Title: Punch Drunk
Author: Paige
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Dean is OOC!
Summary: Sam Has Had Enough.
AN: This is cha's fault! This story is based on a conversation we had based on the video of Jensen and Jared thanking their fans.
Feedback: No flames, flying objects or flaming flying objects please
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Supernatural'. They belong to their owners, don't sue me.

***

Sam knew there was going to be trouble the moment he got back to the hotel. Dean was in the room on his bed with his arms crossed and the stink of a barroom clinging to him. Dean had been drinking a lot lately and going out, leaving Sam to research their next hunt, find out what they were hunting and, increasingly, doing the actual hunting because Dean was too drunk or buzzed for Sam to feel safe.

So tonight, when Dean had gone straight to the bar without asking Sam if he'd found out what they were hunting, Sam had made his decision. He packed up the Impala and headed out, figuring that he'd be back before Dean got back. The salt and burn had gone pretty well and their spook, which turned out to be someone who just didn't know that they'd died, had gone on without too much protest, but Sam was tired, sore and dirty and not really in the mood for Dean's drunken bullshit.

"Where the fuck've you been, Sam?" Dean growled, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Out," Sam said, feeling a surge of anger towards his brother. He'd thought they'd gotten past Dean being suspicious of Sam going anywhere by himself. Yeah, Sam had fucked up by getting involved with Ruby and getting hooked on demon blood; but wasn't going to Hell, being tortured by two pissed off angels and having Lucifer hallucinations enough? He'd never given Dean any grief for torturing souls in Hell or breaking the first seal and had forgiven Castiel for knocking down the wall; was it too much to ask for Dean to do likewise?

"Out doing what," Dean snarled drunkenly. "You were huntin' for demon blood weren't you? Jus like a fucking junkie, always lookin' for a fix. You were suppsd to finding us a hunt." Before Sam could say anything to explain, his brother hauled off and slugged him.

Sam hadn't been expecting the punch and, exhausted as he was, had no time to brace himself and fell back against the bed, clutching his now broken nose.

"I thought we were past that! Dammit, Sam how can I trust you to have my back when you're cruisin' for demon blood?"

As he listened to Dean rant and rave, Sam felt something he'd very seldom felt: rage. This had happened before, Dean'd get drunk and lash out and Sam would ignore him, knowing that in the morning, if Dean remembered, he'd feel bad and buy Sam his favorite coffee as a way of saying he was sorry. Now, Sam was tired and sore and sick of taking Dean's crap.

He pulled himself up to his full height and punched Dean as hard as he could, putting every ounce of his anger and frustration into the punch, knocking his brother flat on his ass.

"You wanna know where I've been, you self-righteous prick? I was on our hunt! Pretty simple salt and burn and the reason I didn't tell you was because you were too busy drinking yourself stupid and I like coming back from hunts in one piece!"

Dean frowned at him from the floor, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your drinking Dean! It's gotten worse, if that was even possible. I don't feel safe going on hunts with you because I can't count on you being sober or have you forgotten about that werewolf in Gnawbone?"

Dean scowled, "Well, if you hadn't been in such a damn hurry..."

"Dean, you knew what I thought we were searching for and you knew that we needed to act fast or we'd have to wait another month! Instead, you decided to go to the bar on the last night of the full moon!" Sam took a deep breath.

"You wanna talk about trust, Dean? I don't trust you. I don't trust you to have my back on hunts anymore because you drink so much. I've been hunting on my own for weeks because it's easier than expecting you to stay sober and I can't take you with me because I'm scared that one day you're going to go out so drunk you'll mistake me for whatever we're hunting." Feeling a grim sort of satisfaction at the devastated look on Dean's face, Sam grabbed his things and stormed out, letting the door slam behind him.

***

Dean stayed on the floor of the motel room for a long time after Sam had stormed off. The alcohol fueled cloud of anger and suspicion had disappeared and he was stone sober. The realization that Sam didn't trust him to have his back and had been hunting without him was more sobering than ice cold water and hurt more than his now busted nose.

He slowly got to his feet and stumbled into the bathroom and flipped on the lights. His nose was bleeding pretty freely, Sam had a hell of a right. He grabbed some tissues and after a few minutes, managed to stop the blood. He cleaned his face and padded back into the bedroom and sank down onto his bed.

His brother didn't trust him anymore. The little brother he'd raised no longer trusted him to keep him safe on hunts. The realization that he'd lost a lifetime of trust because of his drinking made Dean nauseous.

He could think of plenty of excuses for his drinking: hunting unspeakable things and dealing with the victims and their families, Hell, and a million other reasons. However, he knew that all his reasons for drinking paled in comparison to Sam's and he hadn't seen Sam take a drink of anything harder than the occasional beer in years.

Dean looked around the room, there were bottles all over the room, leftovers of the two six packs he'd bought on his way home from the bar, plus the bottle of Jack he'd nursed last night while Sam was doing research and the bottle of Jim Beam he'd bought after their last hunt. On what had been Sam's side were bottles of water and a few coffee cups from the little diner down the street.

He stared at the room in horror, Sam's side looked normal, but his looked like it belonged to someone with a serious drinking problem. It looked...it looked like what their hotel rooms or apartments used to look like after their dad had gone on one of his major benders.

A flash of all the times Sam had commented on his drinking rang in his ears and realized what Sam had been trying to tell him: 'Your drinking scares me'. He'd ignored or shut Sam down before he could say anything.

He thought about that hunt in Gnawbone, he remembered Sam saying that he was pretty sure that they were hunting a werewolf, but the week before had been Lisa's birthday and the memories of his time with Lisa and Ben and the gnawing guilt he still felt for putting them in so much danger had been eating at him, so he'd gone for a walk and somehow ended up in the bar, drinking, when Sam had come to find him.

The hunt had been bad. Dean winced as he remembered stumbling after Sam, making enough noise to wake the dead. The werewolf had tried to get the drop on them and if it hadn't been for Sam's good aim, Dean would've been dinner. He could remember Sam's angry face as he'd driven them back to the motel and stitched up Dean's shoulder without comment and in the morning, Sam had acted like nothing was wrong, so Dean had assumed that the matter was settled. He should've know better, it wasn't like Sam to not say something when he was mad and if the shoe had been on the other foot, he'd have ripped Sam's ass three ways from Sunday for being so stupid.

Now that he was sober enough to think about it, he remembered numerous hunts that Sam had claimed were dead ends and wondered what else his brother had faced on his own with only Lucifer hallucinations for company. He didn't remember seeing any serious injuries, but Sam had managed to hide his midnight trips with Ruby and the fact that he was soulless for weeks or months before Dean figured it out.

Dean laid back on the bed and the enormity of this mess closed in on him: Sam didn't trust him anymore, he'd managed to fuck up the last stable relationship in his life.

Something hot and wet slid down his face. He brushed it away only to feel more take its place. Finally, he gave up and let the tears fall. He didn't remember falling asleep.

***

When Dean woke up the next morning, his eyes and tongue felt coated in grime and he was cold and stiff from sleeping on his back in the clothes he'd worn the day before, but his mind was clearer than it had ever been before.

As he lay on the bed, he formed a plan: he'd find Sam, if Sam had dug a grave all by himself, he be very sore; which also meant he wouldn't have gone far. Dean knew his brother and he knew that Sam's forgiveness wouldn't be won with promises to change, he'd have to show Sam that he was going to change and that was going to start with getting rid of the booze.

He gathered up the bottles, emptied out the ones that still had booze in them and threw them all away. He also cleaned up Sam's side of the bed. Once he was sure everything was tidy, he grabbed his cellphone and dialed Sam's number.

He'd been half-expecting to get Sam's voicemail, instead the phone picked up.

"Hello," The voice was definitely NOT Sam's.

"Who the hell is this," Dean growled suspiciously.

"This is Doctor Maynard at St. Catherine's Hospital, is this Dean Harker?"

Dean froze, "Yes, this Dean Harker, I'm trying to find my brother."

"Your brother is Samuel Harker?"

"Yeah," Dean said, wishing this doctor would tell him what was wrong with Sam.

"Mister Harker, your brother was hit by a car last night and we've been trying to get in contact with you since he was brought in."

"Where is the hospital?" Dean snapped, not wanting to hear another word until he'd seen Sam with his own eyes.

After getting directions from the doctor, Dean headed towards the door before he realized that he didn't have the Impala's keys. Sam had taken the car the night before and in the fight, hadn't put them back. Growling in aggravation, Dean found the phonebook and dialed a cab service. He could break into the Impala and hotwire her, but he didn't want to cause suspicion. Even though their Leviathan doppelgangers were dead, they were still being hunted and the less attention they drew to themselves, the better.

The cab trip took forever, but finally they pulled up to the hospital and the cabbie kindly gave Dean a pass on the cab fare. He climbed out of the cab and barged into the ER.

"I'm looking for my brother," he told the nurse breathlessly.

The woman looked up with vague interest, "What's your brother's name?"

"Harker. Sam Harker."

The nurse checked her computer, "Ah yes, he's in the Orthopedics. Doctor Maynard is waiting for you."

Dean was shocked to hear that Sam was in Orthopedics. When he'd heard 'Hit by a Car', he'd expected to find Sam still in the ER or in the ICU. If Sam was in Orthopedics, then he wasn't as badly hurt as the horror images in Dean's head thought.

He went down to Orthopedics and smiled at the nurse, "Hi, I'm looking for my brother, Sam Harker."

"Mister Harker?" Dean turned to find a young man smiling at him. At Dean's nod, the man stuck out a hand, "Keith Maynard. I'm the one treating your brother."

Dean shook the hand, "How is he? When you said he'd been hit by a car, I was expecting to find him in the ER or ICU."

Dr. Maynard smiled. "Your brother is very lucky. The car that hit him wasn't going very fast, maybe 20mph. If it had been going much faster, your brother would've been in real trouble. As it stands, he's got a broken leg and a slight concussion. Another few days and he'll be ready to go home."

Dean breathed as sigh of relief, "What happened?"

"Drunk driver," Maynard said calmly, not seeing the look of horror on Dean's face. "We get at least one every weekend, but few of them are really serious. Apparently, your brother was walking around a motel parking lot when the driver lost control and hit him. Fortunately, she was slamming on the brakes, but it was fast enough to throw him backwards and break his leg. The girl driving was pretty shaken, hopefully, this'll scare her straight."

The longer the doctor talked, the more nauseated he felt, realizing that he'd nearly lost his brother because of someone, who had probably been at the same bar he'd been drinking at, decided to drive drunk. If he hadn't drunkenly picked a fight, Sam would've safe in their room, maybe filling him in on the salt and burn, instead of walking around the parking lot of their motel and getting hit by a car.

Dr. Maynard showed him to the room Sam was in and took his leave.

Dean was relieved to see that Sam was in one piece, broken bones aside, though he appeared to be sleeping.

"God, Sammy, you sure know how to get your point across, don't you?" He whispered, taking a seat next to the bed and grabbing his brother's hand. The realization of how close he'd come to losing his brother gave him more resolve to change.

He didn't know if he'd be able to completely quit drinking, but he was going to try. He was going to win back Sam's trust and be the big brother he used to be before Hell, angels, demons and the Apocalypse tore them apart.

The End?

***