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"It's worth it," Sam says, and Dean doesn't answer, just looks at him and then away again, the bleak expression he's worn since Sam cut him down never changing. He looks exhausted, worn down, and suddenly Sam wants to touch him so badly he aches with it. He tries to laugh instead, says, "Couldn't have been that great a world if you didn't have me around all the time."
Dean snorts, but it's weak, and he still doesn't meet Sam's eyes. "Fucked you over a few times too many," he shrugs.
"How?" Sam asks, honestly curious. He regrets it almost instantly as Dean's mouth twists bitterly, but there's no way to take it back.
"Screwed your prom date," Dean says. "Stole your ATM card. Shit like that." He looks at Sam and tries to smile, but it's closer to a grimace, and Sam has to work not to wince. "Guess it took a tragedy to make me the great guy I am today."
"That's crap," Sam says.
Dean looks up, startled. "What?"
"That's crap," Sam repeats. "Whatever fantasy that thing put in your head might say something about your own fucked-up self-image, but it doesn't say shit about who you are."
"'Self-image'?" Dean says. "You a shrink now?"
"I know you, man," Sam says. "You never touched a girl I liked. Even if I didn't have a chance with her and she was throwing herself at you. Hell, when I whined loud enough, you'd cancel dates with whoever you were fucking at the time and stay home with me to watch bad horror movies on Scifi."
"I fucked Cindy Salton your junior year," Dean says.
"No, you didn't," Sam says calmly.
"Yeah, well," Dean says. "I wanted to." Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean plunges forward. "I'm just saying, Sam. You're my job here. I'm responsible for you. If I hadn't carried you out of a fire when you were six months old--"
"Nothing would have been that different, not between you and me."
Dean runs a hand through his hair, an impatient gesture that destroys the carefully sculpted wisps. "You don't know that."
"I know you were obsessed with being a good big brother long before Mom died," Sam says.
"How in the fuck could you know that?"
"Dad told me."
"The fuck he did," Dean says, and he's pissed now, eyes dark and face twisting. "Dad never talked about--"
"I was twelve," Sam says, "and I was sulking because you were out with some cheerleader. Dad was drinking, and he started talking."
Sam can't quite categorize the look that flashes across Dean's face. It's surprise, but it's more than that, something like longing, something almost like fear. "Bullshit," he says, but the uncertainty comes through loud and clear.
"He said when they first told you were going to have a brother or sister, you asked if you could have a puppy instead," he says. "You told Mom that babies smelled funny and cried too much, and you kept trying to convince her right up until the first time you felt me kick."
"You're making this up," Dean says scornfully, but there's a weird sort of eagerness, almost hunger, in his face, and Sam presses on.
"After that you tried to build me a crib with your Lincoln Logs and grabbed strangers in the supermarket to tell them you had a baby brother coming soon, and when I was born you said you couldn't go to nursery school anymore because you had to stay home and take care of me."
"Now I know you're lying," Dean says. "I never had Lincoln Logs."
Sam grins. "You tried to measure Mom's belly," he says. "Dad laughed so hard when he told me that. You'd seen him use a tape measure when he was building something and you wanted to make sure I'd fit in the bed you were making."
"You are so full of shit," Dean says. Sam just keeps grinning, and finally Dean sighs, sits down beside him. "You wouldn't even go out for a beer with me, Sammy."
Sam shrugs expansively. "That's how I know it wasn't real." He turns to face Dean, raising an eyebrow. "You want me to keep going?"
"Please don't."
"When I was baptized, I started crying and you tried to kick the pastor," Sam says. "Dad said he couldn't even make himself spank you for it, you were so indignant, you just kept saying that he was hurting me and you had to stop him--"
"Christ, Sam, how long is this trip down memory lane going to last?"
"Until you realize that whole damned fantasy world was just something you made up," Sam says. "He got pretty plastered that night, Dean. I could keep going for awhile."
"You're a stubborn little shit," Dean says, but his face is calm, the first unfettered look Sam's seen since before Dean went djinn-hunting.
"Learned it from my idiot brother," he says lightly, and claps Dean on the shoulder. "Now quit whining and find a pizza place that delivers. Back to the Future's on tonight."
"Bitch," Dean mutters.
"Jerk," Sam says, and Dean's sudden grin is blinding.