A/N: Whew! I've been wanting to write this for a while and it just wouldn't come! I like how it turned out...even though it was written at one in the morning. So, you've been forewarned. Anyway, please review!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but that which is.
"What are you doing?"
Sam stops short, brow furrowing in frustration as his rhythm is disrupted. He shakes the t-shirt out and starts refolding.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Lay in drawer, smooth out, grab another. He's got this down. It's as easy as cleaning the guns, and far more pleasant.
"Folding shirts like a neurotic girl?" Dean suggests, hooking one by the collar and destroying its pristine architecture.
"Giveitback!" Sam growls, crowding three words into one in his indignation. "You messed it up."
Dean throws his hands up in a placating gesture, then falls back on the sagging bed he's claimed and stares at the ceiling. It's a putrid beige, as is most of the rest of this (in Sam's opinion) particularly heinous motel room.
"You realize we'll probably be outta here in a couple of days?"
It's spoken quietly, and Sam stiffens slightly. There's something about Dean's tone that suggests that they are headed for A Talk, and it's discomfiting...usually that's Sam's department.
"Yeah. So?"
Dean rubs his chin. He's been doing that a lot lately, even though Dad's told him fifteen's still a mile off from real stubble. "Doesn't it...I mean, dude, those are Walmart shirts. If that. Why go to all the trouble?"
Sam sets his jaw almost automatically. "I don't want to fall out of the habit," he says deliberately, laying another shirt neatly down in the drawer of the disreputable bureau. "When we get another house, or apartment, or whatever, I don't want to have become a slob who-"
"Sam." Dean's interrupting, and his voice is still low and steady, in a way that makes Sam's stomach turn with dread.
"What?"
"We're not getting another house."
Sam kind of saw that coming...at least, he'd thought he had, but now he doesn't have any idea what to say. "But..." he begins, and it sounds so childish, and he's eleven...he's too old to be a baby.
He's not too old to be neat, and fold his shirts, and put them in the freakin' dresser. He's not, he's not...he won't be.
But Dean's sitting up, and his eyes are grave and a lot more tired than Sam figures they probably should be.
"It's just...it's too risky, to be sticking to one place like that. Too risky, too expensive. Dad tried it for a while-a lot longer than he probably should have, and he did it for us, Sammy...he-"
"Just shut up," Sam breaks in, almost savagely. He doesn't know why this knowledge-or acknowledgement, whatever it is-grates so much...after all, they have been squatting in motels for a couple of months now, and Dad hasn't even been looking in the Real Estate section of the paper...but somehow Sam had let himself hope that it was just a phase.
"Fine," Dean retorts, and throws himself back down on the bed, closing his eyes. Sam doesn't quite know how, but Dean manages to look very disdainful with his eyes closed.
It's enough to get Sam's blood boiling. Again. He stares down at the offending drawer, and for a moment he contemplates taking each and every t-shirt and hurling it across the room...but wasting work is foolish, and Sam Winchester doesn't like to be foolish. So he slams the drawer shut instead, and that makes Dean open his eyes again. 'Course, one of his eyebrows goes up, so it doesn't help the disdainful thing much.
"Dude, what the hell?"
"I am so sick of this," Sam says, more petulant than he'd admit. "I know that the hunts are everything and we've got to find the demon who-who-" something in his chest and in Dean's eyes won't let him finish that thought casually-"Anyway, I get it. But just once, would it kill Dad to do something for us?"
Dean sits up at that-stands up, and folds his arms across his chest.
Great. Now he's pissed.
"Dad does everything for us, Sam," he practically grinds out, through clenched teeth. "Every damn thing Dad does is for us. So whine about how this sucks all you want, but don't disrespect him."
Sam opens his mouth to snap back, to throw some flip comeback that will more than likely get him punched. But he can't force out the words, because just before he speaks he sees that somewhere, deep behind Dean's eyes-
Dean doesn't believe it either.
Somehow, that's the very worst blow of all.
Sam has nothing to say.
...
Next motel they crash at, he drops his duffel bag in an unceremonious heap at the foot of one of the dingy, bowed-out beds, and doesn't even give it a second glance.