Dean swung the motel room door open and stepped into the room. He didn't bother to turn a light on; the parking lot lamp-post shone through the parted curtains, illuminating the room so that he could see clearly.

"Aah, Sammy." he tossed the car keys to the table and shrugged out of his coat. The take-out container of Chinese food sat untouched next to the laptop Sam hadn't bothered to shut down. Dean cast a sideways glance at the bed, Sam was down, but was he asleep? More like passed out, whether from exhaustion or excessive drink had yet to be determined. Dean saw the bottle of AdvilPM and sighed, apparently not asleep on his own.

Dean switched the table lamp on and took a moment to rifle through the pages and print-outs and papers that were spread across the table. Seems Sam had found a new case to work on in….Dean picked up a map and huffed in annoyance, Utah? They were in Nebraska, why the hell was Sam reading newspapers from Utah? Some shit-hole town called, Aurora, closest airport being Provo, some ninety miles away.

No, no way, huh-uh, he was not going to the middle of bum-fuck nowhere in Utah. No matter what guilt trip Sam laid on him, he was not going. State was waaaaay to religious for his comfort, Sammy could knot up his knickers until he couldn't sit down and it wouldn't matter, Dean was not going anywhere near the state of Utah.

***000***

"Dean, you like, gonna talk to me? I mean, how long you gonna continue to ignore me?"

No matter how often or how loud Dean turned up the radio, Sam wasn't rendered mute. Nor did he fall against the window hard enough to knock himself out despite Dean's best attempts to push the car to her maximum speed and swerve violently. Sam wisely took note of the set of his brother's jaw and decided not to push him any further.

He slouched down in the seat and laid his head against the window. A nap wasn't a bad idea, his headache from the previous night still lingered and despite a decent breakfast, he still felt drowsy. He hadn't expected the AdvilPM to have such lasting effects. He dozed until Dean next stopped for gas and when Sam returned from the men's room, Dean had Sam's cell in his hand.

"Closest motel to Aurora will be in Salina." Sam offered. He'd been asleep when they'd left the state of Nebraska and didn't know if Dean had decided to cross Wyoming or Colorado, so he really had no idea where they were or how much further they had to go. "Bobby call?"

He'd thought by now Dean would have thawed towards him, at least responded with a sarcastic barb, but nothing. Dean was not talking to him and it appeared nothing Sam said or did was going to make him do so until he was ready. It was a fourteen hour drive from Elkhorn, NE to Aurora, UT and Sam was giving serious consideration to painting the interior of the Impala pink just to piss Dean off and force him to talk. He'd rather have Dean yelling at him angrily than this cold, silent treatment,

"Next exit is Raymer, find the closest motel." he tossed Sam's phone back at him with a GPS app open.

"What road are we on? Guessing you left the interstate awhile back...….Raymer's in Colorado, so Fort Morgan, you hungry?" he glanced up at the sky, judging the sun, yeah, it was getting close to feeding time. "Can look for a restaurant, what are you in the mood for?" he wanted to ask why they were stopping for the night when they'd planned on driving straight through but Dean was in no mood for questions.

"Get in."

Dean drove around the town of Fort Morgan before circling back and pulling into the parking lot of the third motel they'd seen. He came to a stop in front of the office and waited for Sam to get a clue and get out.

"Oh, just me then." Sam put a hand on the door handle. "Aah…you….."

"Get out."

"Dean, the motel two blocks over is undoubtedly cheaper than this one…"

"Pizza or subs?"

Unless he asked Dean to drive on to the next city, there weren't a lot of choices for food in town. He preferred a sub but would agree to pizza to appease Dean. Wasn't like Dean couldn't eat an entire pizza himself, he usually did, but Sam wanted this tension between them over, so pizza, complete with extra cheese and pepperoni, it would be.

"Just….stay out of trouble ok?" Sam got out. "Don't do anything stupid." he closed the door and went into the office, not bothering to turn back to watch Dean pull out and leave him.

Dean just drove, drove to Raymer and back just to have a destination then parked at a scenic overlook and took the time to be by himself for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. Sam and his damn ability to work Dean over to his side on anything were going to drive Dean insane.

He had flat-out refused to go to Utah, had told his brother he wouldn't stop him from going but neither was he going with him. Sam had put his foot down, literally. Dean had only been able to stare him open-mouthed when he'd stomped his foot like he'd had when he'd been three, and informed him, "we're going, me and you" and here he was.

Sam's explanation as to why they were going to Utah hadn't done anything to endear Dean to the temper tantrum Sam had thrown either. Over a month ago, Dean had taken off, an action for which Sam had yet to forgive him, on his own. He'd been arrested and snatched from the Sheriff's car on the way to jail. Sam had freaked out upon discovering Dean had been hurt by three men out to get Sam's location from him. The men had thought Sam was still hunting with the Campbell's yet thought to use Dean as bait to lure Sam into a trap.

Yeah, figure that one out.

Dean had been down for over a month with stitches in both wrists that immobilized his hands and led to an infection that made him so sick he'd been unable to do anything more than stumble to and from the bathroom. Only good thing to come of it had been Sam's reluctance to leave him in the sole care of Bobby. Sam had made the choice to sew up his butchered wrists himself, to put his brother through the painful procedure of internal stitches. Since Dean's suffering from an unfortunate reaction to antibiotics and pain meds had been a direct result of Sam's choices, he hadn't left Dean to go off half-cocked on his own.

Dean hadn't told Sam everything about that time. He should, he needed to and he would, it was just he didn't think Sam had been capable of handling anymore. He'd had to stop Sam from punching; punching Suzie after he'd nearly choked her unconscious. Then he'd found out Sam had tackled her to the floor and put a cocked and loaded gun to her head. He wasn't even going to think about how Sam had treated him while at Suzie's house.

It hadn't been all Sam's fault. Dean had been the one not to tell Sam or Bobby about possible danger before exposing himself to the threat of capture. And it wasn't Sam's fault they didn't have the specific antibiotics best to treat the infection nor was it Sam's fault Dean had a negative reaction to most antibiotics. Combine that with the pain meds Sam had initially withheld, caving only after finding Dean on his knees in the bathroom with both hands bleeding and all Dean had been able to do was suffer silently in misery.

Sam wanted to know the reason the men had gone after Dean to get to him and had Dean known, he would have told Sam, but he didn't. There was no doubt Sam wanted to know what he had done to earn their wrath.

Despite Dean's description, Sam didn't recall being involved with a hunt that included any of them. Whoever they were, they knew Sam and Dean were brothers, knew Sam had hunted without Dean, thought he still was, didn't seem to know the Campbell's were gone, hadn't a clue that Sam was Sam again, or had been not-Sam. It seemed they were several months behind on current news, like whoever might have fed them information no longer did so.

Dean lay back against the windshield, heels bracing the bumper to support his weight on the hood of the car. It was cold out, but the sun was up and it would be fifteen or twenty minutes before the cold became uncomfortable. Long as Dean was ok, or appeared to be, then Sam was.

Bobby hadn't been able to get Sam to allow him to share the burden. Sam allowed Bobby close to Dean, but in no way accepted comfort of any kind of support from him. He hadn't pulled himself together until Dean had recovered enough to assume the role with Sam he'd always played.