This started out as a ficlet but took on a life of its own, but I like fleshing Sam out more and giving him more freedom. Please let me know what you think.

I Believe The Children Are Our Future

When you lived and worked with someone, you created an unspoken language. When you were as isolated from society and normalcy as Sam and Dean were, you developed your own little society, informal and unique ways to function, air grievances, and solve problems.

They'd just finished a grueling hunt that left him feeling ground down and achy. It had ended as happily as it could with the Winchesters blowing town with their lives, limbs and teeth intact. The family had been saved from the wendigo's clutches. But the win didn't satisfy the anxious beast in him like it normally did. It still scurried within him, frenzied and mischievous, and in kind Sam was agitated and restless. As sprawling as the bunker was, Sam was stifled by his stone walls, like the fading light of a soul trying to illuminate an endless abyss of darkness. It started shortly after a demonized version of his brother chased him around it with a hammer and worsening when he came back from Charlie's funeral to discover it decorated with dead bodies and entrails.

Sam tossed some clothes in a bag, a few weapons on top, and stamped his feet into his mud-free shoes without bending to tie them.

Dean was in the kitchen, slurping cereal out of a baking bowl. The sink was filled with four days worth of food-crusted dishes. Sam rapped the doorframe with a knuckle. "Shore leave," he said with a tight smile. "See ya in a few."

He wasn't surprised to hear Dean shuffle after him in his slippers and too-big dead guy robe. He braced himself for inquiries or prodding but didn't stop walking. "You want the 'Pala?" Dean asked.

"Takin' my truck."

The bunker's garage just so happened to be filled with a dozen now rare and collectible cars from the '40s and '50s. Sam and Dean sold one and split the money, tickled to have a pile of legitimate cash of their own to spend. At 32, Sam had finally had his very own car. It was a black pick-up with modern features and enough room in the cab to stow his long legs.

"You got your bell rung pretty good, are you sure?" Dean asked, jogging to gingerly snag Sam's elbow.

"I'm fine." Sam looked everywhere but Dean's eyes. "You know the rules…I just need some days."

"Well then make sure to do everything I would do," Dean replied with a leering grin.

Groaning, Sam stomped up the bunker's steps.

"If you come back here smellin' like a library, I'mma kick your ass. Get a lapdance, live a little!"

Sam's affable smile fell as soon as he was in was out of Dean's eyeline. Only when he hit the highway did he finally take a deep breath.

-SPN-

The bunker didn't have a gym in the modern sense. It had a room with a half-dozen terrifying, cobwebbed contraptions, but Dean didn't know if they were antiquated treadmills or torture devices. But with a little elbow grease, ingenuity, he had made his own in one of the spare bedrooms. It had a heavy bag, a pull-up bar and stacks of 50 pounds bags of rock salt for weights. Barbells were for pansies.

He punched and kicked the heavy bag with poorly reined-in fury, and tried to not to worry how often Sam was taking shore leave these days.

This Winchester Law was an unbreakable one that kept them both sane. Nobody could live, work and travel together without wanting to rip out each other throats out at some point, and when you called an armory full of weapons home and actually knew three ways to do so with your bare hands, inventive compromise was always a necessary and live-saving option.

Dean had met a smokin' hot hunter with a tight ass, pink hair and commitment issues that impressed even him, and he'd just wanted a brother-free weekend. So he created Shore Leave—a get-out-of-the-bunker free card good for two or three days away from the hunt and bothersome brothers, no questions asked. The only stipulation was that they had to text once a day and leave their phone on and charged at all times.

But this marked the third time in a month that Sam had left Dean to tool around in his very own superhero lair without his sidekick. Trying not to feel abandoned, Dean kept himself busy. He worked out until he was lightheaded and rubber-limbed. He made use of the soaker tub in one of the nicer bathrooms. He drove two counties to visit his favorite food truck and see a movie. When he got so bored it actually hurt, he even did some research.

Until he realized it had been twenty-five hours since Sam left. "Rule broken. Gotta track you down, Sammy." Tickled, he pulled out his phone.

Maybe it was the curse of being a hunter and spending a lifetime puzzling out mysteries that made Dean loathe the unknown. Or maybe it was because the only thing that made him get up in the morning was Sammy—even if the kid loved ditching him lately.

It took a few purposeful taps on his phone and less than a minute to tracked Sam down to…Blue Smoke, Minnesota?

Dean frowned, and did a quick Google search. "Friggin' border town. There's nothing there, Sam. You doin' shady shit without me again?" Another few taps to scan the area for anything gankable. A few cattle deaths. Nothing too hinky. But still there was an uneasy feeling in Dean's gut, especially with Amara on the loose, Cas gone AWOL, and Sam still recovering from his recent trip down under.

"Rules were meant to be broken," he hissed to himself as he snagged the keys to the Impala.

It wasn't like it had been the first time he'd checked up on Sam without his knowledge. For Dean, Sam's Stanford years had been nothing but creatively spinning news stories to make excuses to motor to California to quell the intense insistent fear that his little brother wasn't okay.

And just like all those trips in the past, Dean was relieved and a little silly for worrying when he finally laid eyes on Sam unloading his truck that was parked in the narrow driveway of a blue and gray bungaloo on a homey, tree-lined street. "You gotta wife I don't know about, Sammy?" Wouldn't have been the first time.

Sam kept passing the boxes to an unseen person in the garage, but Dean could only see a forearm and hands, and couldn't risk moving closer. Sam's ear was tuned to the Impala like a bloodhound's nose was to the scent of a deer. A lifetime of hunting had turned him into a nosy teenage girl, craving answers and instant gratification. Once the truck was empty, Sam disappeared inside the house for two hours and nineteen minutes before coming out again, this time through the front door.

A beat later, Jody Mills followed, talking animatedly and rubbing his shoulder.

Dean was caught in a limbo of shock, awe and slight disgust. Any woman who didn't look like a boxy disaster in the sheriff's outfit had a bangin' bod. Any person who could stare evil in the face and fight back was kick-ass in Dean's book. But she mothered and doted on Sam. After she mourned Bobby in a way that was more than just friendly, he'd cataloged her as a friend on the strictest of terms.

Dean nearly flung his big gulp into the air when his phone vibrated in his pocket. A glance upward and Dean could see Sam sliding his phone into his pocket.

Good to go. See ya in 2.

When his Stanford-educated brother couldn't spare 13 seconds for full sentences, he had to have it bad.

Dean slept in a strip mall parking lot, and drove by the next morning. He was thankful of the high rows of overgrown evergreen bushes and trees in the neighborhood that helped hide the car, because Sam jogged by the cross street in those ridiculous basketball shorts that highlighted his chicken legs. His normally impressive speed was halved in deference to his running mate, Alex. She offered him a small smile as they moved through the icy streets. Their breaths trailing behind him in puffs of frothy silver.

"Jailbait, Sammy? What are you doin?"

His baby had always been pleasantly conspicuous, but this one was one of those rare times when Dean didn't covet the attention. He had no choice but to head back to the bunker to talk to himself like a cat lady.

Over the next two months, Sam took six more Shore Leaves. Dean trailed him on three to them, driving by that quaint bungalow in Blue Smoke to find Sam eating dinner through the curtain-less picture windows, Claire and Alex and Sam painting their bedrooms, Sam shoveling Jody's driveway or weeding the front flower beds. It was more than Sam begging off to watch subtitled movies Dean hated or decompressing from the job.

Sam was escaping, like he'd done as a motherless child who'd sought refuge in any place that wasn't with Dean or their father.

Dean hadn't been enough family for Sam growing up, so why did he expect that to change now? Being a hunter never gave them the luxury of finding closure so buried it deep, slapped a smile on his face, and did his job.

Until three weeks later, Sam tried to skip out of the bunker less than two hours after returning from a hunt, his face still covered in raw abrasions from when it had been grated against the floor by a retreating vampire. Dean's paper-thin patience crumpled. "You're not even gonna take care of your face first? Or are you just gonna blow town bleeding all over the place."

Sam swiped his flannel-covered arm across his cheek and made a show of dropping his duffle, stuffing a zip-topped bag in wrapping it in a towel before slipping out again.

Dean rammed a fist on the table. "Are you on fire or something? Where are you going?"

"I have something I'm workin' on, that's all. Shore leave, man," Sam shrugged.

He crossed his arms over his chest, and sighed. "Whatever you're doing, Sammy, this worries me. You're never here. You look like shit because you're burnin' it at three ends. We have to decide what we're doing—taking down The Darkness or just takin' down Scooby Doo spooks?"

Sam squared his shoulders, preparing for a fight. Dean might be able to best him in hand-to-hand, but Sam's mind was a nuclear weapon. "Oh, so we have leads on Amara? We have a way to kill her?" At Dean's silence, Sam powered on. "There's nothing. I know because I was the one who've combed through every bit of lore I could get my hands on and talked to every angel that didn't try to kill me on sight. I can't spend one more night in this bunker hitting dead-end after dead-end. If you think I missed something, go nuts."

He retreated again, and all Dean could see what a nine-year-old Sammy staring at the mothers at the park; a fourteen-year-old Sam bolting to his best-friend-of-the-month's house for dinners and sleepovers; a thirty-three-year-old hunter laughing over home-cooked meals or chasing Alex and Jody in the snow.

The only constant in that equation was the pronounced lack of Dean and the hunt. But Sam had never considered the bunker home. The giant hadn't even bought a bed to fit his too-long body. This was just another motel room or crashpad for him. Red tinged his vision, hot and thick like blood. And Dean didn't care about protecting Sam's feelings.

"Sorry I get a little suspicious, man. We all know what happens when you disappear," Dean tossed out. Innocence masking the venom beneath it.

Sam stilled, the massive slab of back muscles hardening at the betrayals Dean had invoked—demon blood, Lilith, Charlie. It wasn't fair. And Dean's stomach curdled as soon as he said it. He was trained to go straight for the killshot.

Sam made a nasty sound in the back of his throat. "And you wonder why I leave."

"Where are you going, Sam?" Dean asked again, harshly.

The visible part of Sam's cheek that was wet with blood and lividly raw twitched. "Why are you even askin'? You might think I'm a shitty hunter or a backstabber, whatever, but I pegged you the second you started trailin' me."

Dean winced. He should have learned to never underestimate his brother. "Maybe if you would have clued me in I wouldn't have to check up on your sneaky ass."

"If you would've just asked me instead of skulking around in the bushes like a stalker, I would've told you! And when has me coming clean to you ever worked out good in my favor? You blame me for shit I can't even control. Remember when I got infected by the rabids and nearly died. I'm fine, Dean, I'm not having phantom pain or nightmares about it at all. Not that you actually asked."

Dean gritted his teeth so hard they nearly snapped. "What's there for you to tell? You hate this place and you skipped out the second you could..to awkward conversations and drying the dishes and buckets of teenage angst. To a family. Same shit, different lifetime."

Sam heaved his duffle bag like a shotputter, and skidded along the cement floor and crashed into the dish cart. "Yes! To a family. To a home with a woman's touch and good food, not some underground fortress that hold some pretty effed up memories." Sam flung his arms out wide. "And I'm doing something worthwhile instead of chase our friggin' tails on this Amara thing. Why is that so wrong?!"

"What could you possibly be doin' that's more important that killing Amara?"

Traces of fondness leeched into Sam's otherwise hardened expression. "Alex can't be in the life. It's not good for her. I'm making sure she has a future without it. I'm making sure they're all safe," Sam said, suddenly dark and intense. "Jody found a house that was close enough to Sioux Falls so she didn't have to quit her job but is far enough away from where the vamps found Alex. I taught them about hexbags to cover their scent, and we're booby-trappin' it Bobby style. I'm teaching Alex and Claire how to defend themselves so they'll have more options than...than, this!" Sam gestured to the bunker around him disgustedly.

Dean was impressed. Leave it to Sammy to tie up every lose end and gut Dean with the knife at the same time. "If you hate it so much, why don't you just go live with them?"

"Because that's always worked so great in the past." Sam, who was all puffed up with anger, deflated, shoulders dropping. He leaned against the wall. "This life...isn't what I wanted, but it's what I got. I'm in it, Dean, for good. I made my peace with that a long time ago, but it doesn't mean I don't need to do my own thing when I can, especially when it's this important."

Dean would've had to be blind to see the similarities between Alex and Sam, and the Winchester-level shortcomings. "Because no one did it for you?" He asked, voice gritty with regret.

He wasn't sure he wanted an honest answer, but age had given him enough perspective to recognize the pain and drive behind the do-gooding.

Sam pinned him with his eyes. "Yes," and melted into pure saddened puppy, "not that it would've mattered."

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat, and stooped to pick up the broken cups because there was nothing he could say or do to fix this or what was irrevocably broken between them. If he had known how much his decisions had hurt and smothered Sam, things would have been different. Maybe he would've gone to Stanford with him or maybe they would have never made it out of that house in Kansas. Sometimes he forgot about how much they all had endured, but Sam in particular. His brother deserved better than him or this and if helping Alex made him feel better, Dean couldn't dream of stopping him. "You better go then."

Sam shouldered his bag and headed towards the exit like it was his true north. "I'll be back in three." His footfalls retreated around the corner.

Solitude drifted down like a blanket of snow, chilling and all-encompassing. Dean swept the kitchen tile free of ceramic shards, and found a bottle of bourbon to keep him company while he watched Netflix and tried not to dwell on a lifetime of fraternal failures.

When Dean turned around, Sam was leaning in the doorway, looking pleasantly earnest. Dean gripped his heart and swore from the shock. "You need a bell."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Wanna come?"

Booze forgotten in the face of acceptance, Dean smiled. "Think I can clear my schedule," he headed towards his bedroom to pack, "but I'm not ridin' in your whack-ass truck."

"After eleven years of ridin' shotgun, you bet your midget as you are."

It wouldn't make up for the past, but maybe together, they could give someone else the future they deserved.

Fin