Archive of Our Own

SAM

For the first few hours after they drive away from the asylum, Sam clings to the hope that maybe, Dean would forget what happened. That he meant it when he said he knew Sam didn't mean any of it, no problem, let's move on. Sam can hardly remember what it was the ghost made him say, the memories are hazy and sort of as if he's watching them from a distance; he's got decent visuals but the audio's shot. What little he recalls makes him cringe, though. It'd be easier if there hadn't been a bit of truth in it, twisted and out of context as it was.

Dean keeps them moving, aimlessly driving around for the rest of the day. He lets his music speak for himself on the road, loud and harsh and aggressive, a dare as much as a distraction. Go ahead, it means. Tell me to turn it down or off, give me a reason.

Sam doesn't dare. He does what he's always done, rides shotgun and steals glances when Dean's concentrating on the road or the music or anything else. Tries to convince himself it's the gunshot wounds, that Dean's just in pain, licking his wounds and shutting up about it.

They don't talk much when they settle in at a motel for the night, and when Dean swats at his shoulder the next morning, announces he's hungry, time for breakfast, Sam hopes they've moved past the worst.

He's tries to bring it up when they order their food, to be sure, but Dean shoots him down, insists nothing's wrong, they're fine. It's bullshit; Sam finds confirmation of that every time he catches a glimpse of Dean when he thinks no one's not paying attention. Dean's hurt. Probably thinks he's hiding it, or worse, doesn't give a crap this time whether or not Sam sees it.

If there were any way to resurrect that fucking Dr. Ellicott and kill him again, slow and bloody, Sam'd do it on the spot.

There are times when Sam wishes Dean would know the truth, the hidden reasons that gave Sam the final push towards Stanford and out of Dean's life. Then again, Sam supposes, it's better that he doesn't have a clue. Somehow Sam doubts that their situation would look much better if he'd said any of those other things, like how he wanted nothing more than to undress his brother in the back seat of his own car ever since he'd turned fourteen.

Dean excuses himself to the bathroom halfway through their meal, and Sam considers packing his things and leaving, just to not have to see how Dean tenses up whenever Sam looks his way, as if he expects Sam to throw another hurtful comment or accusation his way. But he won't bail. Despite how out of step they are, how much of a strain this is for both of them, Sam's leaving would be way worse for Dean. He's left once before; he's not going to do that again.

When he's back, Dean waves a newspaper he must've found on the newsstand next to the counter at him, shoves it Sam's way once he's sat back down and taps an article with his index finger. "Read this."

Obediently, Sam picks up the paper and reads, but Dean gets impatient and recites the article before Sam made it to the second paragraph.

"Not far from here, animal attacks,” he says. Sam watches him take a sip of his coffee, lick his lips afterwards. “Four dead, two missing. Surviving victim claims to have seen some kind of dog, but the injuries are more fitting for something the size of a bear. Black Dog, what do you think?"

Sam nods and shakes his head slightly to get rid of the unwanted thoughts, ignores the confused look Dean shoots him. "Yeah, sounds plausible."

Frowning, Dean mouths 'plausible' and snatches the newspaper back. "I'm gonna go and try to get the police report, you talk to the surviving victim?"

“Yeah.” It doesn't escape Sam that just ten days ago they would've done both of these things together rather than separating for them, but he knows better than to point that out.

Dean goes back to his coffee and the last of his pancakes, and Sam turns to look out of the diner's window, not hungry anymore. There's not much to see out there except the other patrons’ cars, but his gaze catches on the bumper sticker of an old pick-up truck. It shows a stylistic drawing of a fireman or something, and underneath it the slogan everyone else is running out but we are running in. Any other day, he might point that out to Dean – he's had a thing for firemen when he was a kid, and the little brother in Sam hardly ever lets an opportunity pass to mock him about that – but now it wouldn't feel right.

***

Sam's visit at the hospital is a bust. The victim, a fifteen-year-old boy, is constantly surrounded by his family and a police officer that appears to be a family friend. Sam doesn't even get close, and settles for chatting up one of the nurses in the guise of Animal Control. She confirms what's already been in the newspaper: the injuries were made by big, long claws, way too huge for any dog she's ever seen.

Dean's got more luck with the police report, but there's not much in it. A place, a time, no tracks at the scene, no hair or non-human blood or any other kind of further evidence about the attacking animal.

All in all, Dean's been right. Screams Black Dog all over. After he's let Sam read the report, Dean gets up from the small formica table they've both been sitting at. He's faintly illuminated by the light of a low-hanging ceiling lamp with two out of three bulbs broken, most of his face in the shadows, his expression obscured. Squinting, he looks up into the light for a moment, then down at Sam. "Gonna go and check out the scene."

And yeah, no. Not gonna happen. Sam gets Dean's need to put a little distance between them, but that's taking it too far. "No way. I'm not gonna let you go alone."

"Sam." Just that one word, his name, nothing else. It's not quite a warning, not quite a plea to give in, but something in between.

"Forget it,” Sam says and stands up as well. “I'm coming with."

***

Their timing couldn't be more horrible. The attacks all took place in a little forest a bit off the road, and as soon as they get out of the car they can hear screams. There are some cars parked a little further down a path that leads up into a tree, police cars mostly, all of them empty.

They both break into a run, but when they arrive at the scene the Dog is already busy tearing its way through a whole search party. The thing is snarling, chaps pulled up so they reveal its teeth, snaps this way and that, claws blindly at anything that moves.

Dean, the stupid fuck, is in the middle of the bloody rumble before Sam can attempt to stop him, and following him really isn't much of a choice.

Briefly, Sam's reminded of that lame slogan he'd seen on that fireman's car yesterday – that's exactly what this is. He feels a hysterical laugh threaten to burst out of him, but then there's a shout to his left, where Dean is, and his higher brain function retreats as he watches a huge claw dash down onto his brother, who's stumbled in the short time Sam let him out of his sight and is now lying on the ground and fumbling for his gun.

Sam springs forward. On instinct, he somehow manages to get his knife out of his boot and bury it in the furry flank – can't even remember pulling it out in the first place – and it's not horribly effective but enough to turn a deadly strike into something decidedly less damaging.

That worked out fine, he thinks, except for how now the thing's attention is on him, and he didn't really plan that far ahead. He jabs forward again. But the element of surprise gone; now the beast's expecting it, so he can't get close.

Sam hears Dean yell, just a few meters away but suddenly panic has his ears ringing so loudly that it feels miles away. The Dog isn't swayed until Dean lights a torch, courtesy of the fleeing search party, and throws it at the thing's back. It yelps, sounds so much like a kicked puppy that Sam's tempted to feel sorry for it before he catches sight of Dean. His clothes are torn, blood all over the left side of his body where the claws hit, and the sight washes away what sympathy he might've had for the thing.

Dean doesn't waste any time. He runs towards Sam, clutches at his jacket as he passes him, hisses "Gotta get out of here fast, Sammy, don't wanna answer no fucking questions," and then Sam's hauled in the general direction of the car.

***

Sam's anger's been on hold in the car – he drove because Dean freely admitted that he was unable to by chucking the keys at him and that alone shocked Sam right out of his fume – but now that they're here and safe, he can't hold it in for long.

He manages to silently watch Dean get a wet towel from the bathroom, and draw up his t-shirt to get at the wound. It doesn't seem as bad as it looked out there. Dean dabs at it, hissing, but doesn't ask for the first-aid set or for Sam to get the needles to do stitches. The red stains on the towel as Dean puts it away serve as enough of a reminder to get Sam's blood boiling again, though. "You fucking idiot, what were you thinking?"

Dean turns on his heels to face Sam, glares at him as if he's the one with logic and rightful irritation on his side. "Are you serious? Killing the damn thing, saving the poor bastards it was about to snack on, that's what I was thinking!"

Self-righteous, that's what this bullshit is, and self-sacrificing on top of it. Taking risks is part of the job, sure it is, but unlike Sam, Dean totally forgets that at the end of the day the two of them are supposed to get out of it alive. Or, at least, Dean forgets it where his own life is concerned; he's very aware of it when it comes to Sam.

In Dean's head, it might even make sense. The thing is, for Sam, it doesn't. He sort of gets how it came to be – he's had psychology in college, for Chrissake, and he didn't spend their childhood with his eyes and ears covered, knows Dean had it drilled out of him to think about himself – but he can't seem to come up with a way to drill it into Dean's head that he does matter, that, in fact, there aren't many people left in Sam's life that matter as much.

No, scratch that. Dean's the only person who really matters like that. There's Dad, too, but... That's not even close. Nothing else really is, there's no comparison, no way to put it into words. Dean's standing right there, in the middle of the room, eyebrows raised and breath coming in short, increasingly angry pants, he's waiting for Sam's counter-argument and there's nothing Sam could say to make him get it.

And anyway, words wouldn't help with the aching need to reassure himself that Dean's right there, alive and whole, that suddenly builds within Sam and causes him to throw caution and restraint and common sense to the wind.

He crosses the distance between them in two grand strides, grabs the collar of Dean's overshirt and crashes their lips together. Dean draws back, fights as if he's been attacked – which might not be so far off from his point of view – but Sam's not letting him. He pulls him in harder the more he struggles, closer and closer still, until Dean suddenly stops trying to get free.

Dean manages to break away, Sam blindsided by the sudden lack of defense, but all he does is stare at Sam. His expression is unreadable, and Sam has barely enough time to launch into panic and regret and ohgodwhatdidIdo before Dean brings them back together. He gentles things into a real kiss, slows it down from an attack into something calmer, more sensual, licks into Sam's mouth slowly and chases his tongue with his own. Sam practically melts into him as he pulls them closer, presses their groins together, and moans when their dicks touch through denim. They're both hard – which is pretty much a given for Sam, but the fact that Dean's reciprocating takes him aback.

So many times that Sam envisioned how this might go, if it'd ever happen, and never he's thought it might be like this. He jerked off plenty to mental images of Dean naked, in the shower, masturbating, with a girl, but he never dared to actually think of them together. Whenever he tried to come up with a believable scenario for what might happen if he'd clue Dean in to the nature of his feelings, it ended in yelling and tears and disgust. Never like this, never anywhere close.

Dean rolls his hips against him, and the sensation of it drags Sam back to the here and now. He breaks the kiss and looks down, directly into his brother's eyes, half-lidded, pupils dilated, and stops worrying. He stops thinking at all, reaches between their bodies to unbutton and unzip Dean's jeans, watches his eyes flicker as he does that. Down and up again, incredulous and stunned, but when Sam reaches inside his boxers and starts fisting his cock, Dean gives another one of these delicious, dirty moans. He thrusts upwards, into Sam's hand, and Sam picks up the pace until Dean's head falls forward onto his shoulder.

Just to be cruel, to drag this out, Sam stops. He pushes his hand further inside, surpassing Dean's cock and now going for his balls, rolls them in his palm. Dean murmurs curses into the skin at his neck, calls him names, fuck, Sam, you bastard, but Sam's not done yet. He returns his attention back to Dean's dick, but not to give him the friction he must be so desperate for at this point. No, he indulges in playing with it, slides his fingers down the length of it, presses them around the tip only, one, two thrusts to have Dean's cock head push through his fingers, lets his thumb brush over the slit. All the times he wondered about it, about what Dean's dick would look and feel like hard and ready, and suddenly Sam remembers that he didn't even get to see it yet.

He takes his hand out of Dean's pants entirely to work jeans and boxers past his brother's hips,
enough to free Dean's cock. Until it's out in the open, straining up, smearing pre-come onto the hem of his t-shirt, and so fucking beautiful Sam can't even deal with the sight. He jacks him slowly, savoring how it looks like in his hands, how the slit gives when he drags his thumb over it again and again, and finally he can't take it anymore and jerks him in earnest.

After all that playing around, it takes no more than four or five hard strokes and Dean comes all over his hand. He slumps forward, into Sam's arms, like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Dean," says Sam, lets his clean hand roam over Dean's back. "Hey. You okay?"

And that breaks the spell. Dean's out of his arms so fast it almost makes Sam lose his balance. He stares down at his softening cock, Sam's hand covered in thick, white strings of come, and makes a noise that's half whine and half sob. He pulls his pants up, grabs his duffel, and flees into the bathroom.

That's where Dean stays for the better part of an hour, long after Sam heard him shower. When he comes back out, his eyes are red and he reeks faintly of bile, and Sam wants to die on the spot.

This is bad. No, that doesn't cut it. Awful, maybe, or horrid, or something else Sam can't come up with right now. This is his world shattering into a million tiny pieces, his stomach knotting itself up so hard it's not ever going to unclench again. It's the worst Sam could've imagined, right on the heels of the best, and suddenly he wants to puke, too.

They both lie awake in their beds for the rest of the night. Sam's hyper-aware of every breath Dean takes on the other side of the room, knows he's awake too, and he feels like they should talk, but there are no words for the line they – Sam – just carelessly ran past.

There's nothing that'd be strong enough to express how he feels, and really, after four years of college Sam should be better at finding words.

***

For two days, Dean doesn't talk to him, doesn't look at him, hardly acknowledges Sam's presence in the room. He cuts all of Sam's attempts to get a conversation going off with a glare.

In the end, Dean's the one who brings it up, and Sam knows him well enough to understand what that means: there's not really anything to be discussed. He's made up his mind already, nothing Sam says is going to make much of a difference.

For a long while, after he's sat them down to talk, Dean just stares at Sam as he sits opposite him, each of them on their own bed. When he finally gets the words out, his expression is carefully, deliberately blank. He doesn't look at Sam directly, eyes fixed onto the patterns on the cheerfully neon-green carpet of the motel room. "I think it's best we go our own ways for a while."

Sam has to swallow past a giant lump in his throat, twice, before he manages a reply. "We don't have to."

"No? Sam, I can't even look at you right now without thinking about... About what we did." As if to prove that, his gaze flickers up to Sam's face and back down after barely a second.

Well, so much for any remaining hope that Dean might share Sam's feelings. Save bet he doesn't, never did, and never will. Words aren't going to change that, but that's not what Sam's fighting for here anyway. They just got each other back. Sam would be shove his feelings back down, never mention this again, ignore it ever happened, if that means he doesn't have to let Dean go.

"It's okay. We can move past this, if you think it's been a mistake," he says, voice small and thin, and Dean's eyes go wide.

"A mistake? Buying the wrong caliber is a mistake. Taking the wrong turn and getting lost is a mistake. What we did... I don't even have words for what that was." His eyes narrow, then he finally does look at Sam, fixes him with a glare. "You don't think it's been one."

"Dean, I – "

Dean gets up, runs a hand over his face, and turns to stare at the wall before he speaks again. "Did you... Uh, want this? Us, together?"

Sam can't say it. He can't answer. Tries to, several times, opens and closes his mouth like a fish on dry land, but he can't bring himself to form words.

He doesn't need to. Dean can read him just fine. "You did. Fuckin' hell, Sam."

To have something to do, win himself some time, Sam rises too. Out of instinct, ingrained desire to comfort, he's reaching out for Dean's shoulder before the fact that it's the worst thing he could do has time to register. Faced away, Dean can't see what Sam's doing, only that he's approaching, and he flinches violently when Sam's hand makes contact.

"Let go of me," he hisses, and Sam draws his hand back as if Dean'd suddenly turned toxic.

He doesn't move from where he stands between the beds until long after the door fell shut behind his brother and the roar of the Impala's engine echoed in the parking lot.

***

Dean tumbles back through the door in the early hours of the following morning. He literally tumbles, runs into the trash can by the door, and when Sam clicks on the light he's kneeling on the floor to gather up three days worth of fast food wrappers, paper bags and empty soda cans.

"Sorry, di' I wake ya?" he slurs, grins at Sam, and Sam thinks that maybe, miraculously, they'll be okay.

But then Dean's drunken mind seems to catch up with why he made a run for it and got shitfaced in the first place, and his expression sobers. He gets up, leaves the rest of the trash where it is, and turns the light off to get undressed and climb into bed.

Sam wants to cry or scream or both, but Dean's right there a few feet away; no way he'll let him hear either.

It's another mostly sleepless night for Sam, but Dean's dead to the world until almost noon. He wakes up with a wince, squints at the light flowing into the room and making dust dance in its glint, rubs his temples. "Shit," he growls, and Sam can only agree; that sums up his own mood rather accurately.

Sam turns on his chair at the table by the window. "Look, Dean, I – "

Dean holds a hand up to stop him, points to the bathroom, and gets up and walks over to it in slow, measured movements. After a minute, the toilet flushes and Sam can hear water running, but Dean takes almost ten minutes until he comes back out. When he steps into the main room he looks calm and composed; too much so, Sam thinks.

He swings a chair around so he can put his elbows on the backrest and sits down. "How long? I mean, you. Carryin' a torch and all."

Sam's hesitant to answer, but... He started this, now he's got to own up to it. "Since before Stanford. Long before. I don't think I can give you an exact time frame. It, uh. Just happened at some point."

Dean gives a curt nod. "Why? How? Did I... Did I do anything to prompt it? Was there something when I made you think, that, uh, maybe I'd be interested too?"

And yeah, Sam can sense where this is heading. "No, Dean. It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"But you know that I – I don't feel the same way. Right? Not like that."

"It’s been pretty obvious the least few days, yeah."

There's a long pause before Dean speaks again. "I meant what I said, about going our own ways. I think it's best we take a step back right now. Not for good, but there are some things I need to think about, figure out, and I can't do that with you around."

Sam wants to protest, scream, cry, cling to Dean and never let go of him, but he knows it wouldn't sway him. So what he does is croak out an "okay," because he feels like he owes Dean at least that much.

***

So, as it is, neither of them storms off or leaves the other behind in the middle of the night. But they can't look each other in the eye or say goodbye all the same when Dean drives away in one direction and Sam heads for another.

DEAN

The first thing Dean does after they parted ways is get himself fucked.

He does it mainly to see if he's gonna go through with it, to prove that it's guys in general, and not... Yeah, no. He's not even going to go there.

And it's got to be guys in general; you don't get off on another man's hand on your dick if you're a strict zero on the Kinsey Scale, no matter who the man in question might be. In ninth grade, a progressive teacher in upper Washington had them write essays about how hardly anyone's purely straight or purely gay, that there are gray areas and soft transitions. Dean's never really thought about it like that, never fantasized about men, but now that he's actively allowing himself to do so he can't say he's repelled by the thought of doing another guy. That's really not what this is about. Girls have ventured behind his balls before, he's aware that pleasure doesn't end with his package, so to speak. It's not such a big difference, he tells himself.

It's still a rather huge step, though, some important epiphany about his own sexuality that he should ponder on and think about a little before attempting to act on it. But he got jerked off by his baby brother, and he's in no mood to think about that in depth. What he is in the mood for is to do something, anything, and maybe extreme problems should require extreme solutions. Besides, he's more of a hands-on action guy anyway, thinking stuff over has never been his way of dealing with anything.

It's easy, to pick someone up. The town he stops in isn't small, and to sniff out a place where girls aren't allowed is not much of a task. He's always gotten offers, lewd invitations yelled at him across parking lots, and probably could've found someone on a truck stop if he'd tried. But he's testing a theory, here, and feels like the chances of getting a good fuck instead of just a fuck are much higher in an environment like this.

The club isn't much different from most bars he went to, except for the distinct lack of pussy. Still, Dean's a little lost once he's stepped in, settles down at the bar to drink away the last lingering doubts. He's halfway done with his third whiskey when someone sits down next to him.

"New here? Haven't seen your face round before." The guy is Dean's age, moderately handsome, and his smile is genuine. Dean returns it.

"Yeah. Just passing through."

"Vacation?"

"Road trip." It's not even much of a lie, looked at from the wrong angle, and Dean realizes he doesn't want to stray too far from the truth. He wants this to be honest, or at least as honest as it can get. That's the reason why, when the guy introduces himself as Seth, he gives him his real name.

Seth buys him another drink, then two more, and the more Dean drinks the more eager he gets to get this thing to the next level. His skin is buzzing, too small all of a sudden, and he needs for this to work. He needs it, doesn't know how he's supposed to live with himself if he's not gay or bi or whatever you call it but only gets it up for his little brother.

As if he senses his nervousness, Seth's been talking random crap at him all this time, gesturing widely, and Dean catches his hand mid-move. He waits until Seth looks at him and shuts up, eyebrows climbing towards his hairline in question.

"I appreciate that you put in the effort, chatter and drinks and all, but you really don't have to."

Seth cocks his head to the side. "No?"

"No. Bathroom. Just say the word, and we'll go."

There's conflict all over Seth's face, and that makes Dean confident he's picked the right man. "I, ah. We can go back to my place if you'd like."

Dean shakes his head. "Bathroom. Now. Or I'll find someone else."

As much of a nice guy as Seth may be, he doesn't turn down that invitation. He stands, pulls Dean up with him and all but clutches his hand as they make their way through the crowd.

After they disappeared behind the swing doors of the oversized bathroom, painted in black and red and every bit as sleazy and obvious as the rest of the bar isn't, Seth assures himself one last time. "You sure? Someone might come in. My place is much more private and comfortable – "

"Don't care, and comfortable isn't what I'm looking for."

With a shrug, Seth drags a heavy, metallic trash can in front of the door to keep it from being opened from the outside and nods at the sink, then at the stalls. "Where?"

Admittedly, Dean didn't think that far, but he finds he doesn't really give a damn. "Right here's fine."

"Okay then," says Seth and pulls his pants down. Dean does the same, and they undress, quickly and unceremoniously.

Once he's naked from the waist down, Dean's a bit of at a loss. His dick does give an interested twitch as Seth lets an appreciative gaze pass all over his body, but he, well. He's familiar with the bar hook-up etiquette for women, but got no idea how to go at it with a man; hell, a week ago he didn't even entertain the thought, and he's got no clue what he's doing here.

Seth seems to sense that. His expression goes soft, attention back on Dean's face. "Your first time?"

Dean nods, and Seth runs a hand through his hair. "Huh. Okay. I'll, uhm, walk you through it?"

Another nod, and Dean feels a little stupid for it. Seth smiles, open and affectionate. "Come here."

He pushes Dean against wall, kisses him for a short while before he sinks to his knees in front of him. Dean's not fully hard yet. He's begun to stiffen, but so far he's been too nervous to let go. Seth runs a hand down the curve of his ass and over his thigh to calm him down before he closes his lips over the head of Dean's cock. He lets his tongue swirl around it, sucks lightly, and yeah. Dean can go with that. He starts to relax, but is wrenched out of it again when an angry shout comes from the other side of the door.

Apparently someone'd like to use the bathroom for what it's meant for, and Dean feels awkward again instantly.

"Hold it! Busy here," Seth shouts back and the angry cursing outside turns into a laugh.

"Hurry up with it," is the response, accompanied with a knock against the door that moves the trash can just a bit.

Seth turns his attention back to Dean. "Not exactly the first time something like this happened here. Don't worry. Where were we?"

It takes Dean a moment to let himself relax again, but Seth's good at what he does. He licks down the length of Dean's cock, teases the slit with his tongue, and by the time he swallows him deep, Dean's all but forgotten about where he is. Seth keeps it up for a minute or two, and then he gets to his feet, points to the sink.

"Up there," he says, and Dean obeys, climbs onto it. A shiver runs through him as his bare ass hits the cold metal, but he leans back, against the mirror, and doesn't resist when Seth spreads his legs. Seth bends down to pull a few small sachets from the pocket of his discarded jeans. One of them, Dean's familiar with – condom – but he raises his eyebrows at the others.

Seth chuckles. "You really haven't done this before, huh? Lube. I'm not gonna shove anything up there dry, especially not on your first rodeo."

That's when it catches up with Dean, that yeah, fuck, he's gonna end up with a cock up his ass; he kind of didn't consider the details before, didn't even think about pitching or catching. He draws his legs closed a little at the thought, but Seth holds them open with a hand on each of his knees and searches for his gaze.

"You still want this?"

Once again, Dean nods, but Seth shakes his head. "No. Not enough. Say it."

"Yeah. Yes, I want this." Dean's surprised at how rough his own voice sounds, and has to close his eyes for a moment to steady himself. "Yeah, okay, come on."

Seth rips one of the sachets open, wets his fingers with the lube and drags a finger over the spot behind Dean's balls, goes lower slowly. Before he reaches his hole, he pauses. "This is gonna burn a bit. But that's just at first, it gets better, okay?"

He doesn't wait for a response, which is good, because Dean's not quite sure he would've gotten one out. When Seth spreads another sachet worth of lube over Dean's asshole and pushes the tip of a finger inside, Dean gasps, tries to jerk backwards a little, but Seth shushes him, starts jacking his softening cock back to hardness before he continues. He was right, it does burn, but the uncomfortable feeling of it ebbs off after a few moments. Seth pushes his finger in deeper, adds a second, scissors them, and the more Dean gets used to it, the better it feels.

Almost involuntarily, Dean spreads his legs wider, rocks down onto the fingers inside of him, and Seth grins. "Ready for more?"

Dean's not quite sure, but he moans a "yeah" anyway, and Seth gets to his feet. He puts a condom on his dick and tugs Dean forward a little so that his ass hangs just over the edge of the sink.

He lets his eyes fall shut, but they fly open again as Seth's cock nudges at his ass. He wants to see him, wants to look into his face as he drives into him, doesn't want to let himself imagine it's Sam.

Seth presses in, and Dean gasps; that's more than the fingers, so much more. His breath speeds up, his hands find Seth's hip and dig in, and Seth stops. He stays where he his a moment longer, lets Dean get used to the stretch, before he pushes in further. Slowly, inch by inch, until he's completely buried in Dean's ass, another pause, and only then he starts to move in earnest. His hands are busy keeping Dean in place so he doesn't fall off the sink, but he looks down between their bodies and back up at Deans face, winks. "Feel free to take care of that yourself."

At first Dean doesn't get what he means, but on second thought, it's obvious. He takes one hand off Seth's flank and touches himself, jerks his own cock in rhythm with Seth's thrusts.

He comes like that, hand on his own dick and Seth moving inside him.

***

Right after they're done, Dean dresses in a hurry – public bathroom after all – and leaves a perplexed Seth behind without making many more words. Seth slips him his phone number, but Dean sends it flying into the first dumpster he sees.

He aches, but that's probably normal; the human back entrance isn't made to have things shoved into it. And what's more important is that he's still on a post-orgasmic high when he gets into the car, has to take few minutes to get his heartbeat under control before he deems it safe to drive back to the motel. Not the hardest he ever came, but it's safe to say that fucking a guy? Definitely an experience he's going to repeat.

And that means, Dean guesses, a theory confirmed. It's not exclusively Sam, he's no perv who gets off on the thought that it's his brother who's got his dick in his hand.

But that, of course, still leaves Sam. Who did get off on exactly that, who admitted to having the hots for his own brother since fuck-knows-when. Who'd likely do it again if Dean let him, and more.

Who's in love with him in all the wrong ways.

Sam said that wasn't Dean's fault, but how can it not be? He's got to have done something wrong, encouraged Sam in some way. Planted the idea in his head, albeit unknowingly. Dean must be the one who wired him wrong. There's no other explanation.

"I'm sorry." It's a barely above a whisper, and there's no one to hear it anyway, but Dean needs to say it out loud. Does it again, a few more times, until it becomes a string of words like a prayer, a mantra. He could pick up the phone and tell it to Sam like he ought to, but knows Sam wouldn't accept it. They'd be in for another awkward conversation, and Dean doesn't know if he'd be able to resist if Sam pleaded to see him.

And he can't. They can't. Between his own guilty conscience and the renewed nausea he's got to fight at the memory of that night, he can't be anywhere near Sam right now.

Worse: he doesn't trust himself to resist if Sam tries anything again. Because it's Sam, his little brother, the kid he helped raise, and making sure Sam's as happy as he can be under any given circumstances is as much a part of Dean as the need to breathe.

That can't happen. He can't mess Sam up further, or allow Sam to do it to both of them.

***

There are others, after that. A whole lot, actually. Dean throws himself into hunting, spends his free time fucking men and women alike. It's worked before, drowning himself in adrenaline and sex, and hell, he's done this before – for four years. He survived without Sam before, he can do it again.

SAM

Sam didn't plan on going back to Stanford, but with Dean gone it's the only other thing that means something to him. Enough time has passed that he's still got friends there but Jess' death isn't on the forefront of everyone's minds anymore, and it's surprisingly easy to make himself fit in again. Once there, he texts Dean to let him know, but doesn't get a response; so much for staying in touch.

He doesn't matriculate again, though. Too many memories, too close to what he had with Jess. Instead, and he gets himself a job in a college book store nearby to support an apartment off campus. He spends a lot of his time on campus anyway, with his friends, but being able to go home to a place that is as far from their old apartment as you can possibly get within the city limits of Palo Alto is something he needs to do to distance himself from his past.

Four weeks in, he meets Jamie.

Sam's been invited to a party by his old clique, for one of the girls' birthdays, and the very last thing he's looking for that particular evening is to flirt or try to get laid. It doesn't start as something like that, either; they start out talking about taxes, which is just about the least sexy topic one can choose.

Jamie is two years older than him, dressed in jeans and a tight t-shirt that complements her, short and curly red hair, and she isn't a student either. She works as an assistant tax consultant. A mutual friend introduces them to solve some legal issues arising from the fact that Sam had left in a hurry and now doesn't have any jobs or even steady addresses to show for the past few months. She gives him some advice on that, offers to look through his documents the day after, and when that's cleared, they just, well. Don't stop talking. They talk about how exasperating full-time students can be, about the best restaurants in Palo Alto, about movies and music, before they move on to more serious topics.

"So, what's your story?" Sam asks, after Jamie's back from a bathroom break. While she was gone, he's had a moment to become aware of how increasingly interested he's gotten to find out how a girl from the deep South – she hasn't told him, but if there's one thing moving around so much as a kid made him familiar with it's accents, and the way she drawls and drops her 'r'-s is unmistakable – ended up at Stanford and not as a student. Not something he'd normally ask so bluntly, but he's inebriated enough to ignore how inappropriate it might be.

Taken aback, Jamie blinks at him. "My story?"

"Yeah. Where are you from, how did you end up here?"

"Oh", she says. "Clarksburg, West Virginia. And I, hm. How most people who aren't from the area end up in Palo Alto, I guess. I came to study here." He raises his eyebrows to signal he wants to hear more, and she continues. "My parents were... Hm, not rich, but, let's say, well-situated. I grew up privileged and sheltered, and that I go to an Ivy League college was pretty much expected. My grades were okay if not exceptional, so my parents had to pay for it, which they did gladly for the first semester."

She's pretty far from what he pictures when he thinks of rich Southern girls, but yeah. Explains the way she talks. He likes it, likes to listen to her, but he's also genuinely interested in how she ended up working for a living instead of studying. He likes her, Sam realizes, even though he's not quite sure what to do with that yet. "What happened?"

Jamie takes a long gulp from her beer glass before she answers. "My dad got convicted for fraud. Most of our money got seized to pay off people he cheated out of theirs, and now my mom's working two jobs to keep the house and I had to drop out and do something useful."

She puts down the glass and lets her hand fall onto the table, and Sam reaches forward, grabs it and squeezes. She looks at him then, sizing him up in an entirely different way, and even though that wasn't his intention he can feel the atmosphere around the two of them shifting.

He's not prepared for it, hasn't even made up his mind about whether he wants to go for girls again so soon with Jess still in mind, stick with guys for a while even though that'd remind him of Dean, or flat-out give dating a pass for a while. During the early months of his first round at college he casually fucked that nice-but-boring guy from his literature class a couple of times, and a few days ago he found out that Sam's back and single and tossed him his number in the cafeteria; Sam's thought about calling him and reviving their arrangement.

The moment stretches on, the comforting squeeze too long to stay innocent, and neither Sam nor Jamie speak. She smiles and holds his gaze, waiting, until she seems to decide that one of them will have to make the first step and withdraws her hand from underneath his.

"So here I am," she says, gestures widely to indicate just how much of a stretch it was that she – of all people – landed in taxes, and leans in close enough that Sam can feel her breath on his face. She couldn't be any clearer if she'd draw him a picture, and yeah. Screw it. He's just going to grab his chances where they present themselves. Sam moves his face the last inch that's necessary to bring his lips to hers, and she kisses back with a hunger that makes the last of his reservations dissolve.

She's out of breath when hey break apart, grins wickedly, and gets up to gather her things. "My place our yours?"

***

Jamie is everything Dean isn't, sweet and easy, uncomplicated and straight-forward. It's not supposed to be more than a one night stand, but somehow, she forgets to leave. Sam spends less and less of his free time on campus and most of it with her, and before he knows it what they have qualifies as a relationship.

He can't say he minds, and it makes it easier to stop thinking about Dean day-in and day-out. Sam's feelings for his brother have always been an undercurrent, dormant and hidden deep inside him, all he's got to do is send them back there.

It may be love, or it may not, with Jamie. Sam's not thinking about it too much. He enjoys her company, her dry sense of humor, her unashamed and open attitude towards intimacy and sex. He gets angry on her behalf when Jamie runs out of the room with unshed tears in her eyes during a phone call from her mom, makes her chamomile tea and chicken soup when she comes down with the flu. He cares about her, and keeps doing so more with every day that passes.

But he doesn't lie to her, doesn't her promise anything he's not sure he can give. She knows about Jess – hardly anyone who'd been around Stanford when she died doesn't – and she's not pushing.

***

He makes it through about a month before he wakes up from a nightmare. He dreams about a guy in who gets trapped in his own garage with the car still running, sees in vivid pictures how he dies from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The moment his eyes fly open, Sam knows it's not just a bad dream, can feel it in his bones. Like he did when he dreamt about their house in Lawrence.

His first instinct is to tell Dean, and he's halfway across the room to dig out his phone when he remembers that his brother doesn't want to talk him, and that another freaky vision and a call out of blue might not be the perfect way to break the ice. For a moment he considers chasing after it alone, tries to remember the license plate or anything else, but... There's a reason he came back here, instead of hunting on his own.

Jamie's awake by the time he crawls back into bed, and she gathers him in close, wraps herself around him from behind and pushes sweat-soaked strands of hair out of his face. She probably thinks this is about Jess, and he doesn't bother correcting her, presses back into her warmth and closes his eyes.

DEAN

After a few weeks on the road, Dean's caught up with the main difference between the first time he's been without Sam and the second: Dad.

Before he came to get Sam at Stanford last year, he'd always had Dad to fall back to. Not like they spent much time together – most of the time they did solo hunts, teamed up only for the bigger gigs – but he'd been a constant presence. They called each other every couple of days, met up every other week or two, helped each other out with research if either of them got stuck.

Now Dad's gone as well, got rid of him to go run after the demon alone, and Dean has no clue where he is or what he's doing. Safe for a text message every now and then, Dean couldn't even be sure if he's still alive.

Dean's always thought he does well on his own, doesn't really need anyone, fuck 'em all. Maybe he's not as good at it as he imagined.

***

Cassie calls him two months after he and Sam parted ways. She tries five times within 24 hours, and he stares at the screen until she hangs up every time.

His phone sits in his pocket like a lead weight for another day, and some time after 3 AM, he dials her number. Ten minutes later he's on his way to Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

"Hey," she says when he appears on her doorstep, just that, and despite the fact that it was her who called and downright begged for his help he she makes him feel like he's the one who wants something from her. She's always been independent and proud of it, hates to ask for anything.

Funny thing, between the two of them, he's always been the one who had an easier time talking, until that one time he talked too much. But Dean doesn't say a word in reply, now, when they explode at each other over spilled milk from years ago. He leans in and kisses her, and doesn't stop to think again until the next morning.

They successfully off a ghost and the rusty truck it's been attached to, and after a week, he leaves. She offered him a place to stay, and he considered, hung around a few days longer than he'd have needed to in order to think about it, but in the end it didn't feel right.

***

Alone again, Dean does the only thing he's got left that means something to him: he works. There are so many hunts in quick succession that they blur together: ghosts and monsters and creatures in Syracuse and Drummond and Arden Hills, but in hindsight he can barely remember what happened where.

Most of the time he can't quite recall when he last ate or slept either. Dad would lecture him about how unhealthy and how much of a risk he's taking and Sam would pester him to take better care of himself, dammit, Dean, but they're both gone, so what does it matter?

What he does remember, clearly, as if they've been stamped with the time and date in his head, are all the times he almost calls Sam. Late at night in bed when he can't sleep, or in the middle of the day, sitting in the car and waiting for a traffic light to turn green, or in a diner after he's done with his meal and in no particular hurry to get back to his room. He'd get his phone out, scroll to the right entry in his contact list, and brush his thumb over the call-button.

But he never presses it.

***

A hunt in Miami goes haywire, almost does him in.

It's a swamp beast, nasty one at that, and he calls Dad for backup against his better judgment. Predictably, Dad never shows, and Dean goes after the thing alone.

He spends his day in a bush near the swamp in question, sweats so much the water runs down the small of his back and into the waistband of his jeans in rivulets, and around sundown the chirping of a full battalion of cicadas has very nearly driven him insane. Chances are he's got a heat stroke, too, because when he crawls out of hiding to put a spear into the thing's heart, he feels feverish and sees double.

He manages to kill it, but only after it drowns him within an inch of his life twice in the struggle.

The following day and a half are a blur of unbearable heat, restless sleep, hurling into the toilet for what feels like hours at a time and the exaggerated moans of a Hispanic prostitute doing business next door. On day three, he feels good enough to shower and get going; there are still more bathroom breaks than usual and he naps in the car every few hundred miles, but it beats slowly cooking himself to death in a motel room with a broken AC.

Dean's halfway up to South Dakota before he even realizes he was headed that way.

***

He hasn't seen Bobby in about five or six years, not since that night Dad dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night and told him they were going to leave and won't go anywhere near Singer Salvage again.

But Dad's not here. Dad's not even picking up the phone, and he can go fuck himself for all Dean cares.

The guard dog that tries to drown out the Impala's engine with his barking when Dean drives onto the property is a different one now, and it doesn't recognize him when he steps out of the car like most of its predecessors would have. Dean has to stay out of reach and wait until Bobby appears in the doorway and yells an order at the mutt, but when he makes a step forward, Bobby puts his hand up to stop him.

"Your old man with ya?" he asks, hand still on the shotgun he's brought out with him.

"No," answers Dean. "Not for a while now. I'm alone."

"Are you, son? Been hearing through the grapevine that you've teamed up with your little brother."

"We, uh. Got sick of each other, decided to split for a few weeks."

That seems to satisfy Bobby's curiosity for the time being. He gestures for Dean to follow him inside and Dean does, eyes carefully glued to the snarling dog curled up in his shed. He trots into the kitchen after Bobby, and turns down the coffee he's offered.

Bobby takes a step forward and raises an eyebrow, gaze roaming over Dean until their eyes meet. "You feelin' alright?"

Dean looks away. "Killed a swamp beast in Miami last week. Stupid idea, that, I don't do well in the heat. Shoulda known I'd come away feeling like shit."

"I ain't gonna nurse you back to health, if that's what you had in mind."

"Fuck you, I don't need a nursemaid."

"Mind your tone with me, kid." Bobby's coffee mug meets the table with a clung. "What is it you're here for, then?"

Good question, and Dean's not sure of the answer himself. He hasn't talked to Bobby in years, never bothered to get his side of the story when Dad took him and stormed off, and what was he thinking to come here now? But Bobby has him fixed with a glare, waits for an answer. "I, uh, have been in the area. Thought I'd stop by and say hi."

"In the area, eh? Didn't you say you were in Miami last week?"

Well, fuck. Apparently his bullshitting skills shrivel up and die when he's got no one to practice them on, and the fact that he's nauseous again doesn't help with the creative lying either. He gets up. "You know what? Sorry I bothered you. Let me take a quick piss, and I'll be outta your hair in five."

"Sit your ass down, Dean," Bobby growls, and something in his tone has Dean tempted to obey instantly. It's eerily familiar to his Dad's commando voice, but Dean remembers just in time that he came here because he's given up on following orders.

Also, he's really got to puke.

Under Bobby's scrutinizing gaze, Dean makes a run for the bathroom. He's not quite sure when he last ate something, as usual, but it must have been awhile because all that comes is bile. It doesn't stop for much longer than what he can cover up with taking a leak; every time he tries to bring his body upright, he has to retch again, until all that gets him are painful heaves and cramps high in his stomach.

After a couple of minutes – or hours, Dean kinda lost his grasp on that – Bobby's voice comes from outside the door.

"Dean, you alright?" The earlier venom has flown out of it, all that's left is honest concern.

Dean spits into the toilet and tries once more to bring is upper half into a vertical position; no use. "Not really," he admits.

There are footsteps outside the door, leading away, and Dean finds that confusing, closes his eyes to sort his thoughts. When he opens them again, Bobby's back and in the room with him, shoves a glass of water into his face.

"Here. Drink this."

And Dean tries, because giving in to the way nausea doubles him over time and time again is embarrassing enough when he's alone, but with an audience it's more than his pride can put up with. He has to swallow another wave of bile down, but he manages to stand up and not puke all over Bobby's front as he lowers himself back down to sit next to the bathtub.

Bobby lets him rest there for a moment before he reminds him of the water. Dean motions for the glass, sips carefully once, then again, and tries to smile up at Bobby reassuringly when he takes it from him and sets it down on the tiles. "Okay, what exactly happened up in Miami? Did you manage to get your fool self poisoned?"

"No," Dean says, but he's suddenly not quite sure. "At least I don't think so. Don't do well with the heat, is all."

"Ah. Brilliant idea to hunt in Florida, then." A reprimand, but the soft tone takes all the impact out of it. "You killed that thing on your own?"

"Yeah. Called Dad to see if he could give me a hand, but he's got better things to do."

The frown on Bobby's face speaks volumes about his opinion on John Winchester's priorities, but he doesn't comment on it. Instead, he grips Dean's arm and raises his eyebrows in question. "Can you get up now?"

Dean nods, and Bobby heaves him to a stand, holds him in place with a hand to his shoulder. "Okay, here's what's going to happen. We're gonna get you into bed now, and you better stay there until you got a decent amount of sleep, or I'll knock you out and put you there. And after that you'll stay here for a coupla days, eat what I cook you, and get your strength up. Dammit, kid, don't you see you're runnin' yourself into the ground?"

***

'A coupla days' turns into two weeks, and on Saturday of the second one, Bobby gestures for Dean – who's been sitting in the living room and cleaning a few old shotguns – when he's on the phone. He holds a hand over the receiver as soon as Dean's gotten up and is close enough to hear him without shouting. "Old friend of mine needs a hand down in Monte Sereno. You up for that?"

Of course he nods a go-ahead at Bobby, would be ungrateful not to, and he realizes too late that Monte Sereno's practically in spitting distance of Stanford.

SAM

They make it for exactly three months, 25 days and 10-something hours.

Not like Sam's been keeping count.

His phone rings on a Thursday afternoon, and he expects it to be Jamie. She's at work longer than he is, and it's not unusual for her to call him when there's not much to do. They talk about their plans for the evening, if they're going to spend the night at his place or hers, or about what she should buy for dinner on her way home.

So when Sam picks up the phone without checking caller ID, prepared to hear her voice and what he hears is Dean's, he doesn't know what he's supposed to reply and simply breathes into the receiver in shock.

Dean says his name again. "Sam? You there? Talk to me, man."

It takes Sam a few more moments to gather his wits. Stomping down the hope that rises in his chest is infinitely harder, and he tries not to sound exited when he answers, "Yeah. I'm surprised you called, that's all."

"Oh, sorry."

"No! No, don't apologize. Didn't expect to hear from you, it's been awhile, but I'm glad. Good to hear your voice." As soon as it's out, Sam knows it was the wrong thing to say, too sappy, and true to form, he hears Dean heave a sigh on the other end of the line. Sam can almost picture him rolling his eyes at his girl of a brother.

There's a short pause during which neither of them says a word, and then Dean's voice comes again, low and hesitant. "Listen, I'm in the area. I know it's been in a few months, and don't take this the wrong way, I'm not, uh, picking you up or anything. I still don't know how to handle your, you know. Crush on me. But it'd feel weird not to at least swing by."

Sam wants to yell at him that it's not a fucking crush, that he's not, in fact, a love-sick teenager and that what he feels for Dean is the deepest, most overwhelming emotion he's ever had, but he figures that won't be very productive and would only drive Dean away. What he settles for is, "Yeah, sure."

"Okay. Text me your address, and I'll be there in bit," Dean says and hangs up before Sam has the chance to dig himself an even deeper hole.

For the next twenty minutes, Sam sits in his living room and stares at the wall. It does anything but make the time pass faster, but he can't work up the energy to do anything else than keep himself very still and listen for the roar of the Impala outside. When it comes, he's up like someone jerked him up by an invisible string and has the door open before Dean can even press the doorbell.

Dean's eyebrows shoot up, and he smiles. It's strained and not fully honest, there to ease them both into this, but Sam appreciates the effort. "I take it you're happy to see me?"

"You have no idea." Sam holds the door open, takes a step back to make room, and Dean steps inside.

He takes a look around Sam's one-room-apartment, not much bigger than most of the motel rooms they've stayed in and with a similar kitchenette in the corner, and flops down onto the sofa as if he owns the place. "What've you been up to? Back to college, yeah?"

Sam settles on a stool opposite to it. "No. I'm working in a student bookstore in town."

Dean leans forward a little, and this time his grin is more honest. "Seriously? You're sellin' books?"

It's contagious, Sam can't help but grin back. "Yeah, seriously."

"Geek. Sometimes I wonder who taught you that."

"Hey, are you kidding me? You and Dad have been the ones who always put me up to research. Don't complain about raising a bookworm now."

"But, I mean, you're doin' good?" Dean's face turns more serious, his eyes roam the room again. Always the concerned big brother.

Sam nods. "I'm doing okay. Not really earning a fortune, but I get by. And I, uh. I met someone. A girl, Jamie." He's not sure why, but his ears heat up at mentioning her, as if he half-hopes Dean to... What, be jealous?

Of course, Dean isn't. He looks relieved. "Hey, that's great.”

He follows up by demanding a photo, giving a few appreciative comments on Jamie's looks, and when Sam asks what he's been doing Dean happily latches onto the topic and tells some stories about hunts and creatures and kills. They joke around and banter, and it almost feels as if nothing happened between them, until Sam takes a misstep. He offers Dean his couch for the night, says he'll tell Jamie to stay at her place for the night, and Dean takes it the wrong way.

"Sam, that's not what I'm here for. I still don't want you like that", he mumbles, eyes averted as if he's afraid they're about to toe a line he never even wanted to glance at again, and with that tiny reminder it all goes to shit.

Neither knows what to say next, and so they don't say anything at all and stare at the ground or the table or the wallpaper, anywhere else than at each other.

Eventually, Sam's had it and gets up to walk over to the kitchenette. He asks Dean if he wants something to drink, briefly touches his shoulder out of habit to get his attention, but Dean practically flinches away and that's that.

Sam walks over to pour them each an iced tea from the fridge anyway, to have something to occupy himself with, and when he turns back around Dean's on his feet. "I should go," he says, and all Sam can do is stare back at him.

Jamie comes home from work just as Dean gets into the car. She waves and smiles, and asks who that was as they both watch the car disappear down the street.

"My brother," Sam replies, eyes glued to the Impala's taillights.

Jamie cocks her head, expression both surprised and disappointed. Sam never even told her he has a brother. "What'd he say?"

Sam looks after the car as it disappears down the street, gets smaller and smaller until it's out of sight entirely. "Goodbye."

***

Confirmation for that comes two days later. Dean calls again, and this time Sam's heart turns to ice at the cold, distant tone in Dean's voice. He passes by greeting or niceties and gets right to the point. "I think we should go separate ways for good. Not see each other again. You stay in Cali, I'm sure Jamie's a nice girl and will make you happy if you let her, and I'll, uh. Keep doin' my thing."

"Dean, no – "

"That's not a suggestion, Sam. I'm not saying we have to scrape our names out of our contact lists, you can call me sometime or I'll call you, but I don't think we're good for each other. We're better off apart, okay?"

Still with the cold voice, like if he allows any emotion into it at all he's not going to go through with this, and it's not okay. Nothing has ever been quite so not-okay with Sam, and he wants to reach through the phone and throttle Dean for saying that, for deciding this without giving Sam a vote, but there's nothing he can do. The most he'll accomplish by getting angry now is to drive Dean away fully and risk that he won't even call again, so he bites is tongue. "If that's what you want."

"It is. Take care." Dean says and hangs up.

Sam keeps staring at his phone for a long time after the line went dead.

DEAN

It's irreversible, this thing that happened between them, that Sam did and Dean allowed. He had an easy enough time forgetting it when they sat and talked, familiar ribbing and back-and-forth, but as soon as Sam touched him it was all there again. He was back in that motel room, Sam's hands where they didn't belong and Dean giving it up before he could think better of it, moaning like a five-dollar-whore when he should've been yelling and screaming and calling Sam names for the mere thought.

He meant what he said; they're better off apart. It's hard for both of them, Dean currently feels like he ripped half of his heart out of his chest and hung it up for the ravens to pick at, but at least this way they stay brothers.

***

The hunt in Chicago doesn't look particularly interesting, but it comes with the added bonus of being pretty much on the other side of the country. A girl ribbed to shreds in her apartment, Dean reads about it on one of those mystery-crime websites Sam showed him while they were on the road together, and he spends the next couple of days driving from California to Illinois. He didn't move too far from Palo Alto for a week or two, afraid to make it final by moving on. But, right now, putting a lot of miles between them might be exactly what he needs.

Crime scene investigation is the first thing on his to-do list. He gets into it with a fake badge because he doesn't feel like playing dress-up on his own, and it's gruesome but not very exotic. A symbol on the carpet – painted in blood spatters and rather obvious to the knowing eye – gives him his first clue and some quick digging into local police records informs him of a second victim.

The second clue isn't quite so obvious, but jumps out at him when he roots through both victim's files: born in Lawrence, Kansas. He finds it once and shrugs it away as coincidence, but checks it in other file as well since he's been taught to be thorough, and bingo.

He calls Dad. Voice mail, as per usual, and Dean reports his findings as neutrally as possible because another thing he's been taught is not to jump to conclusions, and then he waits.

***

Dean's phone rings just after he finally drifts off, and Dad's voice is somewhat scolding when he asks Dean if he's taken to dozing through a case.

"No sir," Dean answers, and, "it's past 4 AM here, I gotta sleep some time."

Dad exhales, exasperated, and Dean notices that he sounds tired himself. "Fine, whatever. You're sure about Lawrence? Both of them?"

Of course Dean's sure, he wouldn't have called on a hunch, but he bites down the snarky comeback that wants to escape in response. "Yeah, I triple-checked. It's in the police files, and there are matching records in the registry for Kansas. Can't be a hundred percent without checking the documents in Lawrence, but so far it adds up."

“Okay,” Dad says. "Stay put, I can make it to Chicago in 48 hours tops. Don't do anything until I get there, I'll call you."

***

For a day and a half, Dean does exactly as he's told: nothing. He sits around in is motel room and watches TV. He beats off twice to cheap porn, because he's bored out of his skull, sent away the one person he'd enjoy to do nothing with, and hey, he's a guy. In the evening he orders Chinese takeout more to pass the time than because he's hungry, watches more TV and by nightfall on the second day he decides that the command to stay idle was case-related and that it doesn't keep him from having some real fun.

He showers and goes to find himself a bar. Not a hard task in a city like Chicago, there's one right around the corner. He settles on a stool by the bar with a beer, a second one because the bar's crowed and it's always good to plan ahead, and a good view of the room.

Going home alone isn't on his agenda tonight.

Despite all the looking around and checking out, Dean doesn't get to initiate a flirt; one barges into him in form of a tiny blond with short hair. She reaches over the counter to get the barkeeper's attention and bumps into him, not because she's drunk but because someone shoves her out of the way when he tries to do the same. Even after that guy's gone, she stays where she is, presses her body to Dean's for much longer than necessary, a telling smile on her lips.

"Why hello, aren't you exactly who I've been looking for tonight," she says, and Dean grins back at her.

"Funny, I was about to say the same." He offers her the beer he hasn't touched yet and watches the line of her neck as she pulls half of it down in one go, the movement of her throat as she swallows.

The bottle meets the counter with a clung, and Dean whistles appreciatively. "Brisk pace you're settin' there, honey."

"One, I'm not your honey, and two, I don't plan on spending much more time in here." She winks, and yeah, Dean finds he's not particularly attached to this place either.

They don't talk anymore until they've both finished their drinks, and when she takes his hand and leads him outside he follows willingly. She backs him up against the wall just outside the bar, descends on him like a starving animal, and hey, he doesn't complain. Her teeth graze his lower lip, and he opens up for her, lets her bring their lips together and lick into his mouth, chases after her when she pulls back.

"Wow," she says and pulls her lips into a deprecating sneer, "I've heard you're easy but that's a tad slutty, don't you think?"

Before Dean can even try to figure out what's going on, her eyes flash black and an invisible hand bangs his head to the brick wall so hard he blacks out.

***

He comes to in rundown warehouse, sitting on the floor and bound to a pole. The tiny blond stands by a table at the other end of the room, busy with what looks to be a ritual of some sort, and Dean doesn't realize he's not alone until he hears a pained groan from a few feet away. He turns his head around to see who's there, and his blood runs cold.

Dad. He's bound too, but he's lying on the floor and ropes are the least of his problems. His eyes are open but unfocused, if he sees Dean he clearly doesn't recognize him. Jacket and shirt are torn open, and blood oozes out from a multitude of cuts all over his chest. His face is covered in bruises, right eye swollen shut, and his lip's split.

Dean thrashes against his restraints in a futile attempt to get to him, and that catches demon girl's attention.

"Ah," she sing-songs, "Dean. You're up and awake, how lovely. And just in time for the big finale!"

An old-fashioned, bronze cup in her hand, she walks over to John, grabs a fistful of his hair and hoists him up. He groans, but it's halted when she draws his head back to expose his throat.

"Leave him alone!" Dean yells, but she just looks at him, broad grin and amused quirk to her eyebrows.

"And what are you gonna do if I don't, huh? You're not in any position to stop me." With that, she pulls out a knife from behind her back, brings it to John's throat and slits it in a single, long cut.

Helpless to do anything else, Dean strains against the ropes and watches as she catches his Dad's blood in the cup, releases his hair when the blood flow slows down so that his lifeless body slumps to the floor. She stands and walks back to the table, and Dean can't help but watch her every move, because if he lets her out of his sight his eyes are going to be glued to his father instead and he can't.

Her back is turned to him, so he doesn't see what she's doing, and when she speaks again he can't make sense of it at first. "It's done," she says, and then "Thank you! What about the kid, should I take care of him too?"

Dean closes his eyes, aware that if whoever it is she's talking to decides that yes, she should do that, there's not much he can to do stop it. And he isn't quite sure he wants to, if he's honest.

But the verdict seems to have fallen in his favor, because she nods her head, sets the cup aside and turns to face Dean again. "Looks like someone has plans for you, honey."

The back of his head is thrown into the pole and the world goes dark once more. When Dean comes back around the second time, he's alone in the warehouse and free. The ropes are cut, and the door's open.

Dad's body is gone, too.

SAM

One late summer morning, not too long after they met in Palo Alto, Sam wakes up to three missed calls from Dean and a short message: "Found Dad. Too late."

Jamie and him were out with friends and had a few last night, but he's instantly sober and dials Dean's number before he's completely out of bed, tiptoes out of her bedroom and into her kitchen while the call connects.

Dean answers on the first ring. "Sam?"

"Yeah, of course, it's me. What happened?"

A snort on the other end of the line, but it's devoid of all humor. "He's dead, that's what happened. I got him killed. A trap, and I dove into it head first, dragged him along, and now he's dead. Sam. He's dead."

Sam highly doubts that's an accurate summary of what happened, but he gets the main point. Dad's dead. Dean's alone, and he thinks it's his fault. "Dean, where are you?"

"A long, long way from you, Sammy-boy."

No fucking way. He won't let Dean call with something like this and then hang up afterwards to happily snuggle up with his girlfriend. "Doesn't matter, Jamie's got a car and it's Saturday and you better tell me where you are right now or I'll track your phone and call every fucking person you ever so much as talked to. I won't stop until I've found you, so you better make this easier for everyone involved and tell me where the hell you are!"

There's a long moment of silence during which Sam's afraid he's taken it too far, sounded too rough. But then Dean's voice comes again, quiet and raw, as if he's been crying, and if Sam never hears that again it's too soon. "Chicago, Danny's Inn, room 116."

"Stay there, okay? Don't go anywhere, don't do anything stupid, just wait until I get there. Yeah? Dean?"

"Yeah, yeah, alright. Did I ever tell you how alike the two of you are? At the very least, that bug up your asses must be genetic," says Dean, tone now cutting, and Sam likes that one hell of a lot better than the broken whisper from before.

"I'll hurry," he promises, and ten minutes later he's on the road.

***

He calls Dean every hour, on the clock, even if it's sometimes only to have Dean yell at him to cut the crap and leave him the fuck alone. Not once does he stop to sleep or eat, only ever gets out of the car to take bathroom breaks at gas stations and buy himself something to drink and a snack, and within thirty-two hours he's in Chicago.

Sam finds the motel and Dean's room, knocks, and for a second he fears Dean won't open the door. That's not going to stop Sam from getting in, they both know that, but the thought that after everything that's happened Dean might not want him here is terrifying.

But Dean does open it. He's pale, eyes bloodshot and heavy, and when he turns to sit on the bed Sam sees dried blood caked in the short hair at the back of his skull. His jeans are dirty, covered in dust and grime and with blood stains on the knees, as if he's knelt in a pool of it.

Sam knows whose blood that is, and suddenly he wants to puke. He was so worried about Dean, no room in his head or his heart for anything else, but now the knowledge sinks in that their father's gone. "How?" he croaks out.

Dean tells him about murder victims born in Lawrence and how he called Dad, about a blond demon and a warehouse, how she cut Dad's throat as part of some weird-ass ritual and then, in the end, let Dean go free. His tone and expression are detached, as if there's nothing going on beyond the facts he's recounting, and when he's done he just sits there and stares at Sam.

"The body's gone?" Sam asks, swallows hard and pinches the bridge of his nose. He briefly closes his eyes, tries to imagine their father lifeless on a cold hard floor and fails, opens them again in time to see Dean nod. "Okay, we'll look for him later. Let's take care of you first."

Although he nods again, Dean doesn't move, shell-shocked to stillness, and Sam takes hold of his wrists to pull him up into a standing position. He corrals him into the bathroom, turns on the shower, and he's grateful that Dean takes the hint and starts to peel off his clothes. Sam leaves the room and goes to get some new sheets, because the old ones are ruined. When Dean emerges from the bathroom Sam goes to get a quick shower himself; too many hours spent in the car, he feels gross, and he could use a few minutes to think.

By the time he's done and steps back into the main room, Dean's settled under the sheets, and it becomes obvious that he's been traveling alone: no need for two beds. Sam shuffles awkwardly before he pulls jeans and t-shirt back on and scans the room for Dean's car keys; they have sleeping bags in there. When they were younger it wasn't unusual that they'd share a bed if their current apartment or the motel room they shared with Dad made it necessary, but that was before. Now, Sam figures, Dean wouldn't be too thrilled if he slipped under the covers next to him.

He finds the keys on Dean's bedside table, and to snatch them he has to stand in Dean's direct line of sight. That doesn't go unnoticed, Dean opens his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Gonna go out to the car to get a sleeping bag."

Dean seems to consider that for a moment, but then he rolls his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. Just make sure you stay on your side of the bed and keep your hands to yourself, and we'll be fine."

Sam's careful to stay as far away from Dean's body as possible without falling off the mattress on the other side, but after the long drive he falls asleep almost instantly.

***

When Sam wakes the next morning, Dean's already up. He looks over at Sam briefly when he senses he's awake, and judging from the dark shadows under his eyes, he didn't sleep much. There are three coffee cups next to the open laptop, Dean has a few printouts spread all over the table, mixed with some sketches he drew, of a symbol of some sort; whatever he's doing, he's been at it for a while.

Sam peels himself out of bed and walks over to the table, picks one of the sketches up to give it a closer look. "What's this?"

"The symbol I found in the dead girl's apartment."

"Do we know what it is?"

Dean rubs a hand down his face and squeezes his eyes shut for a second, and Sam's not sure if it's because he's exhausted or to keep himself composed. "Now we do, yeah. I talked to Caleb earlier, and it's a very old sigil. Zoroastrian symbol, that's what it's called. They're used to control one or more Daevas."

"Daevas?"

"Ancient shadow demons. Nasty beasts, demonic blood hounds, if you will. I think – " His voice breaks, he coughs. "I think that's what demon chick used to get to Dad."

Sam's heart gets stuck in this throat, for more than one reason. "Do you think she'll send them after you, too?"

Dean shakes his head. "No. They, uh. Finished with him before I came to, and I don't think she'd let me go just to send those critters after me later."

"Why do you think she did that?" It hadn't occurred to Sam before, when Dean told him about the details of what happened, he was too hung up on the fact that their Dad died. But now he realized how little sense it makes that she let Dean go with barely a scratch.

"Huh?" And apparently, it's enough of a one-eighty for Dean to lose track of the conversation's whereabouts.

"Let you go. I mean, she's a demon. They're not in the habit of leaving witnesses."

"Oh. Yeah, right. She said someone had plans for me." Dean's eyes trail off, no doubt to replay the scene his head. He blinks, licks his lips. "That's it, and then she knocked me out."

Sam sits down next to him, but averts his eyes for what he's going to suggest next. "I think we should go back to the warehouse. Uh, I mean. I should. You don't have to."

The expression that flashes over Dean's face tells Sam all he needs to know about exactly how much Dean wants to go back there, but then he frowns and shakes his head. "And what if it's another game? One more trap, and they're just waitin' for us to be dumb enough to split up? Not gonna happen."

He stands, arms folded in front of his chest and eyebrows raised, and countless fights during both of their teenage years taught Sam that an expression like that doesn't brook any arguments.

***

The demon did a fairly good job of cleaning up the warehouse; there's not even a trace of blood left. It's still dirty and dusty and everything that an abandoned warehouse is supposed to be, but there's zero evidence of someone getting killed here. Only on a closer look, he sees evidence of what happened: the floor looks as if it's been wiped recently, and there are spots that have been treated with more effort than others, leaving a negative space of the blood that had to have been there. The table is still in the corner, with just enough cobwebs to have it look undisturbed, but traces of items that were placed on it are left in the dust on the surface.

Dean keeps by Sam's side as if he's got him on a leash, and under normal circumstances, Sam would suggest they split up a little, look the room over for leftover clues on their own to be done sooner. As it is, he doesn't say a word and just searches the floor, then the table, while Dean stands by just a few feet away. Whenever Sam's eyes flicker up to him, he sees him stare at the wall or his hands.

Finally, Sam can't take it anymore. "You should go wait in the car. Obviously there's no one here, this isn't a trap, if anyone wanted to they'd have attacked us already." He lowers his voice for the last sentence. "And you can barely stand to be in here."

Dean's answer comes as a low but firm "No", accompanied by a step forward, closer to Sam.

Well, he's tried. With a shrug, Sam turns his attention back to the floor under the table, eager to get them both out of here as fast as possible, when he sees a speck of white. There's a small piece of paper trapped under one of the table legs. He reaches for it, wiggles the leg a bit to get it free and picks it up.

"What is it?" asks Dean, gestures for Sam to show the paper to him, and Sam does before he even looks at it himself. Dean unfolds it and answers his own question: "Phone number, and a name. Some Bed & Breakfast in Philly."

***

The number belongs to a Bed & Breakfast alright, but calling it from a payphone near the warehouse doesn't get them any further. All the owner wants to know is if they want to book a room, and when Dean says he's looking for a friend of his that might've stayed in his establishment, the guy suggests him to call the directory information and go fuck himself.

But it's as good a point to start as any. They only go back to Dean's current motel to pack up and check out.

Philadelphia is a good twelve hours away, and the drive along the lakes is tense. Dean doesn't say a single word the whole time, won't let Sam take the wheel, doesn't stop to sleep either. He glances over every so often but stays silent, and eventually Sam curls up in his seat and feigns sleep until they come to a stand in front of their destination.

It's early evening, drizzling lightly, and the place is a shithole. A cheap, flat-roofed building, the neon sign that hangs from a pole next to the office door is broken, half the letters blink in and out of existence. There's graffiti all over the mouse-grey wall and not the artistic kind some of the fancier clubs pay for nowadays, but the obscene drawings and slogans mixed with political statements that are far from mainstream in one direction or the other.

The office itself is bathed in cold, industrial light coming from a naked row of overhead lights, and behind a computer that's so old Sam's tempted to look for a steam engine somewhere sits a bald guy, maybe in his forties. Sam assumes he's the one who that gave such a flawless example of costumer service on the phone. He looks up from the skin mag he's been reading to fix them with a glare. "Anything I can do for you?"

Sam didn't think it's possible for that line to sound so rude and offensive, but he puts a hand on Dean's chest as he senses that his brother's about to step forward and give the guy a piece of his mind. "Got a room? Two queens, for a couple of days."

"Sure thing. Checkout's at noon, if you miss it you'll pay every hour extra." The guy shoves a key across the counter. "Down the hall, third room on the left. Can't miss it."

Anger flown out of him as quickly as it had formed, Dean doesn't resist as Sam ushers him away from the counter and towards their room. "Figures a place like this would rent by the hour. Remind me to check the bed for dried spunk before I go to sleep," he says.

"Will do." Sam unlocks the door, pushes it open and steps in. He can't help to curl his lips a little in disgust; the room keeps the low-key promise the building and its owner gave. Without having too close a look he can make out dust-motes in the corners and stains on the bedspreads. "On second thought, we should probably sneak out and sleep in the car?"

Dean shoulders his way past. "Ah, come on, we've stayed in worse places. The return to college life softened you up, is all."

"I told you, I didn't go back to college, I – "

"You're living in a college town, with college friends and a girlfriend you met at a college party. Almost the same thing." Letting his duffel fall to the ground, Dean sits down on the bed next to the door, bounces up and down and grins. "Hey, it may be rank, but at least it's comfy."

And just like that, for a moment, it's easy again. A short time apart, and Sam can't believe he forgot what it could be like between them. The meet-up in California almost brought it back before he fucked up, but it had still been another thing, missed an important part, and Sam smiles at the thought that it might've been the canvas of a cheap, dirty motel room. The feeling that flows through him, warm and loose and affectionate, catches him aback and doesn't quite sink in, but it's nice, it's good, and it feels like home.

Their eyes meet, and for a second Dean smiles back, before it dies on his face. "You should do that, though. Go back to college."

There goes the moment.

"Dean – "

"No. This doesn't change anything. Or, well, at least it doesn't change that. I'm grateful you're here, right now, but sooner or later you gotta go back." He averts his eyes. "Probably sooner."

"And what are you going to do?"

"The same thing as always. But first, I'm going to make that thing pay," Dean says, gaze still firm on the stained, ugly bedspread.

Sam walks over to him, but stops short of sitting down next to him. "He was my father too."

Dean looks up. "I know. And I'll make sure to give the demon your regards before I send it back to hell."

That's not enough, not for their Dad, not for Mom or Jess, not for everything the two of them have been through, but Sam's got no interest in pursuing that point further right now. He nods. "Okay."

"Good. And you know what? I'm starving. How about I go and get us some burgers?" Dean's lips pull upwards again, but this time it's fake. He doesn't wait for an answer, gets up and grabs the keys he deposited on the bedside table just minutes ago, turns back around to Sam.

When he gets no answer, he hurries out the door and leaves Sam alone with the weight of his renewed decision.

***

Sam's on the phone with Jamie when Dean comes back. He silently mouths her name, and Dean nods, puts the paper bag down on his bed and divides their food while he waits for Sam to finish the conversation.

As soon as Sam's hung up, Dean nods at the phone still in his hand. "I'm sure she misses you."

"She does, a lot judging from how often she said it during the past ten minutes."

Dean sits down, gestures for Sam to join him and hands him a paper-wrapped burger when he does. "Do you miss her?"

"Yeah, sure," Sam answers, truthfully. He does. Living with her, it's not his first choice, but Jamie's become more than a consolation prize. Not quite comparable to what he had with Jess, couldn't be, but it's good.

Instead of answering, Dean bites into his burger, and that concludes the conversation. They eat in silence, talk nonsense afterwards about the program on TV and the motel and whether or not it's ever going to stop raining in this part of the country, and Sam goes to bed early. They'll have a good chunk of work ahead of them in the morning, figure out what the demon chick wanted here, why it had this number, and there are too many thoughts swirling around in Sam's head tonight to think straight.

He wakes in the middle of the night to Dean's hand on his shoulder, stares right into Dean's eyes when he opens his own.

His brother lays down on the bed right next to him, although above the covers and fully clothed, and Sam can't get hold of a single conscious thought long enough to try and make sense of that. The seconds – maybe minutes – fly past while Dean doesn't do anything else than stare back, his expression considering, thoughtful, like he's trying to solve a riddle and the clues are written on Sam's face.

When he finally speaks, his voice is so low that Sam has to strain to catch it. "I've been thinking about our conversation from earlier. Truth is, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Catch that fuckin' demon, of course, but what then? With Dad dead and you gone, I hardly know who I am. What I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life, after that."

"I don't have to be gone," Sam tries, and Dean exhales out, sounding frustrated to have to make that point again.

"Yeah, you do." He rests his forehead against Sam's, lets out another breath. "Because... Well, because of this."

Their lips meet, and Sam's heart almost stops. His entire world almost stops, as if someone switched to freeze-frame and skips forward very slowly. Time moves forward inch by inch, if at all. He concentrates on all the details he didn't pay attention to the last time: Dean's lips are chaffed and he tastes vaguely of toothpaste. He wears his usual four-o'clock shadow, and it prickles on the skin of Sam's face. His hand comes up to run along Sam's jawbone, touch of his fingertips softer than Sam imagined it.

It takes an inhuman effort to break the kiss and pull back. "Dean. You don't want this."

"Don't tell me what I want. I'm doing it, aren't I?"

"Why? The way you reacted after the last time, and you said nothing's changed, why are you – "

"Stop talking, Sam. Just, shut up, okay?"

And damn him, Sam does. He watches, thunderstruck and awed, as Dean sits up to remove boots and socks, pull off shirt and undershirt, comes back down to catch Sam's mouth again.

Sam's hands find their way to his bare chest on their own account, roam across his upper body and sides as they make out. Dean's eyes are closed, and Sam is content just to feel and touch, for a seemingly endless stretch of time it doesn't even occur to him to let his hands wander anywhere else than Dean's torso. He knows he's not likely to get another chance, and he's in no hurry to make this evolve any faster; the opposite, he's determined to make it last for as long as he possibly can. All night, if has a say in it.

Dean got other plans, apparently. He breaks the kiss, props himself up on one elbow so he can lean back and take hold of Sam's hand to direct it lower. With a dirty grin he places it on his dick, uses it to rub himself through his jeans.

He's hard. Dean's lying next to him, he's already hard and demanding and he fucking wants this, and right then and there Sam's brain nearly fries itself with want. He continues to palm Dean for no other reason than that he lacks the resources to come up with an alternative idea.

A little more pressure and Dean's eyes flutter closed again. He moans, that desperate little sound Sam remembers from last time and that still goes right to his cock. Looks like that's the inspiration Sam needed, because he's aching to hear more of it, so much and so loud that he won't ever forget it again. Carefully, he maneuvers Dean's arm out from under him and pushes until he's got Dean laid out on his back.

His eyes find Dean's gaze, silent question for the go-ahead, and Dean rolls his. "Quit thinking, man. I'm right here, and I'm not gonna change my mind all of a sudden, jump out of bed and screech like a chick."

"I'm just trying to make sure that you're, uh. Enjoying all this."

Dean's expression tightens. "Yeah, I know. Don't. Let's just do this, okay? Live in the moment for fuckin' once." He reaches down to unbutton his jeans, zip it down, and stares at Sam. "So now, do you wanna, or will I have to do it myself?"

And well, Sam wants. He inches forward, buries his face in the crook of Dean's neck to lick and nibble while he reaches down to let his hand slip into Dean's pants. His fingers close around the length of Dean's cock, smooth, hot skin over hard flesh, and Sam forgets any and all reason why this might be horrible timing, the wrong kind of situation and just an all around bad idea. He pulls it out and starts to stroke, slow and teasing, twist of his wrist on the upstroke, light squeeze on the downstroke, until Dean answers the motion with tiny swirls of his hips.

Dean gives a soft groan, but it's a far cry from the sounds Sam wants to hear, neither wanton nor desperate enough, so Sam sits up, kneels, and bends down to replace his hand with his mouth. He hears Dean suck in a breath when he closes his lips around the head, sucks lightly, and yeah, that's better, but it's still not good enough.

Sam's got a few more things he wants to do, but there's something he's got to get out of the way first, so he pulls off and strokes a hand down Dean's inner thigh, above the denim, to get him to focus. "Hey, Dean?"

The voice Dean's answer comes in is rough and low, already thick with arousal. "Yeah?"

"You ever done this before? With another guy, I mean?"

Dean laughs. "Don't worry, you're not popping my cherry here."

That's not the answer Sam expected, but he's relieved; it takes some pressure off this, if not any of the significance. He's never had a virgin, of neither gender, and being the one who introduces Dean to man-on-man, he realizes, might just have been one first too many tonight.

But he shakes his head at that thought, turns his attention back to Dean's cock, inhales the musty smell of it before he laps at the slit with the tip of his tongue, alternates that with slurping the length of it down until he's rewarded with the heavy, salty taste of pre-come flooding his mouth.

And he wants that, wants Dean on all of his senses, dizzy with his taste and his scent. But he's eager to do all these other things too, and most of all he doesn't want this to be over any time soon, so he wiggles his hand underneath Dean's ass cheeks and pushes, pulls his jeans down and off when Dean takes the hint and lifts up. His boxers follow, and there he is, naked and gorgeous and – at least for tonight – Sam's. His cock strains up, bobs onto his belly when Dean shifts to get comfortable. It's wet, shiny with Sam's spit, and Sam catches his gaze as Dean looks down to it, then up to meet Sam's eyes, and smirks.

As Sam watches, he takes it into his own hands and jacks himself, slowly, putting up a show. He throws his head back, moans obscenely loud, and Sam can't just sit there and look, he needs to get his hands on him right the fuck now.

Dean's rhythm falters for a second when Sam lets his fingertips run across his balls, cups them and rolls them in his palm, but he doesn't stop jerking himself off; if anything, he goes at it faster. His breathing speeds up, too, goes labored and erratic.

Sam spits onto his hand and ventures lower, his fingers sweep over the spot behind Dean's balls, then give more pressure on that band of slightly raised skin on his perineum, rub at it, and there it is again, that sound. Dean moans, low and guttural. His hand flies off his cock to grab at the sheet.

"My jeans, wallet. There's lube, and condoms," he presses out, whimpers when Sam stops touching him in order to get up.

And yeah, Sam feels the same way. He hurries, swears under his breath when he manages to tangle Dean's jeans up in his attempts to get to the pockets and has to take a breath and calm himself so he can pat it down and find them.

When he's back on the bed, Dean draws his legs up and spreads them, and some of Sam's surprise at how casually he presents himself like this must have made its way into his expression, because Dean grins at him again. "Told you, not my first rodeo."

As comforting as that thought has been before, now it raises Sam's heels. Images flicker past in his head, of Dean with other guys, several other men seeing this before Sam got a chance to, and it coaxes something deep inside of him to life. The desire to make this last, take it slow and draw it out, is gone and makes room for need to take Dean better than either of them, force him to come apart at the seams; he positions himself between Dean's legs and spreads some lube on his palms, leans up to kiss him hard and possessively while his hand wanders back down. He finds Dean's hole, presses in without actually penetrating yet, rubs and teases at it, and Dean curses.

Sam pulls back, panting. "You like that?"

"Hell yeah, I do."

"Want more?" Sam doesn't wait for an answer, presses two fingers in at once, and Dean arches up, hisses, but doesn't protest.

He doesn't complain either when Sam starts to move them, fucks them in and out, deeper each time, to search for and eventually find his prostate. Dean all but cries out at the first brush of Sam's fingers past it, and Sam doesn't let up, adds a third and massages it until he has Dean writhing on the bed to try and get away from the constant stimulation. Sam has first-hand experience of how that feels, incredibly good at first, before it becomes too much and still doesn't stop and makes you want to crawl out of your skin; he sees the same thing on Dean's face now and luxuriates in the knowledge that he's the one who put that look there, that mix of pleasure and desperation. Dean's eyes are screwed shut, he's biting his lips, and when Sam puts a hand back on his cock and jerks it in unison with the thrust of his fingers it doesn't take long until a shudder runs through Dean's body, brief but violent, and he comes all over Sam's fingers and his own stomach.

Sam strokes him through it, stills his finger inside of him but leaves them where they are until Dean wiggles his hips to make him pull them out.

As soon as he did, Dean flips them. He straddles Sam, his knees bracketing Sam's hips, and yanks at his clothes. Sam leans up to shed his t-shirt; Dean pulls down the boxers, just enough to free Sam's cock.

Sam's been so focused on Dean that he didn't realize how much he's been yearning for a hand on his cock until Dean puts his there. The first squeeze and pull makes him gasp, and he doesn't have enough higher brain function left to complain when Dean withdraws after a few strokes, can barely manage a whimper.

Dean leans forward to fish the condom and a new sachet of lube from the nightstand, rolls it down Sam's dick after he's wiped it off with the edge of the sheet and grins, equal parts challenge and anticipation.

But Sam doesn't catch his meaning, not soon enough anyway, and so it takes him by surprise when Dean levers himself up, reaches between them to grab a hold of Sam's cock and angles it up so that it nudges at his hole.

"Sam, hey, Sam, look at me," he breathes, slicks himself up again with the lube and his own fingers, and holds Sam's gaze all throughout as he lowers himself down very slowly. He takes Sam's cock bit by delicious, crazy-making, tantalizing bit, eyes closed, his whole face a clear mirror of the effort of it, the burn and stretch and not-quite-pain.

Then he pauses, waggles his eyebrows, and that's all the nudge Sam needs.

He starts to thrust, hands steady on both sides of Dean's hips, and Dean moves in time with it, his fingers digging into Sam's wrists as he holds on to stay upright. Riled up as he is, Sam comes within hardly a minute, and Dean collapses on top of him in a sweaty, panting heap.

DEAN

He never before walked out like this after a fuck, and the fact that the first person he does this to Sam makes it so much worse. But he can't stay; he can't hang around to talk about this. Talking would require him to think, and that's the last thing he wants to do right now.

He feels disgusting in and out, he's sticky and in dire need of a shower. But that'd mean the risk of waking Sam, so he barely takes the time to piss and give his stomach and lower regions a cursory sweep with a warm wash cloth before he gets dressed. One eye constantly on Sam's sleeping form, he gathers his things and sneaks out of the room.

Sunrise paints the sky pink and yellow when Dean climbs into the Impala and buries his face in his hands, presses his knuckles to his eyes before he starts the engine and drives away.

***

Whether the helplessness and frustration Dean had felt after he came back to the room had something to do with what happened next, he's not sure. The only way he has to make sense of it in hindsight is with the desire to make a blind grab for the only good thing within his reach and hold on tight, but even that sounds like straight out of a bad romance novel.

After Sam went to bed the other night, Dean bumped into the clerk on night shift. She was way more cooperative than her boss, and he found out that the blond demon chick had indeed stayed in this motel, but moved on almost a week before they got here. The trail they'd followed led them in the wrong direction; she'd been here before she came to Chicago.

Their only clue, and it led to a big steaming pile of nothing.

Dean's phone rings for the first time when he's halfway out of Philly. It keeps ringing every hour or two until roundabout noon, interspersed by a couple of text messages. He turns it off for the night, and wakes up to a voice mail he doesn't listen to. For a week, Sam tries to call once or twice a day, and then abruptly stops.

His last text message to Dean reads I'll leave you alone, if that's what you want. But I'll never stop being your brother. I'll never stop loving you. Dean deletes it on the spot.

***

He heads back to Chicago, but doesn't even stay overnight. The only other clue he's got is the warehouse, and they've already combed it. He leaves a fake name and his cell number with the local police in case a body that fits Dad's description turns up or the truck gets found, but nothing else he can do here for the moment. Not without any idea where to start looking.

He keeps on heading west. Near Des Moines, he catches news about four missing children in a housing complex, but it turns out to be a very human problem. He stays in town for a few days anyway, reads random entries in the journal when he can't sleep. During the day, he goes through his arsenal; he slacked on that while Sam was around. Can't take too good care of the crap that's supposed to keep you alive, Dad used to say.

His phone rings when he's halfway from the car to his room with a pizza carton in one hand and a six pack in the other, and so he ignores it; figures it's Sam anyway, not leaving him alone after all. Not a whole lot of people left to call, other than him.

But it isn't Sam. The name that blinks at him accusingly as he fishes his phone out of his pocket after he placed the beer and the pizza carton on the bed is Bobby's.

Cursing, he shoves the food out of the way, flops down to sit on the bed and dials the number.

“Look who's up for a chat after all. Thought you might give me the silent treatment as well, continue the fine family tradition of turning into a lone gunman and cut all ties.” Bobby tries to sound gruff, but Dean can hear the thread of worry underneath.

“Take it you heard about Dad, then.”

“Yeah,” Bobby says, then hesitates. “Sam called me. Told me to check in on you, too.”

And of course, how else would he know? There are no obituaries for hunters, no invitations sent out to funerals. Especially not if there's not even a body to burn. “What else'd he say?”

“Nothing much. You ladies had a fight, apparently? Whatever, none of my business. I'm just calling to make sure you're alive and not doin' anything stupid.”

“How thoughtful of you. I'm obviously alive, and I can't run after a trail that's gone cold. Anything else?”

Bobby huffs at the other end of the line, as if he's holding down on a snub. “Since yer askin', I have something you could check out for me. Where are you?”

“Iowa.” Dean considers lying, but he doesn't know where he'd have to be in order to avoid the errand. Might as well tell the truth and hope for the best.

“Good. A friend of mine – mutual friend of your daddy and me, actually – got killed, and the police are groping in the dark. Doesn't look like their kind of case either, if you catch my meanin'. Manning, Colorado, name is Daniel Elkins. I trust you know how to go from there?”

“That's closer to you than to where I am now,” Dean protests.

It does nothing to sway Bobby, though. “I'm busy. Call me when you're there, you hear me?”

Busy, his ass. Occupational therapy, that's what this is. But it's only going to get worse if Dean refuses, he still knows Bobby well enough to predict that. “Okay, fine.”

***

Elkins' place has been turned upside down. Two things are clear at first sight: the guy really was a hunter – sigils under the mat, salt lines in the doorway and on the windowsills – and he didn't go out without a fight. It's a small wooden cabin, two rooms and a hallway, but the it's one hell of a mess. Furniture have been thrown over, a broken lampshade lies in the middle of the living-room-slash-kitchen, there are smears of blood on every other surface. The trail of it leads Dean to the bedroom, and that's where Elkins seems to have died: it's decorated by the outline of a body drawn in chalk, near an open safe, with a bigger blood stain on the wooden floor near the head.

Dean goes through the mess slowly and carefully, looks for hairs or claws or marks or anything else that might indicate what did this. He doesn't hold much hope that he'll find anything like that, though; it doesn't look like the kind of damage a mindless creature would leave in a room. This was a fight with a human – or at least human-shaped – opponent. He crouches down next to the chalk line, and something near where Elkins' hands were catches his attention. Scratches, maybe death throes without meaning, but he gets up anyway to get a notebook from the desk nearby and a pencil and rubs it over the marks.

It's three letters and six digits, the location and combination of a post office box. A mail drop. Just like Dad used to do.

***

The box is empty except for an envelope with the letters JW scribbled onto it. And hey, if this message was meant for his father, then Dean's the closest thing left, right? He rips it open with a key and starts reading. There's some references to events Dean has no clue about, conversations the two men must've had and research they'd done, and, in the end, the admission that Elkins' got 'colt's gun' in a safe under his desk.

Fantastic. Whoever it was that killed Elkins, apparently Dean just figured out their motive and that they got what they were coming for.

He drives back into town, rents a room for the night and calls Bobby to read him the letter.

“That sly dog. Spent a good part of his life sitting on something most hunters assumed to be a legend, helped us look for it while he's had it all along.” Bobby sounds like he can't quite decide if that's an achievement or something he's pissed about. “Your daddy ever tell you about that gun?”

Dean leans against a cupboard, closes his eyes. They really need to stop talking about Dad having done this or said that. He can't. “No. What's the deal with it?”

There's the sound of a chair drawn back, Bobby settling in for a longer conversation. “Legend goes that Samuel Colt made it in 1835, for a hunter, together with a set of thirteen bullets. They say it can kill everything.”

“You mean, our kind of everything?”

“Yeah. Every evil thing out there,” Bobby pauses, sighs, and Dean gets the feeling that he's quite certain if he wants to share the next bit with him or not. “That means demons, too. Not just sending them to hell, but killing them. Gone for good.”

Killing demons. Dean didn't know that was possible. No wonder Dad wanted to stay in Elkins' good graces. “Do you think it's true? That it works?”

“I dunno. It disappeared with the hunter it was made for, never resurfaced until now.” Bobby pauses again, and Dean can hear the line click in the silence. “Dean, listen. I know what you're thinking right now, and you'll get yourself killed. Don't think your daddy would want you to –”

“I'm not, okay? First I'd have to find it, anyway. It's gone now, taken by whatever killed Elkins. Thanks, Bobby. I'll call again,” Dean says and hangs up without waiting for another response.

It's a lie, and Dean's sure Bobby knows that. Before Chicago, before Dad, Dean would've been able to let this go, but not anymore. He's got nothing left to lose. Sam's gone and off limits, Dean put him there himself, and Dad's dead. The best thing he can do with what's left of his life is to do what his father would've expected of him and take revenge. Keep it from getting to his brother again and end this all for good, even if it's the last thing he does.

***

Dean doesn't sleep much that night. He gets up when it's still dark outside, drives over to the next bigger town to find a Walmart that's open around the clock and use up one of his credit cards to buy his own laptop. Back in the motel, he aimlessly browses through news articles stored on the local newspaper's website, finds the one about Elkins, but it's not of much help.

The police report is still on his bucket list, but something tells him that it won't be any more helpful than the lack of clues in the cabin. Elkins died of the head wound he got in the fight that happened, Dean's pretty sure, judging from the amount of blood on the floor. There's any number of things that can kill you in a fight. Humans, among others.

As he clicks back and forth through the site, another article catches Dean's attention. It's about a couple that went missing the night after Elkins bit it, drawn out of their car on the interstate just out of town.

Could be nothing, completely unrelated, a coincidence, but it's as good a place to start as any.

***

The suit and his fake badge get put to good use after all, and around noon the same day Dean stands in sheriff's office. He's young, not that much older than Dean, and he looks helplessly out of his depth. A murder and a missing persons, that must be the yearly quota of violent crimes this town usually sees happening within two weeks. For, Dean it's an advantage; makes the sheriff all the more ready to believe that he's gotten federal help. He looks relieved when Dean flashes the badge and asks to be brought up to speed, doesn't question the why and how, and practically falls over himself to hand Dean the case file.

Which contains about as much useful information as the news article. There are some reports on tire tracks and foot prints, but all of that just points to human involvement. No blood, no evidence of a fight. The police suspects that the killer used a ruse to get the couple out of the car – an accident or a flat tire – and overpowered them when they stopped to help.

Dean closes the file. “Not much to go on. There has been another incident in town, a murder? Any reason to think those might be related?”

“No,” the sheriff answers. “Neither scene brought up usable prints. But I think there must be some connection.”

“Would be one hell of a coincidence otherwise, right?” Dean smiles at the sheriff reassuringly. “I'll consider that.” They both get up, shake hands, and the sheriff sees him off with a copy of the file and the promise to do everything in his power to help with the federal investigation. Poor fool, thinks he's got the case off his hands now.

After he leaves the office, Dean drives around town. He'll check out the crime scene, sure he will, but for the moment he's frustrated and sort of hungry and acutely aware that he's alone. He finds a diner, nibbles on a couple of pancakes that taste like edible paper even though they're doused in too-sweet syrup. After that and fresh out of excuses, he heads to the spot out of town where the tourists got snatched.

There's no police band or anything similar to lead his way, so Dean goes by the mile markers and looks for the right spot based on the photos in the file. Not much to be seen; it's rained since that night, and the rain washed most traces of the abduction away. He scourges the nearby trees for hints the police might have overlooked – hunters look for different kinds of evidence than the CSI. Hairs in the trees, claw marks, sulfur... Any one of these things could give him a better guess at what he's dealing with here.

But there's nothing. Like with Elkins, whatever took the couple left no creature-typical traces behind. With that little to go on, it's stupid and risky to assume it's been the same thing, but Dean's gut tells him that it is.

He widens his search, just to be sure, a few hundred feet left and right of the area the police considered the crime scene. By a tree, he finds a flock of cigarette stubs; not something that screams supernatural monster, usually, but there are bloody specks on some of them and given that this is the scene of an abduction, Dean's willing to keep an open mind about it. There's a beaten path that curves deeper into the woods starting right next to the stubs, and he can see more of them left along the way.

It may not be a whole lot to go on, but it's not like Dean's got anything better to do. He goes back to the car to stock up on weapons – a second gun and two different kinds of ammo, a silver knife he hides in is boot, you never know – and then makes his way down the path. He doesn't have to walk for long; after about fifteen minutes, it ends near a ramshackle old barn.

There are cars parked in the front, equally old and rundown, but no one's to be seen. Dean sneaks up to a shutter near the big swing doors and peers inside. It's unexpectedly crowded. Maybe ten human-looking shapes sit inside, all motionless save for the rise and fall of their chests and an occasional shift: they're asleep. Both men and women, they all wear jeans and t-shirts and boots, some leather or denim jackets, and all things considered, it looks more like a biker meeting than a monster hideout.

Dean's about to leave for now, come back when he's found out a little more, maybe call Bobby to ask him to heave his ass over here so that he's not hopelessly outnumbered anymore. Help him figure out the fuck is going on here, go in prepared when they come back. But when his eyes roam over the room one last time, he sees the missing woman. He recognizes her from the pictures in the police file, and although the light inside is dim and his angle is a little different, he's sure that it's her. She leans against a support log, and when he looks a little closer, he sees that she's tied to it.

Waiting's not an option anymore, even if it's for assistance. If he does either, she might not be alive anymore when he gets back. He curses under his breath, sends a text to Bobby so that he at least knows what Dean's been up to in case that this goes south, and inches the swing door open as slowly and quietly as he can.

He manages to make his way to her without waking anyone else up, and before he reaches down behind her back to untie her hands, he shakes her a little to wake her up. Her eyes fly open, instantly big and afraid, and he puts a hand over his mouth. “Don't be scared, I'm here to save you. Get you out of here. Be quiet until we're outside, not a word, okay?”

She nods, and Dean takes his hand away, but as soon as it's gone, she screams on top of her lungs.

All around him, the others rise from their sleep and before he knows it he's surrounded. Some of them snarl, a line of sharp and pointed teeth bared – monsters after all.

Dean jumps back, makes a split-second decision to go for the silver knife rather than the gun – highest chance of making an impact on an unknown creature, in his experience – and backs further into the corner of the barn. That leaves him trapped, but it also means he doesn't have to watch his back and can concentrate on what's in front of him, knife raised and ready, poised to fight.

The group parts as Dean watches, and a tall guy in jeans and black leather, long dark hair falling into his face, steps through. He cocks his head to the side. “Hunter, huh? I knew it. Kill one of you, and there will be more. You're like cockroaches.”

Dean doesn't answer; he's had his fair share of talkative villains, and most of them don't care about a captive audience or well-timed replies. They'll say their piece either way.

Leather dude doesn't disappoint. “And you're too late, anyway. They belong to us now, and you? You'll be their first feed.”

No, not if Dean can help it. Not far to his left there's a table covered in old farm tools, forks and scythes and the like, and he tries to inch towards it. He still doesn't have a clue what's going to kill these things, but most creatures will be somewhat impressed if you cut them in half. Maybe it'll give him a better chance at getting out of here alive.

The thing-in-command orders someone to untie the woman and get her husband from the back, and Dean uses the resulting rumble to get closer to the table. They seem sure that he'll be easy prey, don't care much about what he does or where he goes, because no one calls him on it, let alone stops him. By the time they've rounded up the couple and sent them to the guy in charge, the tools are within his reach.

She charges forward first, and Dean picks up one of the scythes. The angle isn't good, he's not used to the weapon, but he manages to cut clear through her gut. She screeches, attacks again. The next swing takes her head off, and she falls to the ground, motionless.

Huh. Lucky guess, but it seems to work. Dean doesn't take the time to question it, beheads the next two creatures that come at him. The third is more difficult to defeat, evades him well enough to back him up against the table in the fight and distract him enough that a fourth one manages to wrestle the scythe from him. He leans back on the wooden surface, makes a wild grab in hope that it'll produce another tool sharp enough, and comes up with a gun.

Not useful to him now, but better he's got it than any of them, so takes the time to prop it into his waistband before he tries again. The next thing his hands find is a long sickle, and from this angle, he can see a back door about seven feet away. It's unlocked as far as he can tell. He swings forward, headbutts one of the creatures while he blindly slices into the other, and makes a run for it when they both sway back.

He uses the sickle to block the door behind himself, runs as fast as he can, and doesn't notice that nothing's at his heels until he's halfway to the car. Before he starts the engine, he pulls the gun out of his waistband – unfamiliar weapon, he knows better then to risk shooting his own balls off – and gives it a once-over. It's not like any guns he's seen, older, long narrow barrel and rough wooden handle. There are floral decorations on the barrel, and some inscription in Latin. Low on the handle, someone carved a pentagram into the wood. It's fully loaded, five bullets in the barrel.

At first he thinks that maybe it's a leftover from the former owners of the barn, like the rusty tools, but then it dawns on him.

***

Dean calls Bobby as soon as he's shut the door of the motel room behind himself, phone jammed between head and shoulder while he lays a thick layer of salt in front of the door and draws a couple of sigils onto the door with chalk, just in case.

He doesn't let Bobby get past the hello, cuts in the moment he hears the older man's voice. “Some mess you got me into. Thanks a bunch for that. Next time you wanna get rid of me, just off me yourself, will ya?”

“Dean? What happened?” They haven't been close in years, but Dean's pretty sure he still knows Bobby well enough to assume that if he doesn't scold him for his tone, Dean's got him worried. He forces himself to calm down, takes in a breath and counts to ten in his head, like he would if this were Dad.

“I almost got eaten, that's what happened. Good news is, I'm pretty sure I found who – or what – killed Elkins. And I found something else.” Dean had set the gun aside on the nightstand when he grabbed the salt and the chalk, but now he picks it back up. “That gun, Bobby. Are there descriptions of it, pictures or the like?”

“Why?” Bobby asks, but it's clear that he's got a working theory on that. The guy's a lot of things, but he isn't slow on the uptake.

“Think I'm lookin' at it right now it, that's why.” Dean describes the weapon, the decorations, reads the inscription. “Non timebo mala. What does that mean?“

Bobby chuckles. “Latin's never been your strong point, boy, has it? Fear no evil, is what it means. Are there bullets in it?”

“Yeah.”

“Check them. Word has it they're numbered. Engravings, one through thirteen.“

Dean does as he's told, unloads the gun, takes one of he bullets between pointer and thumb and holds it up into the light that comes in from the window. He doesn't have to look hard; there's a bold 'nine' engraved into the metal. “Yeah, there's a number on it. Holy fuck.”

“Alright, so how about you come over and we'll have a look at it together?”

That's not a suggestion made simply out of interest in the gun, surely, but Dean's in no mood to get treated like a stupid little kid. He might be on his own now, but that doesn't mean he can't handle the job. “Nah, I think I'll give it a test first. Go back, see if it really works or if it's all been a load of bullshit.”

“Alone? Didn't you say you almost got eaten?”

“That was before I found out I have a critter-killin' gun.”

The angry huff on the other end of the line doesn't mean approval. “And if it doesn't work?”

“Then I'll have to improvise. Listen, I'll keep you posted, okay?”

“If you're still alive to do it, you damn fool.”

Dean wants to reply something to that, but Bobby hangs up on him before he has the chance.

***

They're already gone, no trace in the barn other than some trash and the imprints of bodies in the ground where some of them slept. Dean considers following them, but if they beat it right after he left they've already got a more than two hours on him. He doesn't even know which direction they took. There's no way he'll find them again, unless they grab another victim or leave bodies in their wake.

He hangs around for another day, keeps a close ear on the news and the area's police radio, but when nothing comes up he leaves to find himself another gig and test the gun. The lucky winner is a skinwalker in Arizona; Dean shoots him straight between the eyes and watches him sizzle out before he takes care of the rest of the pack in the old-fashioned way.

He doesn't call Bobby afterwards like he promised; all that'd get him is another lecture.

Instead, he heads north, after he honest-to-god tossed a coin to pick a direction. Twice. Because the first one said south, and that's not somewhere he wants to go if he can avoid it. There are no hunts for a while; Dean's restless, nervous, thrumming with unspent energy, but it's not a random spirit or werewolf he wants to rage himself out on.

The thing he really wants, the thing he can kill now, he has now idea how to get a hold of. And it's stupid to focus on that. For pretty much as long as Dean can remember, they've been hunting it, Dad devoted half of his life to that, and the demon's still out there. Dean's not going to find it within a few weeks just because he so desperately wants to.

But even with that in mind, he can't bring himself to go after anything else in the meantime. He drives day in, day out, sleeps in the car most nights, if at all. He doesn't bother with diners, lives on gas station hot dogs and candy bars.

Halfway through Kentucky, his cell rings with an unknown number. He almost ignores it, assumes it's another one of those civilians that called Dad and got instructed to call Dean instead, and that's about the last thing he wants to deal with right now. But it's a Chicago area code; for a horrible, numbing second Dean thinks maybe this is the call to inform him someone found Dad's body. He answers it, lump in his throat, and presses out a “Yeah?”

“Hello? Tony's Auto Salvage here. We got called yesterday to tow a car, black truck with a Kansas license plate, and the contact info pinged back with your number when we checked back with the police.” It's a female voice, flat and bored; her job obviously annoys the crap out of her. “I just wanna know if you'll pick it up, or if we gotta dispose of it to cover the fees. So, what's it gonna be?”

No way he's going to let the latter happen. He checks his clock; almost 5 PM, he's not going to make it over to Chicago before they close. “I'll pick it up, and I'll pay. Not in the area right now, though. Can you keep it there for another day?”

“Sweetheart, for 50 bucks a day we can keep it 'til hell freezes over. Just get here before noon, we close early on Fridays.”

Dean asks her for the address of the impound lot, thanks her for the call, sets out for Chicago and sends a plea skywards to not have them open the trunk until he gets there. There's no hurry, it's not that long a drive up there, but he drives without pause anyway, even though he hardly slept the day before. By the time he hits Indianapolis, he's nicked off thrice within the hour. He considers leaving the road, finding himself a motel, but he doubts he'll be able to sleep. It's just starting to get dark, he'll arrive in Chicago well before sunrise and can grab a few hours then.

Still, when he sees an old station wagon speed his way at an intersection barely out of the city, the first thing that crosses his mind is that maybe he's fallen asleep again, for just a second, didn't see it coming in time; that's the thought he's working through when it crashes into his side. He doesn't black out, hears the metal screech, and sees the other driver get out on her own. She's bleeding from a head wound that doesn't seem to bother her, and he's just aware enough to put two and two together.

She's not human. Not an accident, then, he assumes.

Dean's vision has started to blur when she reaches the Impala, looms over him through the deformed window of the car, and he has to blink to bring her into focus.

She cocks her head to the side and lets her eyes flash black. “Hiya, Dean. I heard you went looking for me after the last time. That's so sweet. Would've pegged you for the love 'em and leave 'em type, but I guess I was wrong? N'aww.” Laughing at her own joke, she rounds the car and pries the passenger door open. “But I'm not here for round two. I'm here because you got something we want. Thanks for sniffing it out, by the way. Good job, honey.”

The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is her self-satisfied grin as she reaches into the glove box, takes out the Colt, and disappears.

SAM

The call comes on a late Wednesday afternoon several weeks after Philadelphia. Sam and Jamie have plans for the night, a friend's gig at a local bar, and Jamie left work early for it and went directly to her place to get ready; Sam's supposed to pick her up at six. When the phone rings, he's just got done showering and shaving himself, and flops down onto the sofa in his boxers while he answers it.

"Sam?" asks the unfamiliar female voice on the other end of the line, and Sam immediately knows something's wrong. The buzzing in the background, a loudspeaker announcement he can't understand, a siren somewhere in the distance; he's got a sinking feeling that this is the kind of call he'd been dead afraid of all this time, and the first four years too.

His "yes" is barely more than a whisper.

"This is the Lancer Medical Center in Indianapolis. Your brother had an accident, I'm calling because he's stated you as next of kin.” Her voice is business-like, carefully devoid of all emotion; she's doing these kinds of calls a lot. “He's given us your number, and asked for you to come see him here.”

She gives him the address of the hospital and Dean's room number alongside with directions and visiting hours, and ends the call before Sam has any chance to ask for more detailed information on the state Dean's in. He calms himself down by telling himself that it can't be that bad if Dean's awake and able to hand out phone numbers, but it has little effect.

Dean had them call him, so it's obviously more than a minor hunting injury.

Sam doesn't borrow Jamie's car this time; she's got a new job outside of town, a better firm, and will need it come Monday. Instead, he scrapes together some of his savings and books a flight, and early next morning he arrives in Indianapolis.

First thing, he takes a cab to the hospital. Visiting hours haven't started yet, but he can't bear to take care of anything else, look for a motel book a room, the whole routine, until he's seen Dean, so he waits in the parking lot until they'll let him in at 10 AM.

When Sam enters the room, Dean's asleep. It's not the first time Sam has seen his brother in a hospital bed, but it's still a punch to the gut. Dean's pale, a little thinner than the last time Sam's seen him. His left leg pokes out from under the blanket, in some kind of setup to keep it immobile. The TV is running, some sort of talk show that Sam's sure isn't what Dean originally turned in to. There are a few things on his bedside table: a plate with a leftover roll from breakfast, a glass and a bottle of water, car magazines, a notepad with some scribblings in Dean's handwriting, an almost empty bag of fruit gums. All in all, it doesn't look like Dean only got here yesterday.

Sam thinks about waking Dean up – he's eager to talk to him, hear his voice, make sure he's okay – but decides to let him sleep and seek out his doctor instead. He leaves his bag by Dean's bed and walks up to the nurse's station, gets told to wait while someone calls for the physician in charge and sits down in a chair next to the door of Dean's room.

He doesn't have to wait long. Ten minutes later, a young doctor appears through the big swing doors of the ward, walks right up to Sam and holds his hand out.

“Sam, I presume? I'm Dr. Warner.“

Sam nods; they shake hands and the doctor sits down next to him.

“I'm glad you're here. Your brother will need all the help he can get when he's discharged, although that's going to take a while yet. I was afraid he'll be left alone with the recovery process, until he told us about you yesterday.“ If he wonders why Dean would withhold that bit of information and not want to contact Sam immediately, he doesn't show it.

“What happened to him?“

“He got into a car accident, as I'm sure the nurses told you. It was a hit-and-run crash into the driver's side, and the driver's door panel encroached on the left side of your brother's body and caused severe damage. He got here with injuries to his abdomen, rips and knee and, most importantly, his hip. He's got a pertrochanteric femoral fracture, and he's undergone orthopedic surgery to install two screws in the bone.“

Sam's sneaking suspicion that Dean took his time with alerting him grows. ”Exactly how long has he been here?“

Dr. Warner gives him a long look Sam can't quite interpret, but he's sure pity is in there somewhere. “Almost four weeks. He got out of intensive care five days ago.“

***

If Sam hadn't known anything else, the way Dean wakes up would've told him everything he needed to know about how serious this is. Dean comes awake slowly, like dragging himself out of a slump, doesn't even realize there's someone else in the room for several moments. He blinks at Sam blearily, then drags in a deep breath, and Sam can see the minute changes in Dean's posture that are put on solely for his benefit. There's a grin forming that clearly takes Dean some effort to conjure, and Sam interrupts the attempt before it's quite there.

“Don't try and bullshit me, Dean. I talked to your doctor.“

The grin-in-the-making dies instantly, makes way for a frown. “And who gave you the right to do that?“

Sam ignores the question. He's got some of his own that he likes answers to. “Four weeks? Really? You almost fucking die, and wait four weeks until you have someone call me?“

“Looks like it,“ says Dean, calm and composed and with an expression that could make the Antarctic freeze over.

It stops Sam short. He suddenly feels small and young and helpless. All this doesn't seem real to him; this is Dean in front of him, and he's not supposed to look at Sam like that. They aren't supposed to be like this – not talk for months, not know when the other one's hurt. It's all wrong. He searches Dean's face for any sign of similar emotions, but if he's got any he hides them well, and that's wrong too.

Dean lets out a sigh. “Don't get all holier-than-thou on me. I told you we should stay away from each other, and nothing's changed just because I got my leg mauled. I need you to get something for me, that's all, and then you can go back to Cali and I'm not gonna bother you again.“

“Get something for you?” Sam parrots, dumbfounded.

“Yep.” Dean leans forward a little, hisses when the movement seems to resonate into his leg. “I was on my way back to Chicago when, uh.” He gestures at the bed. “This happened. They found Dad's truck, and I need you to get it.“

Chances are Sam starts gaping at little stupidly right there. “You... Seriously? That's why you summoned me here? To get the damn truck?“

“Yeah. For one, I'm hopin' he's got some research in there that could be helpful, and then, well. Every day they're storing it there costs money, and I guess I'll have to pay attention to my expenses for a while to come. It's bad enough I'll have to look for a place to store the Impala here until I can drive again.“

“Where is she now?“ That's not the part of the conversation Sam wants to focus on, but if he lets himself think to hard about the rest of it he might yell or scream or cry, and neither's going to get him anywhere with Dean.

“Police have her, 'cause of the hit-and-run. I've been told they'll release her in a few weeks, once they're done processing her.“

“You haven't called Bobby about it?“

“Hell, no. He'd just get pissed at me, and I haven't been in the mood for I-told-you-so's.“

Sam doubts that's what Bobby'd focus on, but he plays along. “Why would he do that?“

“Long story,“ Dean says and waves a hand. “So, you gonna get the truck or not?“

The last thing Sam wants is to leave here and drive up to Chicago to pick up a fucking car while Dean's stuck in a hospital, but it's not like he has much of a choice. If he answers no now, all Dean's going to do is tell him to get lost and leave him alone. “Yeah, I'll get it.“

Dean doesn't say much more, just hands him a note with a phone number and an address, and by early afternoon Sam's on a train to Chicago.

***

The young and pimply clerk at the impound lot looks at him funny, nervous and wary and kind of in awe, and Sam suspects he took a peek into the trunk of the truck despite not being allowed to; found the weapons but doesn't want to mention it as not to reveal that he did something he shouldn't have. Sam idly wonders what the kid thinks he is, some kind of head-hunter maybe or something closer to the truth, but it's not a thought that manages to hold his attention for long.

The truck is in good condition, considering. It needs a wash, yes, and the tires need some air, but nothing's broken, no dents or other damages. He waits for the clerk to beat it and leave him alone, and then he inspects the trunk and the glove compartment; both are still locked. Nothing's missing as far as Sam can see, except for a gun or two and a few knifes, but he suspects that those are the weapons Dad had on him when he... Well.

The contents of the glove compartment are still eerily similar to the Impala's, although not quite as messy; some tapes, a handful of cell phones, and a briefcase with fake IDs instead of a box like Dean has.

Huh. Sam has kind of forgotten how big a fan of order and tidiness Dad was, after years away followed by a few months of hunting with Dean alone. He still remembers the drills and the training, of course, how could anyone ever forget that, but the military order and cleanliness somehow faded in his memory. Hunting's now something he associates with Dean's creative chaos, not with the elaborate and sometimes OCD-like approach their father had.

With a shrug, Sam puts everything back into place and walks up to the office to pay up so he can take the car, leave, and get back to Dean. His savings account takes another mean hit when he hands over his credit card, but he doesn't care about it too much. It's not like he had any concrete plans for the money.

Before he gets onto the road to get back to Indianapolis, Sam drives the truck to a car wash and scrubs the damn thing clean. Some kind of nod to his old man, not wanting to drive his car all dirty and messy and looking like a discarded piece of bulk rubbish found out on the street.

Back in Indianapolis, Sam makes himself do all the municipal things he ran past earlier before he goes back to the hospital; he finds himself some diner – can't remember the last time he ate – fires up the laptop and Googles a few cheap-but-bearable motels. Dean may be more partial to the method of drifting and booking the first place that looks affordable and has room, but Sam doesn't have the patience for anything like that. He calls them in order of their distance t to the hospital, and ends up with a room at a place that's in close enough he can walk there. Then he sets out to put the truck in storage, because driving around in his dead father's car is too strange a thought to bear.

After he's fed and settled in and even got an hour of sleep in, he finally allows himself to go see Dean. His brother's awake this time, clicking aimlessly through the channels of his TV set, but he turns it off and sets the remote aside as soon as Sam appears in the doorway. “Found anything?”

Sam's thrown for a moment, still stunned by the sight of Dean like this, kept immobile in a hospital bed, before he remembers what Dean sent him out to do. Get the car and look for Dads research. “Nope. The weapons and everything is still there, but I didn't see any research. Maybe he'd kept it in his room?”

Dean frowns. “No, don't think so. I called him with a lead. He wouldn't have taken the time to find a motel and set his stuff up before he came see me. 'sides, I had a room already; he wouldn't have stayed somewhere else.” His eyes narrow, and he looks at Sam quizzically. “Did you search the trunk?”

“Of course I did, I told you it's all still there –“

“No,” Dean interrupts. “I mean, underneath the, uh. Inlay?” He makes a flappy hand gesture to indicate the secret compartment Dad had installed in his trunk.

Sam shakes his head, and begins to feel like someone put him into a hot-seat while watches Dean's expression change, darkened by something like resentment; anger that was filed away and laid to rest long ago.

But none of that ever disappears for good, with Dean. He holds on to hurt as if it keeps him alive, keeps him upright, and dishes it out when he sees fit. Sam doesn't say a word, waits him out, unsure about what exactly Dean choose to hold against him.

“He keeps – uh, kept – his research underneath that thing,” Dean says after a few beats of silence, gaze locked onto Sam's face. “You didn't look there?”

Now Sam definitely feels like the subject of an interrogation. “I didn't know. He didn't have that thing yet, when I left.”

Something flickers across Dean's face, but whatever he wants to say, he swallows it down. Instead he asks, “Well then, how 'bout you go look now?” and turns the TV back on.

It's as close to turning his back on Sam as he can get with one leg fixed to the bed.

***

Dean's right. There it is, underneath the neat, costume-made foam construction, in the actual trunk: folder upon folder of research. Newspaper articles, copies of pages out of old books, print-outs, weather reports, birth records from a number of places joined by death certificates, and Sam can't help but find the latter morbid.

He doesn't go back to the hospital, just sends Dean a text before it occurs to him that he probably won't be allowed to have his phone on in the hospital or whether or not it survived the crash and wow, that's a thought he shouldn't have had.

Because Dean barely survived the crash. Sam has to lean onto the open trunk of the car for support, wind knocked out of him by the belated but devastating realization that Dean could've died a month ago and it's possible Sam would never have known. For the first time, the reality of Dean's announcement that they should split for good really hits home; Sam's known he'd meant it, wouldn't have said it otherwise, but... It never felt real, or even possible. Of course they'd see each other again, somehow, somewhen.

Except for maybe, they wouldn't have.

Maybe Dean would've died at some other point, clawed open by something or taken off guard by some creature because no one had his back. He could've bled out in a dark old haunted house and Sam never would've known what happened, left wondering whether Dean was dead or simply making good on what he'd said. Gone without a body to bury or burn or anyone around to do it.

It's a mess, all this, but Sam decides he's going to fix what he's still able to. He's going to do whatever it takes to convince Dean that it doesn't matter, what Sam feels, that he can push it down and ignore it and never mention it again if that's what he has to do in order to stay by Dean's side. They're no good apart. Dean almost fucking died because of it. Dad did already. The two of them are all that's left, they shouldn't be separated.

He calls Jamie that night, with no regard to what time it'd be in Palo Alto, and tells her that it's over, that he's never going back.

For several minutes, she doesn't say anything, and Sam curses himself for doing this over the phone. She doesn't deserve that, but he can't fly back, hasn't got the money, doesn't know how long he'll have to keep himself afloat with what he has left.

Finally, she clears her throat. “Is there someone else?”

Sam feels caught, and not just because of what the night he spent with Dean in Philadelphia. It's about Jess, too. There have been two ghosts lying in bed with them all this time, but that's not why he's staying here. Regardless of what happened between them, Dean's still family. He's still Sam's brother.

He doesn't answer that head-on, though, doesn't want to lie to her at all. “Jamie, I'm sorry. I –“

“If you say 'I love you' now, I swear to god I'll drive all the way down to Indianapolis to show you what I think of that,” she snarls, voice hard and angry.

That one stings; he thought about saying it to her a few times, actually, later on, and now he regrets that he never did. “I didn't want to hurt you, and I still don't. But... I can't. I'm so sorry.”

After another moment of loaded silence, Jamie hangs up on him.

***

He makes himself a to-do list for the next morning – other people he has to talk to, his boss, his landlord. He calls his closer friends, and emails the rest, to let them know that he's gone and this time it really is once and for all.

There are some tears and some yelling, but by the time he shows up at the hospital again late the next morning with a box full of Dad's research, he's more or less severed all ties he had in California. It's a cut that hurts, but the alternative would've hurt more.

That point is driven home when he rounds the corner toward Dean's room and hears muffled groans. On the door is a sign that tells visitors to keep out, physical therapy, and Sam waits until a female doctor leaves the room and takes the sign with her.

Dean's breathing is still going ragged when Sam steps in, sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he doesn't say anything. His eyes find the box, he raises his eyebrows, and Sam nods.

Separation aside, their way of communication without a sound still works.

Sam waits as Dean sinks deeper into his huge-ass pillow, eyes closed, breathes in and out slowly to ride out the pain. Eventually, he says, “It hurt like a motherfucker, you know? Day it happened. Didn't feel it so much before I blacked out in the car, shock or somethin', but I've been told I screamed down the ER when I first got in.“

Somehow Sam can't picture that, Dean in so much agony that he can't bite his lips through it. “You don't remember?“

“Not much. Kinda blurry,“ Dean says, hisses as he pushes himself higher up on the bed, into a sitting position. He points at the box. “That all of it?“

“Yeah.“

“Okay. Should fit into one of the bigger PO boxes, you know the ones for packages? There's gotta be one or two places in town. Just tell me where, bring me the key, and then you can go home,“ Dean says, calm, eyes steady on Sam as if to gauge his reaction, and that more then anything rises Sam's heels, makes him feel angry as well as hurt. He expected something like this, but hearing Dean say it still hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Excuse me?“

“Home? California? Jamie? You're still dating her, right?“

“Actually, no,“ Sam replies. He contemplates mentioning that he broke up with her last night, so he could stay here, but that might send the wrong message.

Dean's brows furrow. “You didn't tell her about, uh.“ He waves a hand between him and Sam. “What happened in Philadelphia?“

“Oh, you mean that I fucked my own brother?“ It's out before Sam can stop himself, and he sees Dean flinch at the words; part of him wants to take it back, apologize, but he doesn't. “I'm not stupid, of course I didn't tell her that. Didn't work out. It happens.“

“Sorry 'bout that.“ Dean's eyes glint, and his tone isn't the least bit sympathetic. “Doesn't change the fact that I don't want you here.“

Now they're shooting to kill, as it seems.

“In that case you're shit out of luck, 'cause I'm going to stay,“ Sam announces, stares at Dean challengingly, and the look Dean sends back is searing. But Sam doesn't waver. “I'm gonna leave now, but I won't go any further than my motel room here in town. And I'll take that box with me, start going through it, so whenever you feel like joining in, call me and I'll come over.“

He shakes the box he's still holding to drive the point home, tries to suppress the remorse that comes with using Dad's research about the demon that's now responsible for both their parents' deaths to get Dean to stay in contact. Part of him hopes that Dean will fold right there, ask Sam to stay so they can start going over the contents of the box together right away, but of course he doesn't.

Dean raises his chin defiantly, disbelief and anger coming off him in waves, doesn't say anything, and Sam turns and leaves.

***

The next three days Sam alternately pores over the demon research – which makes no freaking sense whatsoever, thank you very much – and medical websites to read up on Dean's injury, and the result of the latter is just as devastating.

It's not gonna heal and be gone. From his five-minute-talk with Dean's doctor, Sam can't know what's in the cards exactly, but apparently Dean's lucky if he'll be able to walk without pain. A light limp is the best he can hope for, and that's not taking into account that Sam doesn't know if the knee injury the doc mentioned is going to make it any worse. There should be physical therapy for a good long while, which Sam will make Dean stick to if it's the last fucking thing he does.

At night, Sam lays awake, thinking about Jamie and Dad. About Jess, although that's a more distant ache now, a phantom pain. He thinks about Dean a few miles away, weighs up what he lost and what he's still clinging to. Wishes he'd taken a few different turns, but doesn't regret where it landed him in the end.

On day four, Dean calls. All he says is “Alright, you jackass, get over here,“ and then he hangs up without waiting for an answer, but it's a start. Or at least that's what Sam tells himself, over and over, as he gathers the prints and copies and heads to the hospital.

It's a start. They can go from there. He's going to fix this.

***

In the hospital, he finds Dean hunched over the notepad he'd noticed one the first day. He looks up from it when Sam enters the room, musters him with a closed-off, unreadable expression, then points at the chair next to his bed with his pen.

“Sit down,“ is all Dean says before he turns his attention back to the notepad.

Sam does as he's told and manages to wait him out in silence for not even a minute before his stomach curls itself into a knot and he has to say something. “Dean, I –“

“Don't. Shut up. You really don't wanna have that talk with me right now, believe me. You win this one, we'll make our way through that heap of crap together if that's what you want, but that's the end of it.“

None of this is about winning or losing, and if it were Sam would be in it to win the war and not just one battle, but he nods and bends over to fish a folder out of the box.

Dean seems to watch the movement out of the corner of his eye. “Not yet,“ he says. “Guess it'd be best if I bring you up to speed before we dig into it, so we're on the same page.“

He tells Sam about a dead hunter named Elkins, a colt that can kill every supernatural thing, and the knot in Sam's gut tangles itself up even deeper when he pictures Dean pulling reckless stunts like barging into a group of creatures he has no clue about or going after a pack of skinwalkers with little more than an untested weapon to rely on.

When Dean eventually pauses, Sam still feels like he's missing a part of the puzzle. “Where is it now? That Colt?“

“You remember the demon bitch from Chicago? Who killed Dad?“ He waits for Sam's confirmation before he leans back, closes his eyes, and bites out the rest of it: “She took it when she trashed my car and left me like this.“

Sam's not as surprised as he probably should be. Of course that's what happened; not a random hit-and-run, as if it'd ever be, with them. Their family doesn't do coincidences.

Before he has time to reply something, Dean sits up, takes in a breath. “Well, fuck it. All the more reason to get that damn thing back and kill her with it. Come on, time to try and crawl into Dad's head. Find out what he knew.“

***

Their combined effort to make heads or tails of the wad of papers isn't any more successful than Sam's own. It's not helping with the fact that Dean's terse and abrasive, stomps down every effort Sam makes smooth things over, normalize this and get them back to some resemblance of the relationship they had before Sam let his desire get the better of him. Dean glances sidelong at Sam when he thinks Sam's too involved in the research to notice, brows furrowed and mouth a thin line, and he keeps refusing to talk about anything that's not related to the wads of paper, but he tolerates him.

After a while, he lets Sam hang around for doctor's rounds and physical therapy, and that's not much of a success story either. Sam learns that the doctors had to re-open Dean's leg while he was still in intensive care, because of a blood clot a little lower, and now it’s healing slowly.

Dean lets Sam join him on his walks through the hospital on crutches – which Dean's not particularly fond of but the doctors and the nurses insist on – as long as he's quiet and doesn't try to strike up a conversation. Like that, when they walk in silence and fall into the same rhythm without even trying to, like subconsciously they're still aligned, it's almost a little like it used to be. At lunch, Sam's allowed to stay in Dean's room, and the nurses start to sneak in a second plate for him. One of them, Sonja, looks kinda like a girl Sam had a crush on during his first year of high school, somewhere in western Iowa, and he thinks about asking her for her last name to be sure. But he likes the idea of the three of them, washed up in one place after all this time, too much to have it confirmed wrong.

Sam receives a package from his former landlord with the small amount of things that were actually his and didn't come with the apartment, and there's an invoice attached to it for packing that up and sending it. When he goes to pay it Sam remembers to check his bank balance, has to transfer the last of his savings to keep it from dipping into debt, and realizes that he's got to either find a bar with enough idiots so he can make a living on hustling pool, or find a job.

The second option might be the less stressful of the two, and that's the reason he accidentally appears at the hospital the next morning with a couple of newspapers still lying on top of the research in the box he caries in and out of Dean's room every day.

Dean picks one of them up, holds it up and waves it, eyebrows raised. “What's this? Found something you wanna let me in on?”

Sam curses himself for not paying attention, for forgetting to leave them in the motel, but it's too late now. “No. I, uh. I'm looking for a job in town. Motel room doesn't pay itself.”

“Didn't you have one in Cali? Bookstore? Thought that'd be the perfect fit for you, getting your geek on over books and being paid for it,” Dean says and his lips begin to curl into a smirk, as if on autopilot, before he seems to remember that he's pissed at Sam and doesn't want him around and he schools his features back into indifference.

“I quit it. No use in keeping a job you won't go back to.”

Dean looks at him then, long and intently and for so long Sam starts to get a little edgy because he's got no idea what's going to come next. When his eyes finally fall away, Sam feels himself sack a little, like a puppet on a string that's not held taut anymore.

“You really mean it, huh? Hangin' around?” Dean asks and holds the newspaper out so Sam can take it back.

“I do,” Sam says, refrains from pointing out that since this whole thing started, all he ever wanted was to stick around and that it's been Dean who kept running away.

With a shrug, Dean mumbles something that seems to amount to “Well, good luck,” and gestures for Sam to give him a folder from their actual research.

***

Sam finds a part time job at a local Subway restaurant and another in a gas station just out of town, and they add up to more than what he'd earned in California. It means he has less time to spend in the hospital, though, and he takes to bringing the box over to Dean before he goes to work and joining him afterwards, unless he's got a night shift and it gets so late that even the nurses who are fond of him won't let him in anymore. From his first paycheck, he buys Dean a new laptop – to be paid in installments over the course of four months – so that he can follow up on things he wants to know more about even when Sam's at work.

It's reasonable enough, Sam thinks, but when he shows up with it the day after his heart pounds away in his chest anyway. Dean's never been one to know how to deal with gifts, and if he decides this reeks of unwanted charity that's going to do more damage than good, but what's done is done and Sam's not going to roll the purchase back because he's gotten nervous over Dean's reaction.

Clutching the packaging tighter, he steps into the room – and finds it empty. An initial wave of panic rolls over him, courtesy of the way they lived most of their lives and the knowledge they have, but he calms down when he hears a familiar clattering and cursing in the hallway. Nothing's wrong, Dean's been out for one of the walks the doctors pester him about. He hobbles into the room a minute or two later, tongue between his teeth and brows furrowed, and Dr. Warner trails after him.

Doctor and patient exchange a quick look, and when Dean nods his go-ahead, Dr. Warner addresses Sam. “As I just told your brother: we'll be releasing him next week. It's been a bit of a bumpy ride, but I think he's ready now.” He smiles at Sam, then at Dean. “I'll have the papers ready by Monday or Tuesday, and then you can walk out of here.”

Dean smiles back, but it dies on his lips as soon as the Doctor's out of the room. He visibly falters and sits down on his bed with a groan.

“That's a good thing, right?” Sam tries. “Getting out of the hospital?”

“Sure. Except for how I have no idea where to stay and how to pay for it or, I dunno, food and so on. I'm lucky the insurance is still holdin' up, and I can't risk getting caught with anything else while I'm here, and, well. Fuck.”

“Well, I could rent us a place.” It's out before Sam can stop himself, and considering that he'd been worried about what Dean might think about the laptop, it's basically kamikaze. “Nothing big,” he amends. “Would be cheaper than the motel I'm staying in, right? We've lived in close quarters before and maybe –“

“Maybe what?” Dean scowls and Sam expects the blow before it comes, but that doesn't soften its impact. “We'll end up sharing the bed, too? Screw you, Sam.”

And right then and there, Sam explodes. “No! In case you didn't notice, ever since it first happened, you have been the one to bring this up time and time again. You're the one who's got a problem with it. I've spent years having it on my mind – fucking years, Dean, even before I left for college – but I swallowed it down, and you never even noticed. I can do that again. I'll be happy to, if that's the only way we can stay with each other, because nothing – literally nothing, not even losing Jess – could be worse than having to leave you again.”

After he's finished, Sam stands there, chest heaving and breath caught in his throat. He stares at Dean, who does nothing else than blink at him for a few endless moments, before he nods. “Okay. I'll... Yeah. Okay.”

***

It's not difficult to find them a furnished two-room-apartment downtown; not exactly the best of neighborhoods, but it's cheap and on the ground floor and hey, they're not looking for a place to settle down, just somewhere to stay while Dean gets better. It has a big living room with a kitchenette, a tiny bedroom and a bathroom that's almost the same size. The furniture that comes with it is old but in decent shape, the bed and the sofa creak a lot but don't reek, the kitchen appliances more or less work, and the hot water lasts for more than half an hour. All in all, they stayed in places far worse when they were kids; it's not like they've got high standards.

They have an argument right at the start, because Dean refuses to take the bedroom while Sam sleeps on the sofa, argues that Sam's the one who pays for this so he's damn well earned the right to sleep on a real bed, but Sam wins that one in the end by reminding Dean he's the one who's got to get up for nightshifts, and would Dean like to be woken up by Sam getting ready and having breakfast at 3 AM all the time? It's mundane, a simple discussion about which of them is allowed to take back pain and inconvenient sleeping positions so the other can be comfortable, a Winchester classic like first shower or who drives them back to the motel after a bad hunt, and all throughout Sam has a hard time keeping a huge, dumb smile off his face.

The first evening is spent getting Dad's research up on a wall in the living room, and Sam has to admit to himself that it doesn't make much more sense laid out like that than stuffed away in folders. There are some connections they managed to make, based on things they know – like how all the kids were six months old when the mothers belonging to them died – but most of it still doesn't add up in any way they can figure out. In fact, after endless hours reading the same things over and over again, Sam begins to feel like it makes even less sense the more they try.

Not like he'd ever admit that out loud.

Dean, on the other hand, throws himself into the research with renewed vigor. Half the time when Sam comes home, whether it's in the middle of the day or late at night, he's sitting on his bed with the laptop Sam bought and chasing after a new tangent from that article or this book.

They need help if they ever want to get anywhere with it, that much is obvious, and on a Saturday roundabout two weeks after they moved in, Sam decides to make a suggestion Dean's not going to like. He brings home pizza after work to calm the waves in advance, Dean's favorite with ham and pepperoni and extra cheese, and when they sit together on the sofa, in front of the TV, Dean playing with the remote in order to find a flick he deems worth his time, Sam makes his move.

“You know what? I think we should call Bobby. Ask him to come over, or maybe send him some stuff and ask him to have a look into his books. See what he can dig up.”

Dean turns slowly, lays the remote down. “I dunno, Sam.”

“Come on, it's worth a try, right?”

“What if he's still pissed? I told you about the conversation we had when I found the colt, and then I never called him back. Don't you think now's a bad time to ask for yet another favor?”

“Won't know until we try.”

Dean shrugs his shoulders, resumes his channels surfing. “Fine, whatever. Call him.”

The next morning, Sam does exactly that. It rings for a long time, and Sam's about to hang up and postpone this when Bobby finally picks up.

“Yeah?” He sounds out of breath and somewhat annoyed, and yep, great timing as it seems.

“Hey. Sam here. Uh, Winchester.”

“No shit. Kid, I’ve known you long enough to recognize yer voice.” A beat or two of silence, and then he adds, “Where's Dean? He okay?”

“Still asleep. And, he's sorta okay. Getting better. He had an accident, two months ago.”

“So you're with him?”

Sam bites his lip at a certain note in Bobby's voice, can't help but interpret it as a rebuke for bailing before. “Yeah, I am. But we could use your help. We got our hands on Dad's research on, you know, the demon, and could use a fresh pair of eyes to try and interpret it.”

“You did? Secretive son of a bitch, your dad. Just like him to pile up that stuff and not share it with anyone.” Bobby exhales, and for a moment Sam's sure he'll say no, until he mumbles a curse and then asks, “Where are you boys?”

“Indianapolis,” Sam answers and rattles down the address.

There's the scratch of pen on paper, and then Bobby says, “Gimme a couple of days. I'll come over.”

He arrives two days later, and for the next week or so Sam's benched while Dean and Bobby muse about the research. They stay up late to shift around things on the wall, discuss the possible meaning of some of the more obscure prints, and hit the books Bobby brought with him.

Every now and then, they drag Sam over to get his opinion on something, but for the most part he's happy to stay out of it. In the end, they know more about the demon's origins, have managed to come up with its name – Azazel, which reminds Sam more of an angel than a demon – and have Bobby's confirmation that the weather reports detail omens related to the demon's arrival in a town, but he doesn't know how to use them to predict his occurrences rather than find out where he's been after the fact either.

***

For a while, things are almost normal. They settle into sort of a routine, Sam working and Dean staying at home, either researching – although that becomes less intense, less obsessed after Bobby's left – or lounging in front of the TV and assigning himself the task of keeping their little dump of a place something akin to clean. He even goes as far as picking up cooking duties when Sam comes home at a somewhat reasonable time, and Sam feels like it's he's expected to mock Dean mercilessly about that division of tasks. He calls him a desperate housewife on more than one occasion, and Dean's comebacks about how much of an ungrateful idiot Sam is and his cheerful suggestion that Sam should've taken gender studies at college to learn about how outdated it is to make fun of a man cleaning things are accompanied by broad and bright smirks, as they should be.

Dean's going to physical therapy – with Sam if he's off work and with a cab if he's not, at first, and on foot and by bus later on. His crutches get relegated into a corner of the bedroom, Dean too proud to use them anymore as soon as he can at all get by without them.

Four months after Sam arrived in Indianapolis, Dean gets a letter from the police to let him know that they'll discontinue the investigation into the accident and that he can come and get his car; he shows it to Sam over breakfast.

That night, Dean gets drunk.

Sam finds him with a half-empty bottle of vodka when he comes home. He sits on the sofa – in half-dark because he's got the lights out and the only thing illuminating the room are the street lamps in front of the building – and tries to play a game of dice with himself. He doesn't react to Sam's presence in the room, keeps squinting at the dice on the table in front of him, hunched over almost comically far, because that's probably the only way he can discern the number of eyes he threw. Only when Sam plops down onto the sofa next to him and reaches for the vodka Dean does show any reaction to his presence.

“Be warned, 's the cheap stuff. Bought it at the convenience store down the street, was on sale, and it tastes like battery acid. Or cat piss,” he says and chuckles. “Not sure. Maybe both.”

“I'll live,” says Sam, and takes a generous swig from the bottle. Dean's right; it tastes awful. He takes a second one anyway, feels like whatever's going to happen next will be easier to deal with if he hurries to match up their blood alcohol level.

Dean watches him intently. “I dunno why you put up with me. 'm a fuckin' nuisance, like this. A pain in the ass, too, half the time.”

“Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit. I can hardly walk, I'm not gettin' anywhere with the demon, I'm havin' you pay for everything. Can't hunt, can't work, can't do jack squat. Couldn't drive, either.” Dean says, turns away from Sam and sets to collect the dice back into the shaker.

“You're getting better. It takes time.”

“And what if I'm not? What if this is it? I'm not gonna sit around like this forever. Can't do that.”

Sam feels anger rise in his chest, tangled up with dread. He takes another gulp of vodka, savors the way it burns down his throat. “So, what are you gonna do? Give up without really trying? Check out and let them win?”

Dean's eyes flare back to Sam's face at that, briefly, before he goes back to focusing on the damn dice. But Sam's not done.

“Look at me. Dean. Look at me..” He waits until Dean does, reluctantly, and finds and holds his brother's gaze. “This isn't the end. What's it matter if your leg's not gonna be 100 percent ever again? What if you're gonna be walking funny for the rest of your life? Who cares? I certainly don't. And it's not gonna stop you from hunting either, or from killing that goddamn demon. You're the toughest person I know, Dean. If anyone can figure out how to deal with shit like this, it's you.”

In the silence that follows, Sam counts the seconds, the same way their dad taught them for emergencies, when you need to keep track of them accurately. One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi and so forth; Dad had told them that it doesn't matter so much what word you use, Mississippi or thousand or pink elephants, as long as you keep the rhythm. And Sam does that, focuses on nothing else while the only sounds in the room are his and Dean's breathing and the rattling of whatever Dean does with the dice, and the occasional car driving by outside.

Dean doesn't say anything. He stares at Sam, open-mouthed and sort of disbelievingly, and Sam decides that making Dean run out of words isn't something he wants to make a habit. Maybe that's the reason why he opens his mouth again, says the only thing he can think of in the haze the alcohol has put over his brain all of a sudden, while he wasn't paying attention, focus narrowed in on Dean: “I love you.”

It coaxes a reaction out of Dean, at least. “Fucking hell, Sam. Shut up,” he breathes out, stands up, walks over to his room on wobbly legs and slams the door shut behind himself.

The bang makes Sam shudder.

***

When Sam wakes the next morning, it's already bright daylight. He starts, worried for a second he's missed work, until his fogged mind comes up with the information that he did a late shift last night and won't have to be anywhere else until this afternoon.

Dean's puttering around in the kitchenette, loudly, and Sam suspects that's what woke him in the first place. He cranes his neck to see what's going on, and their eyes meet. Dean smiles awkwardly, shrugs, and opens another cupboard.

“What are you looking for?”

“Aspirin. We had some, didn't we? That bubbly stuff? I don't think I can get down a pill without puking right now.”

And yep, Sam can sympathize. His own head throbs faintly at him, and he didn't have half as much of that awful vodka last night as Dean. “Top left drawer, maybe?”

Some more puttering, then, “Hah! Got it. Thanks.”

Moments later, Dean appears next to the sofa, picks Sam's legs up and out of the way, and puts them over his own when he's sat down. “Sorry for the swim in self-pity last night.”

Sam would like to revisit that one, make sure that those thoughts are actually out of Dean's head and not just stuffed away in a box to be dug out again later, bigger and nastier, but he also knows Dean would rather bite his tongue off than talk about any of that while sober. “Nah, forget about it.”

“You feelin' clear enough to drive? I thought maybe we could get the car before you have to go to work. Had a little talk with Mr. Cramer from upstairs earlier, and he knows someone who's got a garage nearby. Like, so close I can walk over,” Dean says conversationally, but his good leg jiggles once, twice, betrays how big a deal this is, and Sam starts to piece together the thought process that lead to last night's freak out.

“Sure,” he replies. “Let me shower, have some breakfast, and then we can go?”

They shuffle around so that Sam can get up, and when he comes out of the bathroom, he's greeted by the smell of pancakes and coffee. After they ate, they walk to the garage Dean mentioned, talk the owner into letting them use one of his cane trucks to get the Impala. At the police lot, they load her onto it, and under a constant worried commentary from Dean, Sam steers them through the streets of Indianapolis with their precious cargo. It's not unlike the driving lessons Dean gave him when he was fourteen, too young to drive in the eyes of the law but overdue for it in Winchester terms. Sam points that out, and Dean just snickers and launches into the next litany before they even turn another corner.

He does see the way Dean holds on to his leg, to keep it from being jarred by the movement of the truck, but he chooses not to comment on it. If Dean can ignore that, so can Sam.

When they finally stand in yard of the garage, car unloaded and put away safely in the shop floor, Dean's face darkens with anger at the sight of her.

Sam shoves him good-naturedly. “Don't worry. You'll fix her up, right? Some TLC and she'll be good as new.”

“Imma need your help,” Dean replies, shifting his weight from his bad leg to his good one as if to subconsciously underline that, and grins. “Gotta get those girly fingers dirty.”

Sam shoves him again, and Dean runs a hand over the length of the trunk on her undamaged side before they collect the keys to the shop and go home.

***

Three days later, over popcorn and coke and while watching an action flick both of them have already seen more times than Sam can count, Dean leans over to kiss him. There's no preamble, no indication or any apparent reason, and after they part, Dean freezes with his face inches away from Sam's and his eyes fixed to Sam's lips, as if he can't quite believe what he just did.

DEAN

He feels Sam's eyes on him like a touch, a physical presence; shivers with it, goosebumps spreading all over. His own gaze is tacked to Sam's lips, and it's somehow impossible to move his face up that one bit it'd take Dean to meet his brother's eyes.

Dean has to bite his tongue to keep from bursting out with laughter at the thought of what a picture they'd make, like this. Knows that if he allows it to break out of him it'd turn hysterical, and he wouldn't stop until he'd be exhausted with it. He can feel Sam's breath on him, they're so close, and yet he's unable to move, like the lead in a bad screwball comedy. He's frozen. And Sam doesn't do anything. He doesn't say a word, doesn't touch him, one hand hovering somewhere near Dean's arm, and now Dean has to think about a cowboy reining in spooked horse, posed and calm and no sudden movements.

Oddly enough, that thought is what finally breaks the spell. Dean feels a grin break on his face, can sense Sam relaxing as soon as he notices, tension draining out of them both.

Slowly, Dean draws back, sits up straighter, clears his throat. He spouts the first thought that pops into his head and isn't related to Sam and lips and what the fuck it is he'd just done. “Do we still have nachos? We bought some last week, right? Man, I could go for nachos. Popcorn's kinda stale.”

The look Sam throws him is priceless and pure Sam; surprise and disbelief with an edge of amusement, but yet still bitchy. It's a skill. “Uh, yeah. I think? Didn't eat them, so if you haven't, they're still there.”

Dean gets up slowly – doesn't want this to look like an escape, because it isn't, dammit, he knew what he was doing. Sort of. Mostly. “You want anything else?”

“No,” Sam says, eyebrows drawn tight. “I'm good.”

Poor kid, Dean can hear the wheels turning from here. He's confused, and he's not the only one. It all had been clear as day to Dean, a minute ago; he'd felt it, he'd wanted it, and he went with the flow. But now the fog is back.

He doesn't know when it happened, maybe gradually this past few weeks, maybe it's always been there and he just didn't want to see it. Maybe it's just part of their push-and-pull, inevitable that when Sam makes the first step towards something, Dean will follow eventually.

All Dean knows is that, last week, when he got himself drunk enough to go and whine at Sam and Sam choose to counter that with a declaration of love, it didn't make Dean want to run anymore. Part of him wants to stay. Not here, not in this shithole or this fucking town, not any longer than they have to, but with Sam. After everything that happened, the running and the fighting and the separation and the accident and how pissed he was when Sam first blackmailed his way back into Dean's life, he wants to stay with Sam. Be with him, probably. He's still figuring that out. But even if that's the conclusion he's going to land on, the fact that they might be on the same page now doesn't magically negate the wrongness of it all, and that? Fucks with Dean's head, but good.

He doesn't switch the light on in the kitchen, fishes for the bag of nachos in the dark. What he really wants is shot of whiskey, or five, to clear his head, but too much alcohol means he can't take his pain meds, and he learned the hard way that a little buzz now and then isn't worth to go without. There are exceptions, like last week, but in general Dean prefers pain-free over drunk.

When he walks back into the living room – hiding is for pansies, Dean did this and he's damn well facing up to it – Sam's head whips around like there's some sort of magnetic connection between them. His eyes fly to Dean, linger for a few heartbeats, then he slowly turns his attention back to the TV.

“You missed the car chase,” he says.

Dean sits down – a little farther away from Sam than before, but not as far that it counts as avoiding touch, the details are essential here – and holds the bag of nachos out. Sam shrugs, reaches in at the same time as Dean does, and neither of them flinches back as their hands touch. They look at each other, straight on, and Sam's lips curl with a tentative smile.

All in all, Dean's going to count tonight as a win. Baby steps and crap like that. Sometimes you have to be generous with yourself.

***

Carl, the guy who owns the garage where he's fixing his baby, is quick to develop a soft spot for Dean. Could be because he's about Dad's age and doesn't have kids of his own, or because he's a Vietnam vet and has a stiff shoulder, shrapnel or something, and can relate to Dean's handicap. But whatever it is, he leaves his spot behind the front desk as soon as Dean shows and follows him to the Impala. And then he talks. Dean works with a constant stream of words for background noise. He tried to get a two-sided conversation going at first, but found out that Carl's quite content if Dean just listens. All he contributes to their communication is a request to be handed a tool now and then.

After a week or two, Dean could pretty much write Carl's biography. He doesn't mind.

Sam stays away from the garage. He'd join in if Dean'd ask him, promised that he would and Dean doesn't doubt that, but they're together all the time now. Granted, that's not too much of a change from before, when they were hunting, but it has a different taste too it, here, since they're sitting idle. Sam at work, Dean at the garage; spending more hours apart than in each other's space will do them good. Set their heads on straight. Keep them from getting wrapped up in each other too much.

That's one more item on the list of what Dean's worried about, with this thing forming between them. Their world has always been narrow and if they fuck each other on top of everything else, they might just lose track of the line between them, forget where one ends and the other begins.

Nothing else happened since the kiss, not in the physical sense anyway. But something's been shifting between them, and it charges the air around them whenever they're together. Dean's aware of Sam in ways he hasn't been before, and Sam... He's careful, reserved, but radiates something like hope.

If Carl knew about half the shit Dean's thinking about while he's bent over the car, he'd probably run away screaming. Surely wouldn't have asked Dean to help out now and then on other cars, too, for pay decent enough that Dean can buy the parts he needs to fix up his own.

Today is one of the better days for him to work. Sometimes, Dean has to stop after an hour, because his hip starts to hurt too much if he stands for a long stretch of time, and other days, he's so stiff that crawling underneath the engine is out of question. The latter is a pretty bad idea most of the time, actually, because even if he gets down and in position, getting back up is fucking torture.

Carl goes on about that one supplier he has and how much of a racketeer he is, charging too much and now his shipping costs went up, fuck him, they'll find someone else, that's roadside robbery, is what it is, and Dean's grinning into his toolbox as he digs for the right screwdriver.

The car's not anywhere near done yet, but he's getting there. It feels good do to something productive, get his hand dirty and have a result to look back on at the end of the day. The last months consisted of little more than hospital beds and exercises, but this, this is more like it.

In a few weeks, he'll get her back on the road. They'll get out of this damn city, back on track with the hunt, and his life will be something akin to normal again.

***

He texts Sam on the way back home, offers to pick up pizza on the way back if he's up for it. Barely a minute passes before Sam's reply: Sure thing, you buying?

Cheapskate, Dean texts back, but that's another thing about the job at Carl's that he's glad about. He can pitch in, doesn't have to rely on Sam to maintain them both. Equal footing and all.

There's a pizzeria down the street from their apartment, and they're picking up food there often enough that they're considered regulars. The owner greets him, albeit not by name, offers Dean a soda while he waits and goes over the parts he still needs for the Impala in his head, how long it'll take him to safe up for it all. It's going to be quicker if he can get some of that stuff second-hand; some things he'll have to rely on salvage yards for anyway, the downside of owning a classic car. Three months, he guesses. Maybe four.

God, he can't wait to turn his back on Indianapolis.

Sam's nowhere to be seen when Dean gets home, so he deposits the pizza boxes in the kitchen and goes to change. As he steps out of the room, he hears the shower being turned on in the bathroom, and maybe it's his good mood, maybe he accidentally took too many painkillers this morning without noticing and is a bit stoned, but right that moment, joining Sam in there sounds like a good idea. A fucking excellent idea, in fact. He was gonna grab a shower after dinner anyway; the pizza can wait, and this is going to be nicer anyway.

He undresses in the living room, pushes the door to the bathroom open casually. Like it's no big deal. Like he belongs there, while Sam's in the shower. Like they do that all the time. And really, how big of a deal is it? Even before all this, there were times when one of them was brushing their teeth while the other showered – though, sure, not with the intention of joining in. They've already seen each other naked. They already fucked. It's not that big a leap, he tells himself. He'll handle it like he did with the kiss, do what he feels like and see what happens.

He manages to sneak into the room without raising Sam's attention. Any other time, that'd warrant a slap on the wrist about never letting his guard down, but right now Dean's got more pressing concerns. He hesitates for a moment, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then he reaches his hand out to draw back the shower curtain.

And even if he chickens right back out before anything else happens, the look Sam gives him is priceless. He backs off a step, causing him to bump his head on the shower head, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

“What's it look like, college boy? I'm gonna shower.” Dean's glad for the noise of the water bearing down, because he's not all too sure if his voice sounds as steady and casual as he wants it to.

“Uhm,” Sam says. “And that couldn't wait until I'm done?”

“No, dumbass, it couldn't.”

Sam looks at him, still surprised and at sea, but there's a smile that keeps growing as they stand there, awkwardly, under the spray, and continue to stare at one another. His expression evens out, and Dean realizes that he's waiting for him to make the next move. Sam's not going to do anything. He could probably walk out of here without as much as a kiss or a touch, and Sam would let him. Wouldn't go after him, try to convince him, claim anything that Dean doesn't want to give. If this is going to happen, then it's going to happen on Dean's initiative. His say-so.

He's not sure he wants to carry the weight of that, but he also doesn't want to walk out. He doesn't want to back down now. He wants to see where this takes him, where it takes them, and so he angles his head up, wraps a hand around Sam's neck to direct him, and brings their lips together. Sam makes a little noise, surprise maybe that Dean's actually doing this, here, now, out of the blue as it must be for him. His eyes go even wider for a moment before they fall closed, arms coming up to rest on Dean's hips.

The water his hot, more so than Dean usually likes it. Sam's a fucking masochist, apparently, and hey. Maybe Dean should file away that knowledge for later. He soon starts to stop feeling it, though, getting lost in the kiss, a different kind of heat building in him and making his cock take an interest. Sam draws him in closer, carefully and with just enough pressure to guide his way at first, then more firmly, until they're pressed up against each other. He feels Sam's growing hard-on against his thigh, and yeah. Hell yeah. They're both slick with the water, slippery all over, and now it's Dean who's readjusting them so they touch. He tries to align them like that until he gets impatient and reaches down, wrapping a hand around both of them.

Sam lets out a moan when Dean's hand starts to move up and down, jerking them, and the hand he's clutching at Dean's hip with digs in harder, flexing in rhythm with Dean's strokes. The plan is to get them both off like that, but there's something in the way Sam's breath speeds up, the way his body's moving against Dean's, that makes Dean greedy. He wants all of this, wants to drink in every second, not a blink of it taken from him, no distractions. When he removes his hand and tries to shift them again, Sam lets out a disappointed little noise, almost a whimper, and Dean decides it's only fair to let Sam in on what his intentions are. He leans in closer, directing Sam's head to his ear with a hand on his neck. “Wanna watch. Make you come on my fingers, my hand around your cock, watch you spill. Wanna see, come on, let me see.”

Sam groans and goes lax, Dean's to arrange how he wants him. Dean turns him until they're chest to back, an arm wrapped around his chest, just enough leverage to reach his other hand between Sam's legs. He doesn't waste any time, spits on his fingertips to give Sam at least something more than water to ease the way, and reaches down to smear it around Sam's hole before it's all washed off. He rubs at the rim, dipping just the tip of one finger in, and watches eagerly when Sam's back arches with it.

“Stop squirming.” Dean tightens the arm around Sam's chest, licking at his earlobe, but that doesn't serve to make him fidget any less. It actually achieves the opposite, and so Dean resorts to harsher means, bites down on it none too gently. Sam sucks in a breath in response, but he finally stills, and Dean goes back to work down low. He rests his forehead against Sam's shoulder, watching as much as he can see from this angle as he pushes the finger in fully, adds a second, scissors them. He's close enough that he can hear Sam's breathing go wrecked. His own cock twitches in response, but that's not important right now, that'll come later. He gives up on watching that, moving in closer so he can slide the hand he's had resting on Sam's chest lower, wrap it around his dick like he promised. The angle is awkward as fuck and he can't jack it as hard and as fast as he wants to without taking out the fingers he's got inside Sam, but from the noises his brother's making, it's not going to take much more now anyway.

Dean looks down, watches on as the head of Sam's cock disappears and reappears in his fist, more and more precome pulsing out. He doesn't know Sam's body well enough yet to read the clues in advance, and so it takes him entirely by surprise when Sam starts to fly apart. Dean sees it as well as feels it, Sam's ass clenching down on his fingers in sync with the come that pulses out. Sam reaches down to put his own hand on top of Dean's, and Dean doesn't know if it's to keep it there or pull it away but he doesn't care, doesn't budge until Sam's done. He removes his fingers too, carefully to keep the discomfort at a minimum – he's fingered Sam almost dry after all, and, fuck, that thought brings his attention back to the fact that he, himself, is still achingly hard.

Sam slumps down against his chest and Dean uses his pliable state to bring him in closer, close enough that Dean can ride his crack. Just that, using the pressure to get himself off. As soon as he notices, Sam helps him, pushing back and circling his hips, and it doesn't take long until Dean feels his own orgasm built, balls drawing up tight, and comes with the mental image of how it'd look, smeared all over Sam's skin.

It takes him a moment to float back to himself, notice that Sam's turned his head and is nuzzling at him, and once Dean's gotten the memo and angled his head accordingly, he lets Sam draw him in for a quick kiss. They stand like that for another moment, under the water, until Dean remembers that he's no cuddler, for fuck's sake, and pulls away to make a demonstrative grab for the shower gel.

Sam climbs out of the shower as soon as he's cleaned himself up, washed the come off his stomach and ass that managed to cling to it despite the stream of water, and Dean finishes his own shower quickly and methodically, feeling dazed and lightheaded. What just happened, what they just did feels at the same time more real and more surreal than the fuck in Philadelphia, or the handjob last year that started it all.

He's weirdly nervous when towels himself dry and walks into the living room naked. He forgot to take fresh underwear with him into the bathroom, could've wrapped the towel around his hips, but it would've felt inappropriate to do so. He watched Sam come mere minutes ago – made him come on his fingers – and, yeah. A little too late for modesty between them now.

Sam's eyes roam down is body, pause on his midsection with a hunger that sends shivers up Dean's spine, but Dean can see him swallow and tear his gaze away. “Found the pizza,” he says. “It's almost cold now, but when has that ever stopped us?”

Dean shrugs in reply, unsure what to say and acutely aware of his nakedness. He goes to get boxers and a t-shirt from his room and pull them on, sits down next to Sam on the sofa, elbows him to make room while he reaches for a slice of the pizza. Sam shoves him in reply, but abandons their quarrel in favor of securing the remote control, a move that Dean regrets letting him make as soon as he settles on a documentary about birds or some shit. He parks the half-eaten slice in the box so he can make a grab for it, huffs when Sam counteracts by holding the remote out of his reach. He's grinning, the same grin he's had since he turned a teenager and discovered how much joy it gives him to outsmart his older brother, and it's one Dean's secretly fond as hell of.

That thought should make matters worse, stark reminder that this is his brother, but it doesn't. The weird feeling, underlying remorse, doesn't go away, but it fades to something bearable, something he can shove away and ignore for the moment.

***

Sam waits him out. He's staring at him a whole lot from across the room, question marks painted on his forehead that he probably thinks he's hiding but that Dean can see just fine. But he doesn't do anything. Still, again, he's just there. Doesn't try to steal a kiss, cop a feel or cuddle, doesn't do anything at all that could be considered more than normal sibling behavior. They exist alongside each other, with each other, cook, eat, sleep in the same space like they did for most of their life. Anyone not in the know would have no reason to assume anything ever happened between them.

But it did. Something happened, and then it happened again, and again. It's constantly on Dean's mind. When they sit side by side on the couch, each of them an empty plate in front of them, stretched out so that Sam's knee bumps Dean's, he thinks about riding Sam to orgasm in a motel room that was thick with sorrow and grief. When he gets up to get them a drink and their fingers brush as he hands Sam his, he thinks about Sam's hand down his pants, jerking him off while he was doused in adrenaline, open and defenseless in all the wrong ways, tries to figure out what made him go along with it back then.

He wonders if that's any like what it was like for Sam, ever since that crush of his started. The way simple, mundane things lose their innocence, every touch a promise or taunt of what could be or what was. By now, the kid must be having some serious whiplash.

After a few days, he's not sure if he wants to be around Sam a lot more or a lot less.

The thing that scares him the most is how the wiring in his head seems to have been changed and redone when it comes to Sam. Where there was only brother a year ago, it's now tangled with lover and traitor and pervert, desire mixed with disgust, something he's appalled by as much a he wants it.

***

Sam brings home a painting one day after his shift, an ugly still life of fruits in a goddamn basket. He lays it on the living room table to present it to Dean, undoes the paper he'd wrapped around it to get it safely home, says that he snuck away with it when his boss redecorated the back office of the gas station and that it's so ridiculously bad it almost turns back around to cool. Almost.

Dean disagrees, and makes a mental note to sit Sam down and map out the difference between 'cool' and 'bad taste' for him in as much detail as he needs. He'll do that just as soon as he stops remembering the taste of his brother's lips and the feel of them on his, every time Sam talks to him.

As it is, he settles for, “That's an eyesore, Sam.”

“Is not,” Sam insists. “It's better than staring at blank walls all the time, right?”

“Oh, I was perfectly okay with staring at the TV set.”

Sam rolls his eyes, slowly and theatrically. “It's art, Dean.”

“Yeah, jury's still out on that.” Dean glares at the frame, wondering if he'd be able to somehow burn the paper out of the frame if he just tries hard enough. “Why'd you drag it here, anyway? It's not like we'll put down roots in this place. Gonna be out of Indianapolis soon.”

Sam cuts his eyes away, takes the painting and drags paper back into place before he hauls it off the table. He stores it away behind the sofa and flops down on it, clearly trying for casual but giving prissiness off like a bad smell.

Shrugging, Dean wanders off to the kitchen to see if they have some leftover lasagna from last night's dinner and retreats to his room with his findings.

***

Two nights later, Dean wakes a little past midnight and can't fall back asleep. After trying for the better part of an hour and only waking himself up further, he gets dressed and decides to go for a walk, get some fresh air, clear his head. He doesn't know where he intends to go, no real goal to it, until he realizes he's halfway to the garage. Makes sense, probably, that he's seeking out the one thing that still feels like normal, grounds him and gives him a sense of belonging: his car. The apartment still isn't that, not really; it's temporary, no more of a home than any of the dumps they stayed in when they were kids.

There it is again. When they were kids.. This is Sam, the kid he made pancakes for on lonely Sunday mornings when Dad was either not around or still asleep. Who he taught throwing knifes as well as differentiating to x, because they changed schools so much at the time that stuff like that didn't have time to stick. The gangly teenager from barely ten years ago, baby fat on bones that grew too much too fast, hurt sometimes and made him clumsy, the baby Dad thrust into his arms when he was four years old and never really took back from him.

And if Dad knew... He doesn't want to think about that. If he does, he'll end up vomiting on the sidewalk.

His leg thrums faintly when he arrives at the garage, not quite pain but enough to bother him. He tries to take the weight off it when he fumbles for the keys and unlocks the metal door to the shop. Once inside, he allows himself to limp, drag it – no one around to see him. The lights come on with a hiss and a stutter when he turns the switch, neon bulbs on their last breaths, and an irrational sort of relief washes through him when he sees the car in the brash glow they provide.

She's dirty, dust from the shop clinging to her, but it's not like he can take her out to a car wash yet and Carl would look at him funny if he'd go and start polishing a half-fixed car in here. He could do it now, dig out a bucket and get right to it, but that's not what he's here for.

Ever since he brought her here, all he'd do was working to fix her. He carefully avoided climbing inside, unless was to work on something and even then he made quick work of it. Not once in the past few weeks had he just sat there, in the shotgun seat because the driver's side is still not ready, to drink her in and let the familiar feel and smell of her soothe him like so many other times before. It's not that he's been afraid, exactly. He doesn't flash back to the accident or anything, but it's... she didn't feel safe like she used to. That'll change when he's done fixing her, though, he's sure, when she stops being a witness and constant reminder of the day that marred them both.

The door of the passenger side gives the usual creak when he opens it, and it makes him smile despite himself. He lowers himself into the seat carefully, keeps his leg straight as long as he can, but once he's all the way in, he leans back and stretches out. The cassette deck is working, and Dean takes out the tape that's still in there, replaces it with something else he digs out of the glove box at random.

He listens with his eyes closed, ignoring everything else than the low music and the cold leather that he feels through the fabric of his t-shirt, gradually warming with his body heat. He drifts off some time after the third song of a mix tape he remembers making in the late nineties, while they stayed someplace warm and dry and sunny.

What wakes him is the pain. His leg's cramping something fierce, muscles protesting with vengeance against the position he bent them into to fit in here. He curses, out loud, before he bothers to check if he's still alone.

He is. A quick glance to his watch tells him that it's barely half an hour later; the tape isn't even through yet. As he massages his leg to make his muscles relax and uncurl, it hits him like a punch to the face: if a short stay in the passenger seat makes him hurt like that, then driving anywhere that's farther away than the suburbs of this fucking town is out of question, even if he's not the one at the wheel.

So much for getting back on the road in a few weeks, for seeing the last of Indianapolis and going back to do his goddamn job. The only way he'll accomplish that anytime soon is to stretch out on the back seat like the useless invalid he is now.

The glass of the door window breaks with a loud clash when he puts his fist through it.

***

Sam doesn't comment on the bandage around Dean's palm, even though he clearly notices it. He throws pointed glances at Dean's hand, question mark written out on his face, but he doesn't say a word or ask what happened.

Good for him.

If Dean thinks on it, Sam's been withdrawn since he brought home the fucking painting. Not like he's pissed, more like a beaten dog or like a husband who gets to come back home after he's cheated on his wife. They talk as much as they need to – shopping lists and who's doing the laundry, are we out of detergent, bullcrap like that. Dean'd wonder what the hell his problem is this time, but he's not sure he wants to hear the answer.

Maybe it's a sign. This isn't working out anymore. Them. Together, not together, something in between. The tension isn't going away, not for good, it'll come back around to bite them in the ass time and time again. Maybe Dean ought to get out of here alone, when he finally does. Leave Sam for good.

It almost worked out last time. Sam was out, he had a job and a girl and a nice little apartment. Found a way to regain some of what Dean took from him when he got him at Stanford the first time around. If Dean hadn't called him after... After Dad, then he'd stayed out. And that's a mistake Dean actually knows how to fix. All he's got to do is sit this out until the car's done and he's well enough to drive, however long it might take, and then he'll let him go.

Best thing to do for both of them.

***

It's almost noon, and Dean's been at it in the garage since mid-morning. Before he left he called a salvage yard in the area and they have some of the parts he still needs for cheap. Most of them he'll have to repaint, but that's okay. Carl's got the equipment for that.

He'll ask Sam later to pick the stuff up. They can use Carl's old pick-up truck. Dean sets aside his tools, lets the hood fall shut and announces to Carl that he's going to call it quits for the day. If he wants to be able to sit in car for a while and still keep the pain manageable, he can't overdo it now. Moderation is the key, his doc said. Not a theory Dean'd subscribe to under normal circumstances, but if he pays the bill with pain and cramps, he's up for making concessions here and there.

Sam gets home a little past two, and they drive to the salvage yard after a few quick sandwiches for lunch. He doesn't complain about having to play chauffeur – rarely ever complains about anything, in fact, a no-hunting Sam seems to be a more docile one and Dean's not sure what he's supposed to make of that.

The yard is run by a guy that looks fresh out of high school, so wet behind the ears that Dean's tempted to ask if he even has a driver's license himself yet. But the parts are decent, better than most of the shit Dean could get for small money. He'll make them work.

As they load them onto the truck, Sam gets that far away, thinky look that usually means evil is afoot. He either wants to talk or has a suggestion to make that he knows Dean won't approve of. And sure enough, after they're done, Dean paid up and they're about to get back into the truck to drive home, Sam stops a few feet away from the car. He holds out the keys. “Wanna drive for a bit?”

No. Dean really, really doesn't. Sitting in the passenger seat, where he can keep his leg still and pressed to the seat so it doesn't jar his hip too much is bearable, but having to work the pedals on top of the vibrations? Won't that be a party. “Thanks, but I'll pass.”

“Just for a few miles,” Sam says, jingles the keys a little. “We can switch if it gets bad.”

He probably thinks he's supportive and encouraging. Well, he's not.

“Nah. Really. Maybe some other day.” Later, is what Dean doesn't say. Much later. When his hip's finally stopped to feel like one raw bone's grating on another if he moves it too much. When he can bend his knee without imaginary needles pinching his flesh.

“But I think it'd –“

“What, are you deaf? I said I don't want to. Get into the fucking car and get us home, will ya?”

The expression on Sam's face changes into his best Kicked Puppy, but he draws his hand back and turns towards the truck. There's an apology on Dean's lips, for snapping at him. He manfully bites it back, doesn't even look Sam's way, eyes straight ahead.

What Sam doesn't get is that Dean doesn't want his support. Dean'd be happiest if Sam'd go on and treat him like he used to, if he'd never mention the leg at all. Ignore it, not play nurse and henchman for all the good advice the docs tip out over both their heads. It's quite possible that Sam spends more time thinking about Dean's injury than Dean does, researching all there is to know about it; there are leaflets and print-outs scattered all over their place, and half the time Dean catches glimpses at Sam's computer screen it shows some medical website.

It's not what he should be researching, either. They're still stuck with Dad's notes on the demon, and that's a constant weight on Dean's conscience. The longer he stays out of commission, the longer the damn beast will be out there alive.

Dean takes his eyes off the road, screws them shut. What he needs is a plan. To get a damn clue about what he's going to do next, and then go straight at it. Move past his screwed-up leg and the damn pain and get the car running like he planned, figure out once and for all if he wants Sam along.

When they stop at the garage to unload the parts, Dean doesn't follow Sam home. It earns him another one of those looks, concern and hurt at the rejection all over Sam's face at the same time, but that's not enough to sway him.

Dean's hip hurts bad from overexertion by the time he limps back to the apartment that night, burns as if it's on fucking fire, and it feels like an absolution.

SAM

Sam gives it a week. Okay, to be honest, he gives it ten days, because like this Dean's a powder keg that might explode at the slightest irritation and Sam's afraid of the fallout. Not the explosion; he can do those, learned to weather them with Dean. The burnt earth afterwards, that's what scares him.

But Dean's not being half as sneaky as he may think he his – or maybe he's given up on sneaky and pretense, and that'd be even worse. Dean limps when he comes home, and within a couple of days his intake of painkillers has doubled. In a way, it feels horrifyingly similar to how Dean acted after the asylum, until the night everything went to hell. Sam's so used to Dean shielding him, pretending to be fine even when he obviously isn't, protecting Sam from the true extend of his hurt, that Sam doesn't know what to do with it when he stops bothering.

As much as Sam might want to stand by and give his brother space and let him deal in whichever way he needs to, this is serious. Sam read enough about this stuff to know that wrong behavior at this point in Dean's healing can damage things for good, and that's bigger than his fear of getting left behind all over again.

He psyches himself up for the talk all morning during his shift at the gas station. Dean was still gone when he left, and that might mean he'll be at the apartment when Sam gets home. Probably still asleep; the pills knock him out pretty good most days. Maybe that's half the reason he's taking so many of them lately.

Sam doesn't find him in bed, though. He finds him pacing in front of the research they both already looked at until they could recite each page by memory. His laptop is sitting on the bed next to him, open but momentarily ignored in favor of a newspaper clipping.

“Hey,” Sam starts, which is lame, but serves to get him Dean's attention.

Dean turns, raises his eyebrows. “What?”

It sounds hostile as well as wary, and yeah, Sam can relate to that. He's not looking forward to this conversation either, but they need to have it. “Found anything new?”

That earns him a glare. “Well, what do you think?”

Sam forgoes the answer to that, sits down on Dean's bed. He turns the computer around to take a look at the page on the screen, although he's not all too interested in its content. It shows an obituary, the digital version of the same one Dean's holding in his hands. He skims it, doesn't see anything that'd set it apart from the printout.

He can feel Dean's gaze on him like a living thing. “What do you want, Sam? Spit it out.”

And that's when all Sam's carefully considered lead-ins and arguments fly away from him like someone just opened the window and let a sharp wind blow them away. He can almost see them scattered on the floor, all order to them lost. The only thing he can still think about makes its way out instead: “You're going to leave again, aren't you?”

It's not what he wanted to say. It's not what's most important either; the damage Dean's about to do to his health is. And it's the expressway to pissing Dean off, putting him on the defensive.

As was to be expected, Dean's face hardens further. “Maybe. Dunno yet. Gotta get the car ready first.”

He turns like that concludes the topic, steps closer to the wall to trace one of the threads they pinned to the evidence with his finger, hovering in the air above it, and Sam feels like someone just dropped a rock on his chest. So he was right; gonna be out of Indianapolis soon, Dean had said, two weeks ago when Sam brought home that damn, ugly-ass painting, and he really wasn't talking about both of them.

“For what it's worth, I don't want you to,” he says to Dean's back. “Go alone, that is. I'll come with you whenever and wherever you want to go.”

The muscles in Dean's shoulders tense up, but he doesn't turn back around. “Yeah, that's not your decision to make.”

Sam resists the urge to get up, get close somehow, and swallows down the anger that wants to rise in his chest. The signals Dean's giving are anything but clear, and he's gotten lost, has no idea anymore what he's supposed to do, to feel, to hope for. But hat serves him right, probably, since he's been the one who changed the rules on them in the first place. He didn't ask Dean for permission back then either. “I thought you... In the shower, I thought that meant something.”

Dean curses under his breath, something Sam can't decipher, and then finally whips around to face Sam. “It did. And that's the whole point. I can't stay if it means we'll end up being that. You deserve better.”

It's Sam's turn to glare. “Better than you, Dean?”

“No,” Dean says, voice thin. “And yes. You deserve better than all this. Hunting, probably ending up dead before you turn thirty. Getting clawed open like Dad. Fucking your invalid brother on the side. You always wanted normal, and in case you didn't realize, incest ain't it.”

“Really, Dean? If hunting's still good enough for you, then it's good enough for me. And as for the rest... I told you, I can do just brothers. I will, if that's what you want. What I can't do is going back and forth on this.” He doesn't quite mean it, though. Stubbornness runs in the family, Dean's not the only bullheaded Winchester around. He'll stay, stick around for however many freak outs it's going to take Dean to make peace with this one way or another.

When did he become the one who clings with a white-knuckled death grip, and when did Dean become the one who's liable to run? It used to be the other way around.

Dean doesn't say anything for a long moment. He just looks at Sam, as if he's trying to read the answer on his face. Sam's about to break the silence that stretches out and threatens to suffocate him, but then Dean does speak again. “I have no idea what I did to you to make you into this. Where I went wrong, how I managed to ruin you like that. But I'm sorry. Sam, I'm so, so sorry. And I'll fix it, even if it means that I have to get out of your life for good.”

That's nothing like what Sam expected. He's heard some of it already, last year, before the car crash, but he thought they were past that. He should've known though; if Dean's brain finds a way to contort something into making it his fault it's not likely to ever let it go. “That's what this is about? You're wrong, Dean. You're so wrong. You didn't ruin me. This isn't your fault, none of it. And you know what'd ruin me? If you did leave without me because of it. That would destroy me.”

Dean shakes his head. “This isn't normal, Sam. It's not right. And it's my job to protect you.“

“Bullshit,” Sam spits. “Not from this. Don't you dare protect me from this. If you run out on me because that's what you want for yourself, then there's nothing I can do about it. I won't talk you out of it. But don't do it for my sake. You're not responsible for the way I feel about you, and I won't let you take the blame. I have no idea what caused it, maybe it was the way we were raised, the way Dad made us rely on nothing but each other, but I don't regret it, and –“

“Seriously?” As soon as Dean cuts him off, Sam knows he made a mistake by mentioning Dad. Fuck. “You gonna blame this on him, then?”

“That's not what I meant, and you know it.”

Dean might know that, or he might not, but it's the excuse to end the conversation that he might've been waiting for the whole time and he takes it. Sam gets up, tries to get in his way to get him to stay and turn this around, but Dean shoulders his way past him. “I'm gonna go to the garage. Don't wait up.”

And there they are, back to square one.

***

Sam changes gears. He won't go as far as following Dean around to the garage, but if Dean wants to get back into the hunt and go over everything again and again, then Sam's going to follow his example. He spends his free time at home the same way Dean does: poring over the folders. Dean huffs at him at first, shoots him glances that drip with disapproval, but Sam doesn't let that deter him.

The idea to check out Dad's truck comes to him one late night, while Dean's still out at the garage. He got the files from it, everything Dad had in the trunk, but what if that's not all? When he first got here, he wanted to get rid of it, too much of a reminder, but maybe that was premature. He never took the time to give it a thorough once-over. There's probably nothing else to be found – John liked to keep things in their proper place and he wasn't in the habit of leaving case-related stuff lying around where it might be seen – but Sam's got to check.

Said and done; the next day, he stops by the storage on his way back home from his first shift. The car is as clean and tidy inside as he remembers it being, not even a stray receipt or a wrapper lying around, and Sam's almost about to give up and go home. He sits in the driver's seat, taking another minute to go through every place he already looked and trying to decide if it's even worth to keep looking, when his gaze falls to the glove box.

The phones. He saw them when he first picked the car up in Chicago but he never thought to check them out, and yeah, that should've occurred to him a lot sooner. He unlocks the box, opens it and – bingo. Two different phones with chargers for each.

He doesn't tell Dean about them. They're uncharged and – as Sam finds out when he first tries to turn them on – pass code-protected, and he doesn't want to give his brother any false hope. He tries the most obvious combinations to unlock them, their mother's birthday, Dean's, his, their parent's anniversary, but isn't surprised when none of them work.

Cracking them takes him a few days, and he manages to do so late at night, while Dean's not home. He considers waiting, so they can listen together, but... False hope. Chances are slim, anyway, and Sam doubts he'll run into the very bit of information they'll need to solve the case that changed their lives so many years ago. The phones are more likely to contain messages about cases they can't take, and that will only serve to make Dean miserable. So he listens by himself.

Messages one through three are exactly that; an old hunting buddy asking for backup, a victim whose name Sam doesn't catch asking for a follow-up visit because she's not sure if the ghost is really gone – either that or she's got other needs to be taken care of, which, ewww, Sam's not even going to contemplate that – and finally a police officer Dad once worked with saying he's caught wind of something fishy and wants John's expertise.

The interesting message is number four. It's not a new message, but a saved one, on there for several months now. If Sam's correct, Dad got it shortly before... Before Chicago. Before he died. The voice is female, contorted and distant and sounding a little annoyed: John, it's Ellen. Again. Look, don't be stubborn, you know I can help you. Call me.

Maybe it's nothing, some intel about a case that's got nothing to do with the demon, Sam tells himself. It doesn't have to be important. He runs a quick trace on the number to get a name and an address, and then he forces himself to pack up and go to bed. Wait for Dean, to play the message to him, see if he recognizes the name, knows what the message might be about.

***

Dean's up and – predictably – in his room in front of the wall with their main leads again. He's staring at it, as if something will magically shift and give way to some big revelation if he does it long enough, but he turns around as he senses Sam.

“Hey,” he says, before his eyes fall to Sam's hand and the phone in his hand. “What's that?”

“It's one of Dad's,” Sam replies. “I had the idea to go through the truck again a few days ago, and I found something on one of them. A message.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, waves his hand for Sam to come closer, impatiently, like he's annoyed he has to. They stick their heads together to listen while Sam plays Ellen's message. When it's done, he looks up to Dean, silent question as to whether Dean knows what that's about.

But Dean's forehead is creased in thought. “That's all? Who is she?”

Another thing Dad kept to himself then. “Dunno, but I ran a trace. I have her name and her address. Ellen Harvelle, runs a bar in Nebraska.”

“Nebraska?” Dean's faces falls. “That's half a day's drive away.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, not sure why that's a problem. “We'll borrow a car from your boss, I can take a day off work and we'll check it out.”

Dean looks down at his feet, crestfallen and embarrassed. “The leg. I can't sit in a car. Not for that long.”

Oh fuck. Sam forgot about the leg, being so excited to give Dean a new lead. “I could drive down alone, call you if there's something – “

“I'm so fucking sick of this,” Dean cuts in. “Everything. The leg, this place, this town, not being able to make heads or tails of this damn pile of paper.” He kicks at the box with the research they didn't get up on the fall with the foot of his good leg. It falls over, folders and pages spilling out, and Dean stares at it like he's mesmerized by the mess.

And Sam gets an idea, what all this is about, why Dean's so abrasive and angry: cabin fever. Dean's been on the road pretty much his whole life, pro-active, always moving, and now he's benched. It must drive him insane. “How far are you with the car?”

Dean's head turns slowly, confusion clear in his eyes. “What? I still need to buy some parts, gotta save up for them, but what I can do without payin' too much money for it is done. Why?”

“Good. Okay,” Sam says. Finally something he can work with, use to find a way to turn this around. Dean wants to hightail it out of Indianapolis? Fine. That's what they'll do. “We'll make sure to get that money, the old-fashioned way if we have to, credit cards or pool, and then we'll book it. Get outta here.”

“Ahh.” Dean's looking at him like he's high and not making too much sense. “And where are we gonna go?”

“I dunno, Nebraska for starters? Have a look at that woman, see where we go from there. And you... You can decide if you want me to stay, or if you wanna split.”

Dean's expression lights up, but not for long. “Didn't you pay attention? My leg. What are we gonna do on our way to Nebraska, stop every half an hour so I can get up and stretch it out?”

“Maybe. Or you can swallow your pride and stretch it out in the backseat.” Dean stares at him, but he says nothing, and so Sam continues. “You wanna get out of this town? Back on the road? I'm with you. We don't have to stay here. You've done enough physical therapy to know what to do, and we can find a doc for checkups anywhere. The only thing tying us down right now is the car, and when that's done, we can go. Hole up someplace else until you're better, keep moving, whatever you want. We'll work it out. I'm with you, it's your call.”

He gives that a few moments to sink in, waits for a reply. When he gets none, he leaves Dean alone, giving him room to turn that over in his head and process it. Hoping that whatever Dean decides, he's going to decide they'll do it together.

***

It takes Dean two days to make that decision, and every minute of it is pure torture for Sam. He has to bite his tongue several times, reminding himself that pushing Dean on this will only make it worse.

When Dean plops down on the sofa next to him, like he hasn't in weeks, Sam knows this is it. He gives his best not to tense up, anticipation locking up his muscles.

“I need six hundred bucks, give or take, and a week of time after I've gotten the parts. If we do a scam, we gotta use one of the post boxes, not this address. Maybe better than pool or somethin', though, since we can't just hit the road immediately if that goes south. We're legit here, can't risk that blowin' up on us before we're ready,” Dean says, voice low and measured, eyes straight ahead.

“Okay,” Sam says, nerves making him stupid. “But... We, right? Together? You and I, and not just until Nebraska?”

Dean kneads his thigh with his palm, and Sam's not sure if he's in pain or if it's a nervous gesture, a habit he's developed since the accident. “I dunno. Not sure I can forget about what happened, you know.” He waves his hand between them. “With us.”

“Then don't. Don't forget about it. I told you, I don't need to be protected, least of all from this. From you, from us, whatever. This isn't something anyone's gotta take blame for. Because, Dean, fuck. I want it. I never wanted anything more. Not college, not even Jess.” It still hurts to mention her, say her name out loud, especially like this. But it doesn't fail to get to Dean.

Halfway through that, he looked up. He's now staring at Sam, straight into his eyes, like the answer to everything is to be found in there. Checking if Sam means it, or if he'll sense a lie, a shadow of doubt. Sam holds his gaze, tries to put all of his determination, all the raw need and frustration, into it for Dean to see.

After a long moment, Dean leans back. “Okay.”

That's all he says. No yes, or no, or anything else that'd give Sam an idea of what he's thinking right now. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Lost your hearing, Sammy?” Dean keeps his voice straight, but his lips curve into the slightest of smiles. Just a hint of it, really, anyone who isn't so attuned to him, doesn't know his facial expressions as well, would've missed it entirely.

Sam doesn't need to ask what it means. He doesn't want to. For now, he chooses to think it means Dean won't send him away after they've talked to Ellen, and that's all he needs at the moment. Anything else is a bonus, and he'll find out in time.

***

Dean prepares the scam the next day, and Sam lends out one of the cars at the garage to check the post box Dean stated on the application ten days later. Another week passes waiting for the parts he orders, and from then on it's a matter of days until the car's done.

Less than a month after Sam suggested it, Dean informs him that the Impala is ready for the road. He writes a letter to their landlord – Dean rolls his eyes at it, but Sam insists they at least leave a note and the rest of the rent. Packing up doesn't take long; they pretty much leave with what they came, their clothes and necessities, the weapons and Dad's research.

Dean does crawl into the backseat, although not without bitching at Sam the whole way: turn the music down, turn it up, change the tape, that one sucks, don't take such a sharp turn, holy crap, no need to drive like a soccer mom either, you're embarrassing me. Sam bitches back, true to script, but he grins like a loon whenever he's sure Dean's not paying attention.

DEAN

Riding in the damn backseat while Sam drives is about as embarrassing as Dean figured. He sits propped up against the door, bad leg stretched out on the seat, watching the world pass by at the wrong angle, but it feels good to be on the road again. Get moving, with a direction and a plan of sorts. His head's clearer for it already.

They left Indianapolis at noon, and Sam's not exactly speeding. By nightfall, they've covered a little less than two thirds of the way to Nebraska, and they turn in at a little motel off the highway for the night. Dean insists on it, almost climbs over Sam's backrest in an attempt to make him take the right exit, because he's seen their sign from afar, and the thing is too perfect: it's got a western theme going, complete with broken neon sign of a cowboy tipping its hat, and Dean just knows they'll have lumberjack-inspired furniture and cow horns up on the wall and all that crap.

He's not mistaken; their room is ridiculous. Sam glares at him as soon as he's through the door, no doubt calculating the likeliness of whether or not he got swapped in the hospital, and dumps his duffel on one of the beds with a long-suffering sigh. It's goddamn glorious.

What's even better is the look Sam throws him when Dean comes up to kiss the prissiness right out of him, deep and dirty and with too much tongue, and the expression of utter confusion that's painted onto his face when Dean breaks the kiss and wanders off into the shower without so much as a backwards glance.

He takes his time in there, the taste of the fruity chewing gum Sam likes so much and that Dean finds girly still in his mouth, mixed with the unmistakable taste of Sam. It's a flavor Dean's getting used to.

The water pressure in this motel is stronger than in most others, and that combined with the old, calcified shower head – almost fully covered in scale – that the water has to fight its way through makes every drop feel like a pinprick on his skin. But it's hot and the room's steamy within minutes, and Dean doesn't mind.

He's not sure what he's doing, doesn't know if it's the right thing or the worst mistake he's ever made, but he wants it. He can't stand to be around Sam and not do it, and he can't leave him either. He's tried, and if he tries again it might just tear his heart in two this time.

Sam's not a kid anymore. He's a grown man, who can make his own decisions and has done so on more than one occasion. Maybe this isn't something Dean needs to shield him from.

Parting ways again would cut them both deeper. Dean's sure of that, at least.

There's still a little voice in the back of his head that's absolutely mortified. It sounds an awful lot like Dad when he's pissed or disappointed, pointing out that Dad didn't die so Dean can go bone his brother, and it makes Dean's stomach tangle itself into a Gordian knot whenever it gets too loud to ignore. He doesn't think it will ever go away, but he's becoming better at shutting it out.

He's lost track of time, has no idea if the water's been prattling down on him for minutes or hours. There's enough steam in the room that it becomes a little harder to breathe, make him aware of every lungful of air he draws in a way he normally isn't. Inhaling deeply, he turns the faucet off and steps out of the shower stall.

He towels himself down, doesn't bother getting dressed and walks back into the room bare-ass-naked. Sam doesn't budge from where he's bend over his laptop, on the bed, cross-legged and barefoot. He doesn't turn, but the line of his back goes rigid in a way that tells Dean he noticed both Dean's presence in the room and his nudity.

“Turn around,” he says. When Sam doesn't react, he says it again. “C'mon. Turn around. Look at me.”

Sam does, finally, shifts until he's facing Dean. His eyes drop to Dean's crotch, then go up to lock with Dean's, and the look on his face is indescribable. There's wariness and hope and hunger, confusion, like he doesn't know how to begin processing the situation. No wonder, considering how this started and all the back and forth they've been doing since. Dean's scared too. They've got so much to lose, if this doesn't work.

But they won't know until they really try, and Dean will just have to be a little clearer in conveying that he wants to. Eyes still pinned to Sam's, he brings his own palm to his mouth, licks a stripe down it, and starts to jack himself in slow, prolonged strokes that are designed to look good as well as feel good. Sam's gaze flutters down, then back up, eyes wide. Now he's staring at Dean like this is a test and he's terrified he'll fail, and hey, no. Dean's not that cruel.

“Hey, I'm not just doin' this for my benefit,” he says and smiles, ignoring his own nerves to get this show going. “Look.”

Sam's eyes fall closed on a groan, and when he opens them again they're right on target, follow every move of Dean's hand as if he's suddenly bound to the sight by an invisible thread. He abandons the laptop entirely, closes it and deposits it on the nightstand, but that's all he does. He makes no move to undress our touch himself, attention centered on Dean.

Dean has half a mind to go over to the bed and take care of the undressing himself, but he's too caught up on the way Sam's looking at him, rapt, completely lost. His gaze shoots up to Dean's face every now and then, then roams over the whole of Dean's body before it settles back at his hand on his cock, eyes dark, small smile as he licks his lips, and holy shit. Dean's never seen himself as exhibitionistic, but it's working for him, that he can put that look on Sam's face without a single touch. He slows his movements some more, now more show than working for friction, stills on the upstroke to play with the slit, his reward another deep groan from Sam.

The spell only breaks when Dean notices that Sam does, at some point, start to press his palm to his crotch, and yep. Nope. He wants to be the one doing that. He wants to touch. A few steps and he's by the bed kneeling down on it, leaning in to shove Sam's hand from the front of his jeans to replace them with his own. Sam's hard, the line of his dick easy to feel through the denim, and Dean rubs at it, light pressure with only two fingers to focus it better.

But Sam's having none of that, shoves Dean's hand away and kneels as well, crawling a little down the bed. “Lie down,” he says, apparently having found his voice again, and the tone of it, deep and gravely and rough with arousal, makes it impossible to deny.

Dean scrambles to get onto his back, and Sam settles in the v of his legs, pushes at Dean's ankles until he understands what his brother wants, draws them in and lets them fall wide. There's a moment where he's about to dig his heels in, laying there sprawled wide and exposed while Sam hasn't so much as pulled of his shirt, but all it takes is one glance back at Sam's face, the mix of awe and raw need on it, and all embarrassment about letting Sam look his fill evaporates. With a slow, deliberately drawn-out motion, Dean puts his hand back on his cock, goes back to jacking himself, eyes closed and breath starting to come in pants, because hey, they've been at this for a while now and it's getting to him.

“Dean”, Sam says, urgent and desperate and Dean's got no idea for what. He still doesn't when Sam repeats his name, like it's a spell, a verbal command that'll unlock another layer of this, tell Dean what he's supposed to do next.

“What? What do you want, hm?”

“Your fingers,” Sam replies, sounding exasperated and like talking's an obstacle, something he has to muster up more energy and thought for than he can spare. Which would usually be fine with Dean, he's a big fan of nonverbal communication himself, but he needs a bit of a hint here. “I want to see you open yourself up. Prep yourself, Dean, please –“ He doesn't finish the sentence, reaches down instead, to his duffel beneath the bed, and produces a bottle of lube, stares at Dean expectantly. Begging.

Oddly enough, the ping of shame Dean's waiting for when he holds his hand out for Sam to squirt lube on it never comes. He splays his legs even wider, bending down so he can reach between them. While Sam watches his every move, he teases the first finger in, slowly but without much of a pause, too eager for Sam's reaction when he can see the little ring of muscle stretched around his fingers, finds himself angling his hips for a better view.

He's never felt more naked, but it doesn't make him feel vulnerable. The opposite, actually; he may be the one on open display, but Sam's the one who's losing all his defenses, gives them up without second thought, and it's because of Dean. He does that to him. He can to that to him, make him desperate with need, because Sam wants him that much. It should probably be scary, but it isn't; it's affirmation. His eyes never leave Sam's face, even when Dean sticks a second finger in with the first, searches for and finds his prostrate and wants to screw them shut against the pleasure. He drinks in every twitch in his expression, every stuttered breath, every time Sam's eyes close on a moan.

He's so focused on that, he almost jumps when Sam reaches out, runs a finger over Dean's hole, brushing past where Dean's fingers disappear into his body. It's unexpected, but it's giving Dean ideas. “C'mon,” he demands, takes the hand he's had on his cock so he can put it over Sam's.

Sam's eyes fly up to his face, questioning, like the concept that he's allowed to actively participate in this didn't even pass his mind, but then he understands and pushes a finger in next to Dean's.

For another moment, Dean leaves his in there too, before he pulls his fingers out to let Sam do the work. He lets his body uncurl and relax, looses himself in the sensation when Sam adds two more of his fingers, scissoring them, thrusting them in and out, then doing it again.

When Dean looks again, Sam's got a broad, bright smile going on, his face lit up with it. Dean can see that he's palming himself again, rubbing his own cock through his jeans, and he's not surprised when Sam withdraws his hand and slides off the bed so he can shed his own jeans and boxers. They're done fooling around, and hell, yeah. Dean's on board with that.

Sam resettles between his legs, the bottle of lube and a condom wrapper in his hand, and Dean lazily pumps his cock as he watches him put both to good use, shivers when Sam brushes a lubed finger past Dean's hole, swollen and sensitive from the attention given to it already. He grabs for the pillow to prop his lower half up a bit, for a better angle; they've got two beds, two sets of everything, no harm done if one of them's ruined.

Dean didn't quite pay attention to when their roles got reversed here, how Sam managed to put aside enough patience for teasing, but when he does just that, prodding at Dean's hole with the head of his cock, teasing it in just to pull back, Dean's the one who's beginning to feel desperate. He searches for Sam's gaze, quirks an eyebrow when he has it, impatient. “Come on, man. Just. Fuck me..”

“That's the idea,” says Sam, still with that unnerving, broad grin on his face. But Dean's willing to look past a lot when Sam hooks Dean's legs up so Dean's ankles rest on his shoulders, and then, fucking finally, pushes in. The first thrust goes all the way in, making Dean hiss, but from there on it it's shallow, carefully measured, just a little bit further in every time. The rhythm is pure torture, good, but not enough, slowly drives Dean straight out of his mind. The angle is perfect though, hits Dean right where it counts on every other thrust. All Dean can do is cling to him for dear life, hand fanned out over Sam's ass, feeling the muscles underneath shift and flex as he moves in, out, in again. When Sam finally speeds up, loosing his discipline and precession, and fucks him in earnest, Dean's gone. Pleasure builds itself up at the base of his spine, shoots out all through his body as he comes, fingers digging into Sam's flesh so hard he'll probably leave bruises, and Sam fucks him right through it before he bottoms out one more time and follows.

He slumps back, releases Dean's legs and sets them down on the bed. Finally getting self conscious, Dean draws his knees closed, rolls onto his side, facing away. He's not ashamed, he doesn't regret anything, but... It all feels more real, now, and he just doesn't want to dwell on it.

Sam lets him, doesn't say anything either, but he gathers Dean in, chin pressed to Dean's shoulder blade, and Dean's too tired to resist.

***

The second morning after is marginally better than the first.

Dean wakes to Sam's knee stuck uncomfortably into his hip and Sam's head pillowed on his arm, the limb gone numb. There's dried come stuck in more than one place, the smell of it on the air too, and Dean's heart wants to beat out of his chest with a sudden pang of remorse.

It takes him a moment to remind himself that he doesn't need to run anymore. That he shouldn't, decided he doesn't want to either.

He disentangles himself anyway, carefully so Sam won't wake up, and takes a quick shower to get rid of last night's sweat and spunk and lube. It isn't until he's back in the room – eyes roaming across it to figure out where he dumped his duffel yesterday and getting stuck on Sam's sleeping form instead – that some of the tension and worry drains out of him.

Sam hasn't moved an inch in the time Dean spent in the bathroom, still lying on his side. He's facing Dean, and even though his face is half buried in his pillow, Dean can see him smile. It's just a content little tug to his lips, but... If that's the expression he drifted off with, things are probably going to be okay. Sam's happy. Dean's not quite there yet, but as he stands there in front of the bed, wet towel in one hand and his toiletries bag in the other, he begins to think he might catch up to him.

And then Sam stirs, comes awake with a groan like he felt Dean's gaze, and Dean's quick to look away. When he turns back around after he's managed to locate his duffel, put his stuff away and unearthed boxers and a t-shirt, Sam's sitting on the bed. His gaze is pinned to Dean; the content smile on his face has died and gave way to worry. Which is wrong in itself; Sam's not the one who's supposed to look at him like that.

“You okay?” Sam eventually asks, eyes wide and sad, as if he fears the answer.

“Yeah.” Dean tries for a smile, but decides that lying won't get him through this one when Sam's expression doesn't relax at all in response. “Just. Gotta get used to it, is all.”

It takes another moment or two before Sam's features smooth out. He gets up slowly, stifling a yawn, approaches Dean with measured steps. When their faces are mere inches apart, he stops and looks Dean in the eye, straight on, no quarter. “Is this alright? You've got to let me know if there's anything... If you're uncomfortable. Promise me that, yeah?”

Dean doesn't quite get why he'd ask about a freaking kiss now – Sam was buried in him balls deep just hours ago, for fuck's sake – but he nods and Sam finally leans in, bringing their lips together for a kiss. It's unhurried, slow, more comfort and reassurance than heat, and when they part Dean miraculously does feel a bit calmer. Hormones at work, maybe, injecting chill into his bloodstream. Sam brings their foreheads together, but Dean headbutts him lightly and pulls away with a grin before he can spout another I love you or some shit.

“Get your scrawny ass dressed, Sammy,” he says, bending down to put on his boxers and lead by example. “Off to Nebraska.”

***

They arrive at Harvelle's Roadhouse late afternoon. The piece of gravel that seems to be used as the parking lot for guests is still empty, so the bar either hasn't opened yet, or it doesn't see a lot of business.

Sam lets the car roll to a stop in front of the bar, but doesn't kill the engine. “Maybe we should come back later, when they're open.”

“What, so we have to yell over drunk yahoos to ask her what's with her voice mail? Yeah. I'm sure she'd appreciate that,” Dean says, and crawls forward to open the door opposite of where he's been propped up on the backseat.

With a shrug, Sam pulls the key out of the ignition and folds himself out of his seat as well. He waits while Dean gets out and rounds the car to catch up. He's limping a little – having his leg stretched out instead of bent keeps the pain manageable, but being in the same position for hours at a time, two days in a row, did leave its mark – and Sam shots him a concerned look. Dean shakes his head slightly, unspoken signal that he doesn't want to dwell on that now. Sam has the good sense to let it be.

There's no answer when they knock at the door, a wooden sign with the word “closed” painted on hanging from a nail in the middle. Dean pushes the handle down anyway, finds the door unlocked, and exchanges a quick look with Sam before he opens it and steps through.

The bar is old school. Simple, practical wooden interior, a few ads and neon signs of beer or liquor brands that are sold here the only decoration. A broom is leaned precariously against the counter, a wet rag lies on top of it together with a dispenser of cleaning agent, but at first glance no one's around.

“Hello?” Dean asks into the quiet room, strains to listen if there's any noise behind the closed doors to the adjoining rooms – kitchen, utility and rest rooms, probably. Sam walks past him, signaling with his hand that he'll try one of the doors, and Dean watches him disappear through one of them before he turns around towards the counter, to lean onto it and take some weight off his leg while he's alone, take a deep breath.

Only, well. He's not alone, which he doesn't notice until he hears a telltale click to his right. And yeah, sure enough; when he glances that way, he stares right along the shaft of a shotgun that's currently aimed at his temple.

The woman behind the weapon is about Dad's age, blond, casually dressed. “If you're here to steal my booze, you better call your thug now, leave and never come back. Got no problem putting a bullet in you if you try to make a stink.”

Dean pulls his hands up, slowly angling his body towards her, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Sam being led back into the bar in a similar position by another women, this one younger than both him and Sam. “We're not, I swear. Ellen, right? You knew our father. Left him a message on his voice mail a few months back, that's why we're here.”

Ellen lowers the gun, but doesn't put it away. “John Winchester's boys?” She nods towards the girl, who does the same with the gun she's got trained at Sam. “Did your daddy send you?”

“Well, not exactly,” Dean says, but then he runs out of words. He can't quite bring our dad's dead past his lips, feeling like he might choke on it, and Sam jumps in.

“He died, not long after he got your message.” His eyes stray to Dean for a second, before he directs his gaze back to Ellen. “We think the demon got to him. And now we're here to find out what you know about that. If you can help us get the damn thing.”

“Got to him before he got to it, huh?” The expression on Ellen's face is clear grief. “That damn bastard,” she breathes out, and Dean's all but sure she doesn't mean the demon. She finally takes the gun down, clicks the safety back on and steps around Dean to sit down on a bar stool, gun on her lap. “Yeah, I'm Ellen. And that” – another nod to the girl, who's disposing her gun on a nearby pool table – “is Jo, my daughter. I knew your dad, years ago. Long story, but... I'm sorry he's gone.”

“Thanks,” says Sam, closing the distance between them until he can stand next to Dean, close enough that their shoulders touch. A united front whenever possible, as Dad taught them. “Can you? Help us catch it?”

Ellen smiles, but it's weary and sad. “I can try. I will try. How about you boys sit your asses down, I tell Jo to get the good Bourbon from out back, and we talk?”

Sam and Dean both do as they're told, wait in silence until Jo's back with a bottle and Ellen's lined up four glasses on the counter. They don't get far that evening, the bar opens around six and patrons start trickling in, but Ellen tells them to swing by in the morning. There's someone else she wants to introduce them to, someone who could help.

It's all pretty vague, a lot of maybes and someone said. But it's something new to start from, a possibility. More than they had when they were poring over those fucking boxes back in Indianapolis, in any case.

SAM

There's a horrible moment right after Sam wakes up the next morning when he can't breathe with the fear that Dean bailed on him again, like back in Philadelphia.

They went to bed together – after an awkward dance during which neither really knew what their sleeping arrangements should be from this point forward, and that Dean ended by rolling his eyes and mumbling something along the lines of “might as well, I know you wanna” before he crawled under the covers next to Sam. But when Sam blinks awake, feels for the body that was still there next to him when he drifted off, there's no one there. He's alone in the bed.

As soon as that realization hits, Sam's wide awake, out of bed so fast he almost overbalances when he stands up. He listens for noises in the bathroom, but there's nothing.

The car keys are gone, too, and so is Dean's phone. The duffel with his clothes is still underneath the bed, but Sam wouldn't put it past him to run off in a hurry, suddenly, and abandon his stuff in favor of a clean getaway. He digs for his own phone but doesn't get much further than staring at Dean's name on the display.

That's when a key turns in the door, Dean marching through it, balancing a tray with two coffees and a greasy bag. He places both on the table by the door to chuck out of his jacket, but freezes mid-move when his eyes find Sam.

“Hey,” he says, in that same concerned tone that's been like a lifeline to Sam all his life; as a kid, when he missed a mom he never knew. As a teen when he'd fought with their father so hard he had to swallow tears from sheer anger and perceived unfairness. After Jess. “What spoiled your milk this morning?”

“I thought you were –“ Sam starts, but he feels stupid now that Dean's here, right there, not going anywhere, and trails off.

Dean continues to peel himself out of his jacket, then grabs the food and the coffee, walks over and holds both out to Sam. “You thought I was what?”

Sam takes one of the cups, but leaves the bag. “Gone. That you'd left. I thought you left without me.”

“Even if I wanted to, how would I do that? Can't drive yet, remember?” Dean says, then grins in the way he does when he's found a punchline he's particularly fond of. “I walked to the damn bakery, Sam. Can you imagine that? All I need now is a cane and a lawn to tell kids to get off of. I'm a caricature of myself.”

“The car keys –“

“I forgot my wallet in the car. Had to get it before I left.” He reaches out for Sam's hands, wrapped around the coffee cup, and strokes them briefly, the moment gone before Sam really registered it. “I'm not gonna run, okay? You better get that through your thick, angsty skull.”

Dean's one to talk in that regard, but saying so out loud probably wouldn't go over very well. Instead, Sam says nothing, grins back until Dean knocks his shoulder into his, causing him to spill hot coffee all over his still unclothed legs. He curses, balances the now half-empty cup on his knee while he looks around for something to clean himself up with, knocks it over fully when he bends too much to dig around for yesterday's t-shirt.

The way Dean throws his head back, unrestrained laughter erupting out of him like Sam hasn't had heard in way too long, is well worth the sting. He's still grinning when they get in the car to drive over to the Roadhouse ten minutes later, shoving at Sam, unmistakable challenge for Sam to respond in kind.

And hey, maybe they'll be okay after all.