Title: Aftermath
By: Swissalo
Pairing: gen
Rating: G
Summary: After fighting for their lives, Dean reflects.

***

He said it was interesting to see his own funeral.

But he had only not wanted to talk about shooting something that had stolen his face and had died with it. He didn't want to talk about what he had heard his doppelganger tell his baby brother before knocking him unconscious. He didn't want to know that deep down he might have actually felt those emotions. That he actually hated his little brother for being able to just stop hunting, if only for a while. Dean didn't want to believe it was true and he knew that to an extent it wasn't true, that the doppelganger had also been talking about his own feelings and taking them out on Sam.

Glancing over at Sam who was, for the first time in weeks, sleeping peacefully without the dreams and nightmares. Dean sighed, he might have hated Sam for a few weeks but it all came down to one important thing, he loved his baby brother and would happily die if it meant Sammy could get that apple-pie life he always dreamed about. Though Dean couldn't help but feel sorry that Sam didn't fit in even with his college friends because of their training, they were assassins, at least to an extent.

But Dean had already come to understand that he wouldn't be able to settle down and start a family. Turning back to the road, Dean almost hoped that at some point Sam could, Sam needed to, he need the stability. And Dean needed to know that someone in their family could move on, he needed that almost as much as he hoped to kill the thing that had killed their mother.

But this hunt had taken a lot out of him, out of both of them. Sam had fought for his life against something that had extra strength and all of his older brother's memories, and Dean hadn't gotten there until it was almost too late. He had almost lost his little brother to that doppelganger, and Sam bore the battle wounds of that fight and would for weeks. But that shape shifter had nearly killed his brother, and Dean knew he wouldn't have rested if that thing had succeeded in making Sam one of its victims.

God, Dean hoped he wouldn't be the one waking Sam up with his screams. But he could only hope, they wouldn't be stopping until they were miles from St. Louis. Dean didn't want to go to that city again for months, if he could help it. Turning to look at Sam again, Dean smiled slightly they might not be closer to finding their father, but Dean was damn lucky to have Sam at his side, he'd missed his little brother.

***