Game Face and the Existentialist Hero.
Rated R
Warnings: Language, philosophy, sexual implications, annnnnngst.

Disclaimer: Supernatural characters belong to Eric Kripke. 'Existentilaistm and Humanism' was originally a lecture deliverd by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945, later published as a short treatise on moral philosophy beloved by pre-and-first year college students everywhere. This is a not-for-profit work.

If they were staying in one place for more than a couple of weeks, it sometimes became economical to switch out crappy motel rooms for - usually crappier - apartments. This ground floor one-bedroom was one of the worst on a bad list, but the owner had halved the rent provided Dean pick up some 'odd jobs' needed doing around the apartment complex. What she hadn't said was that by 'odd jobs', she meant 'do whatever it takes to keep the building from being condemned, or else I'm out of an income and you're out of a place to live.' But with Dad gone on some indefinitely-extended hunt and the pay the garage gave him, it was all they could get at short notice and probably all they could get at all.
They had a roof, they had food for now.
It would have to be enough.
More importantly, Sam had school - the reason he'd been so particularly desperate to stay put for a while was so he could finish the year. Not that Dad would have given in if it hadn't suited his schedule. Or would he? Dean mused as he slouched low in the drivers' seat, one eye on the high school gates, trying not to fall asleep. There was something different about the kid lately. Arresting. A little scary. Sam had always been intense. But these days he alternated between closed-in silence and bursts of miserable rage. 'He's sixteen', Dean shrugged to himself. All sixteen-year-olds were moody, and Sam did everything to extremes.
Dean jumped out of his semi-doze at the sharp rap on the passenger-side door. He reached out an arm and undid the manual lock - no-one tampered with his baby in the name of technological 'improvement'. Sam slumped into the seat, one heavy, contained movement, overlong hair falling into his eyes and effectively shielding expression.
"Okay?" Dean asked out of habit.
"Nnh," Sam grunted, then, "What the fuck happened to you?"
"Disagreement with a jack. Cheap-ass piece of shit. It's a flesh wound Sammy, don't worry about it." Sam cast him a measuring look before retreating, somehow, moving backwards into the seat. Dean had been able to jack up a car since he was eleven years old, the birthday Dad promised him the Impala, someday. What Sam did not know was that having been up since six, Dean hadn't gotten to bed until after two between trying to reroute a third-floor shower's pipe and a couple of the crack-heads from down the hall trying forcefully to get him to join their party. He was sleeping on the couch - citing the single bed and Sam's ongoing growth spurt as reasons - but there were other reasons too. Sam had never been an easy sleeper; Dean didn't need him waking up at all the weird hours he was getting to - and up from - bed.
"How was school?"
"Okay."
"Okay? Dude, you're the one who was practically crying for dad to let us stay here. I would've thought you liked it better than okay after that little freak out."
Sam shot him a deadly glance and curled up against the window.
"Hey, someone giving you shit?" Dean was suddenly alert, eyes jerking from the windscreen. "Seriously, if some punk kid is-"
"No-one's picking on me."
Dean eased the car into a gap between an obnoxious family 4x4 and a grey Toyota.
"You sure?"
Sam rolled his eyes.
"'Cause if someone is, and I mean it, Sammy, you come straight to me. No teachers or any of that crap, that'll make it worse. You come to me and I'll take care of it."
"Whose else would I tell?" Sam said in a voice that could've been accusatory, grateful, or resigned. Gone were the days when Dean could read the kid like a book - when he could fix everything, simply. He turned into a side street two blocks from their current apartment. It was summer, and daylight lasted until ten o' clock, but the Impala stood out like a gem amongst dirt by the apartment block and he wasn't taking any chances.
Sam slammed the door harder than necessary, started the walk to their apartment without turning to face his brother. The view of his hunched shoulders, too-thin limbs and increasingly baggy jeans that now ended above his angles cost Dean a twinge of anxiety. The kid seemed to require a near-constant food supply just to look vaguely healthy these days, and their food budget was already stretched to breaking. Predictably, the first thing Sam did when Dean unlocked their door was go look in the fridge:
"We can get pizza later," Dean apologized for the barren shelves. "Didn't get time to go to the store today."
"Okay." Sam shrugged and turned away from the open door. Dean raised his eyebrows spontaneously. He'd expected bitching.
"Take this," he passed Sam a plastic bag full of dirty laundry and picked up a second one himself. "We're out of clothes."

The laundrette in the basement had a total of four washing machines, two of which were typically out of order. The walls were a vague puke-stain colour and the place stank of urine and cigarettes. At the far end of the basement, one of the crack-heads, a tall man with greasy hair between forty and forty-five was hunched to load grey cloths into the single drier. Dean met his sliding glance as the brothers entered and sneered at him in return. The man's eyes moved to Sam, who had failed to acknowledge him. Dean's own eyes narrowed with a sudden pulse of aggression.
"D'you ever…." Sam said out of the blue.
"Ever what?"
The washing machine whirred in front of their eyes as they sat side by side on the wood bench.
"Hey," Dean nudged Sam's leg with his, "Ever what?"
"Think about the future." Sam didn't alter his gaze from the blur of laundry.
"I try not to," Dean snorted. "Twenty-first century ain't exactly looking like paradise from here."
"I mean your future," Sam said like an idiot should've known that.
"Uh," Dean was taken aback. "That was random. Like jobs or…."
"No! I mean don't you ever think - you might want something - else, or different - I mean I know you didn't graduate high school but you're good at lots of stuff…you could do something important."
"Seems to me what we're doing now is pretty important, Sammy." Dean had half an eye on the crack-head man, who had evidently finished his laundry, but seemed to be oddly reluctant to leave. "I know it ain't always fun. But dad has to be where the jobs are, and we have to be here to back him up. You know he's the best, and who else is gonna carry on after him? We were born to this."
Sam looked at him flatly for a moment. Then he said,
"You do know that doesn't actually make sense,"
And the washing machine pinged. Dean might have taken the conversation further, but was distracted by the man, whose gaze was now definitely less than polite as his eyes followed Sam bending over to start taking washing from the machine. The crack-head's eyes widened when Sam's shirt rode up slightly. Dean let Sam finish and sent him out first. Dean lingered under the pretence of getting change from the wall machine - but as he passed the crack-head he leaned in and said lightly,
"If I ever catch you even thinking about it again, I am going to kill you."
"That a threat?" asked the crack-head, suddenly alert.
"Threats are empty. It's a promise."
Leaving the basement, Dean dismissed the exchange with Sam from his mind. His little brother got in these I-hate-hunting moods. They tended to evaporate when Sam had a good mystery case to unravel. Dean had more urgent things to worry about. Like the rats he'd heard scratching around in the skirting last night, and how they would pay for the pizza.

TBC