He isn't wearing it now, but he knows what shirt I'm talking about.

"That is my favorite shirt."

"And don't I know it." He was wearing that shirt the first time I saw Dad after I got back on the hunt. He was wearing it when I died and when I came back. When he was packing up to leave me the other morning, it was the first shirt he grabbed. I almost buried him in that shirt.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Am I different?"

"Different from who?"

"No, never mind." Stupid question. Whiny, self-indulgent, stupid question. Dean gets a beer from the waitress, and gets a big bowl of pretzels without even asking for it. How does he do that?

"You know -." He starts then stops and doesn't finish.

"No, I guess I don't know any more than you do."

"You're not alone, Sam. We'll figure this out." He says it to me in that way that's half promise, half plea. He wants me to believe him because if I believe him, if I let him give me strength, it gives him strength. I don't know if that's courage or co-dependence.

"Am I different?" I ask again.

"Different from who?" He asks again, like he didn't ask it once already, just a few seconds ago.

"From who I was before – before -."

He gets what I'm asking and he looks at me before he answers me. He does that a lot and sometimes I think he's just pausing for emphasis and sometimes I think he's trying to think what to say.

"No. No, you're not."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"That's not what you said the other morning."

I don't mean that to sound like a challenge or a charge or a complaint. I just want to know if he still feels that same way about me.

"I said that you lied to me about what you've been doing."

"You said you'd hunt me. You said I'm not human anymore."

"I said I'm trying to keep you safe and I'd appreciate you not doing anything to screw that up."

I stare at him after he says that. That is so not what he barked at me the other morning. I remember what he said. I mean, when your brother tells you he pretty much had God telling him that you're a waste of space, you remember it. That's why Dean's pissed. That's how I know Dean's pissed. I mean he's either royally pissed or he's -

"Sam?"

Or he's scared. Dean's scared because his job is to protect me and it must seem to him that I've been playing with knives in traffic.

"I'm sorry."

"'I'm sorry I didn't hear you,'?" He asks me. "Or 'I'm sorry because I just realized again what an awesome big brother you are.'?"

"I'm sorry -." I'm sorry you died, I'm sorry you went to hell, I'm sorry I was alone, I'm sorry that what I've been doing might put you at odds with the God who pulled you from hell, I'm sorry you apparently still bear the onus of saving me or killing me. I'm sorry.

Dean decides not to wait for me to finish my thought.

"Sammy, we'll figure this out. It's just new information, right? I mean it's information from God, but still…" I'm not buying it and he can see I'm not buying it. "Sam – it happens all the time. We learn something new about a case, we change tactics, that happens all the time, right? That's nothing new. Something stops working for us, we stop using it. Okay? I can see why you thought what you were doing was a good thing, a step up. Now we find out it's not, for whatever reason, so we're switching tactics, that's what's going on. That's all that's going on."

"Is it?"

"Yep."

That makes me smile. Like I said, Dean hasn't changed: black is black and white is Winchester.

"So – you're not pissed at me?"

"Why would you think I'm pissed at you?"

He's serious. He's so serious and I'm so nonplused at his being so serious that all I can do is point to my jaw where he clocked me – twice - the other morning.

"Uh – ?"

"What – that? That was just -." To his credit, he can't think of an evasion.

"Just you being scared, I know. I just figured that out."

Dean gets that look of fake surprise.

"Me? Scared? Nah – never."

"It's OK to be scared Dean." I try to assure him, but I need a little reassurance myself. "Isn't it?"

He doesn't answer me right away and I know he's not pausing for emphasis this time. So I amend my statement.

"As long as we're together, right? We're always stronger together, right?"

"You got that right." And he grins at me, that 'bring on the world and wish it goodbye,' grin he gets. He drives me crazier than anyone else can, but he makes me feel safer than anyone else can too.

"C'mon, what d'you say we find a real place to eat?" He asks me. "Someplace at least with women worth hitting on."

"Right behind you." I take out my wallet to leave money for my beer, but Dean waves me off.

"I got this one." He puts money down for me. "C'mon." We head for the door. He leaves money for his own drinks and we're out of there.

The End.