AN: No pairings. One shot. Triggers for smoking. Standard disclaimers apply.

Dean started smoking when Sam left for Stanford.

It made a certain kind of sense. Fire was a hunter's bread and butter. Might as well actually eat it. "Great," Dean told Mrs. Aframian, who everyone had described as a sweet old lady but apparently had enough of a bug up her butt about kids walking on her lawn to stick around and haunt them. "Sammy goes off to college, and I'm the one who gets all flowery and pretentious."

It began as a check to see if John still cared. That wasn't fair. Dean knew he cared. It was more of a check to see how checked out he was. Very, it turned out. Checked out, turned in the keys, and moved to another state. Literally, after less than a month of hunting together. Twenty-three days into Sammy's first semester, John decided that Dean, who before hadn't been mature enough to clean his own weapons without supervision, was suddenly ready to hunt solo. Dean wondered if maybe he was just that annoying without Sam around to act as a buffer, but he figured probably not, since he barely talked anymore. He also wondered if maybe it was the smoking.

Then smoking became something to fill the time. Dean worked hard, harder than he'd ever worked in his life, but there were gaps of time that used to be filled by Sam or John. Swapping jokes, working on the Impala, getting yelled at, training, extra training.

Then Dean ended up in the hospital, and he had even more time to fill, but by then smoking was about breaking the rules. The hospital's rules, John's rules, it didn't matter. He wanted John to yell at him when he finally showed up. If he showed up. He didn't show up.

Then smoking became about human contact. Dean found himself rushing to finish a pack if it meant an excuse to see real live people he didn't have to lie to. Much. He was still paying with bogus credit cards.

Then smoking was a habit, plain and complicated. One Dean probably would have developed years ago, if it weren't for Sammy. Alcohol abuse suited him better. You couldn't get secondhand liver cancer.

Now smoking was a check to see if Dean still cared.