Title: Deterioration
Author: HigherMagic
Artist: abstradreams
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural, Romance/Crime
Pairing (s): Dean/Lisa, Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~33,400
Warnings: character death (non-canon), language, violence, dub-con, psychosis and manipulation
Summary: Dean has a gift – he can see things. Things that others wouldn't see, motive and calm control between the splatters of blood and fractured mirrors. He solves crimes others simply can't. When bodies are piling up all around him, Dean starts to feel as though he's drowning in it, falling under the weight of his own helpless observations, until he finds something unbreakable. Unwavering. Castiel – if only the man was as good for him as he appears.

This was written for the DeanCasBigBang on LJ. The artist (abstradreams) has done some amazing work and you can find it at her LJ. Please check it out! I was absolutely blown away by it.

This work has non-canon character death, emotional and mental manipulation and scenes of violence. If anyone is sensitive to these things, I'd recommend caution when reading.

"And then, Winchester – fucking Winchester – he walks in there like the King of fucking Egypt, takes one look at the room, and solves the whole thing, just like that!" A shot gets tossed back, slammed with more force than strictly necessary onto the overly-shiny surface of the bar. The man speaking bares his teeth at the sour taste of the cheap liquor and motions for another, snapping his fingers in impatience. "Man can talk to the damn cadavers, I'd put money to it."

There is a laugh from his companion, and a roll of the eyes. "Oh, Henricksen," comes the reply, a hand on the man's arm steadying his second shot and garnering his, admittedly, short-spanned attention. "You always were a superstitious man."

"I'm telling you," Henricksen replies, eyes cast down and words muttered against the lip of the glass. The shot goes down, just as burning as the first. It's unnatural, he thinks, how a man can stare into the soulless gaze of a corpse so steadily. "He weirds me out."

His companion's eyes gleam. "Well, I'm sure we can figure out a way to see if he's really as good as he says." A couple of twenties land on the bar and then Henricksen is alone. "Don't spend it all in one place," is what he hears and he snorts and motions for another shot, shoving forward the proffered money. He has work again in the morning, but if he has to spend another day with Winchester, a hangover can hardly make it worse.

There is a single line of blood across the wall – it has dripped somewhat, like someone had painted too much on with a single stroke and the brush had been overloaded with the blood. The wall had once been a muted mesh of blues and greens – tranquil and peaceful. Dean likes that; likes the façade of calm and quiet that this place has tried to maintain. Two streets from the main road, he doubts the former inhabitant gained much from their color choice other than a vague sense of contentment and a feeling of drowning.

"We found her in here," comes the lead investigator's voice, snapping Dean out of his thoughts. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and follows the other man into what he can probably assume is the living room, complete with TV facing the window and a long leather couch, white, pressed against another blue wall.

There is more blood in here, the area sectioned off to stop people stepping in it, markers placed by splatter and spots against the hardwood floor. Dean frowns, pressing his weight against the wood. Laminate, he corrects himself. Recent laminate.

She's a younger woman, maybe one-hundred-twenty pounds, Dean estimates, five-foot-seven. He purses his lips and cocks his head to one side, considering her. Her hair is a fan of ginger around her head, threaded with her red blood, and he thinks that it is interesting to find her palette tastes are almost the exact opposite of herself. Where her walls are the ocean, she is fire. She is still dressed in soft sleep pajama pants and a tank top, white and showing her yellow bra underneath, and Dean looks up again, eyes looking over the blood splatter.

Without a word he turns around and walks back out to the corridor again. The clicks of the photographers' cameras are distracting, even though he knows that they will need images to support his eventual conclusion. He admires the brush stroke again – so high-up, as well. At her height she would have had to stand on the tips of her toes to reach. The drips, though, are at eye-level to what she might be – around Dean's chest.

Dean cocks his head to one side, and remains silent until the investigator rejoins him. "What do you make of it?"

"Did she have any pets?" he asks, squinting at the blood smear. He reaches out to graze his fingertips along it, before thinking better of it and pulling back. The floor below his feet is carpeted but there are no drips on the carpet itself.

"From what we could tell, she had all the fixin's for a rabbit or somethin' like that, but there's no sign it's been lived in."

Dean raises an eyebrow, turning to face the other man. "Show me."

Her bedroom is similarly tranquilly designed – light, pastel blues and greens make up one wall in a diamond pattern, the other three swathed with swirls of white and light yellow. It gives the illusion that the diamonds are being blown away by a wind, and Dean cannot help but smile at the sight of it. The colors are somehow relaxing. There is, indeed, an unused hutch at the foot of her bed, and Dean bends down but can neither see nor smell any sign that there was a living thing within it. Another cage on top of the hutch produces a similar conclusion, and yet -.

He squints, pressing forward, and inhales. "Have you ever owned pets, investigator?" Dean asks, fishing out a plastic glove and slipping it onto his hand, before he unhooks the cage door and lets it fall open. It is immaculately kept inside, the bedding evenly spread across the floor of it and only a fine layer of dust touching along the top of the water bottle attached to the side.

"I had a dog when I was a kid," comes the vaguely bored-sounding reply, and Dean gives a small hum of acknowledgement, and scratches at some of the fine bedding lining the bottom of the cage. He pulls back, and gestures for the other man to come see. There, at the bottom of the cage, is a small pool of blood also.

"She came home, to find that mark on the doorway – someone comes in, kills the pet and paints it across her wall to send a message."

"What kind of psycho uses a rabbit to send a message?" the investigator asks, already signaling some of the crew to catalogue this stain as well, in case it becomes important in the investigation, and to treat her bedroom as a crime scene also. "What message would you use some poor animal to send?"

Dean's eyes crawl over the redhead's bedroom. It is full of her personality, he thinks, or perhaps what someone was trying to make of her. Her eyebrows had been brown and Dean had been able to see the very tips of brown roots growing in – still caught in the teenage rebellion fifteen years later, he thinks, but in doing so she has never settled down. Pictures of her parents and her high school sweetheart are still sitting on her bedside table. She has created this cocoon for herself, of safety and nostalgia and fake, very fake, youth.

"That they could get into her haven," he finally says, still staring at the picture of the victim and her high school sweetheart, with black hair and dimples and dark brown eyes. Their arms are around each other and they are smiling wide – they look very much in love. "That they could rip her from her bubble and throw her out of her happiness within a moment's notice." He raises his eyes, then, to meet those of the investigator's. "Whoever did this to her knew her in the past. She escaped, or stole something. You may want to look into who Ms. Bradbury was before she came to our fair city."

The man blinks. "I never told you her name," he says, mildly amused but unsurprised that Dean already knows. With a small smile, Dean jerks his head to the mantelpiece, where there is a picture of her high school lacrosse team, a teenaged Charlotte Bradbury grinning and eagerly clutching the goalie's stick. Along the bottom are the team members' names. The other man huffs a laugh and nods when he understands, and Dean takes his leave of the place, figuring that he is no longer needed, and that the investigator will call him if there should be any trouble or any new leads.

It has been an early day – dawn is just breaking in the sky when Dean leaves the woman's residence. He had forgone coffee because the caffeine can make him overexcited and less methodical about his observations, but he is desperately feeling the need now, and so he goes to his local haunt and orders a double espresso shot (for the kick) and a toffee nut latte (for the pleasure of it). The espresso goes down a treat, just as he knew it would, and he can feel himself perking up as he nurses the latte and takes his favorite seat by the window, where he can see the door and the walkway outside. People watching, of course, supplies endless amusement for him, but it also keeps his senses sharp.

He is in the middle of debating whether the man is running because of his destination or his starting point when Sam joins him. Dean quirks a smile and, without a word, slides a berries-and-nuts yoghurt over to Sam, and his little brother sighs gratefully, tucking into the food without a word. Sam works late nights, and the early mornings are the only times that they can really cross each other without one of them having somewhere to be. And Sam, bless him, is hopeless at remembering to feed himself if Dean doesn't occasionally make the effort.

"Rough night?" Dean asks, taking another sip and deciding that, yes, the man is running because he is late for something – he'd gotten lost, judging by the map tucked into his breast pocket, and he is carrying something important if the way he is clutching his briefcase to his chest is any indication – maybe he's running to a meeting or a trade-off or he's selling illegal goods or (no, illegal trade pays better than that knock-off Rolex) -.

"Dean? Are you even listening to me?" Sam demands, cutting through Dean's internal monologue. The older Winchester sighs, rolling his eyes and taking another sip of latte.

"Of course I heard you," he replies, as though anything else would be the stupidest assumption ever. "The Jefferson case has run into a dead-end, and despite you and Ms. Matheson staying up all night to work it over, it looks like the bastard will walk." Dean leans forward, eyes gleaming. "Let me look at the case file, Sammy. I could have it for you like that." He snaps his fingers, earning a frown from Sam as he sits back and grins.

"I can solve cases perfectly fine without that freak brain of yours," he gripes, and Dean hums and nods. He knows that if Sam were really stuck, he would come to Dean, but the fact that he isn't means that there is still a way around that Sam just hasn't seen yet – sometimes Sam's brain is too smart for even him to figure out, Dean knows that. Something their mother gave them, he supposes, because their father sure as Hell didn't help the situation. "How was your morning? You're up kinda early, even for you."

Dean hums again, rolling his tongue until it is behind his teeth and clucking, once. "Had a suspected suicide a few streets away. Turned out to be a homicide. I think the vic was into something big, though." He smiles despite himself – listen to him, going on about plots and gangs and all sorts. If his dad could see him now. "Perp killed her rabbit and smeared its blood on the walls."

"Oh." Sam's face twists into an expression of disgust. "God. Why do they have to bring the animals into this?"

Dean shrugs one shoulder – it is an odd thing, he supposes, to care about what happens to the animal more than the person. At least the girl had had warning – she could have packed up and fled her space after the message was left, but instead she chose to stay – either because she thought she was smarter or because she thought she was safe. Dean is leaning towards the first – something about her eyes said that she was utterly shocked at being outsmarted, out-gunned and, ultimately, bested. He supposes a fiery girl must have some pride in her.

His latte is turning colder than he would like it and so he tips the rest back into his mouth, finishing it in two swallows, and sets the empty cup down. Sam has mostly finished his breakfast/dinner also, and Dean nods to it. "Walk back home?" he asks, and Sam nods with a small smile, taking one last bite before they both stand and throw their trash away. Dean waves to the barista behind the register as they leave, and pulls his jacket tighter around himself to brace against the cold air.

Their home is not far, but Dean takes his time, and Sam seems to be in no hurry either. His little brother is drooping, all hooded lids and sloping shoulders, and so Dean is careful not to hurry him home lest he accidentally run into a lamppost or something. When they return to the house, Dean lets his fingers brush against the stone lining the front of their driveway, the new layer of paint he applies every time he leaves the house and over which both he and Sam carefully step, and Dean counts the scuffs against their door. There are no more than before, and the letterbox is slightly open – the mailman had come. He knows better than to track through the paint, Dean supposes. Doesn't want to ruin those nice black boots and his carpeted van floor.

Their house is small but comfortable. Dean has sequestered half of the top floor to himself, and Sam gets most of the rest of the house by default. It hadn't always been that way, but Dean plays his music loud and Sam needs to sleep, so the brothers try and mostly stay out of each other's way when they are not deliberately spending time together.

Sam immediately trudges up to bed, and Dean makes a few sandwiches, wraps them in Clingfilm, and puts them in the fridge – for Sam later, since Dean is almost guaranteed to be out again when Sam awakens. That done, Dean checks the doors again and the downstairs windows, and takes the stairs two at a time to his own rooms at the top. He closes the door separating his mini-apartment from the rest of the house, and hangs up his coat and kicks off his shoes.

Compared to the almost obsessive neatness of the rest of the house, Dean's rooms are like a pigsty – only so far as that he goes out of his way to remember the disorder so reorganizing everything by this point would only serve to make him more confused. He likes the game of remembering which DVD case he returned which episode of Star Trek to – was it even Deep Space Nine or Next Generation? On which shelf did Dean put Cat's Cradle, was it next to his Zeppelin CDs or down the hall, next to his bed? All part of the game of Life, Dean thinks to himself with a small smirk, shaking his head, and he schleps off his long-sleeved shirt, toeing off his socks by his shoes so that he can dig his toes into the carpet, and he pulls his shirt over his head.

Normally he showers in the morning, but the investigator's call had messed up his routine, so he would have to make do now before maybe catching a few Zs before the morning melts into a time that one can really call a 'decent' time to get up. If there is anything that Dean's mind can find value in, it is the power of sleep.

He gets in the shower, scrubbing shampoo into his hair harshly enough to lull his brain into shutting down, trying to recover from the stain of red against the light walls and the surprised look in Ms. Bradbury's eyes. Whatever or whoever she had seen in her final moments; she had not expected them, that is for sure.

This is the third murder in as many weeks with similar M.O.'s. He knows the District Attorney doesn't see it yet – they likely never will, but it has been the same. Dean has seen it on the news, and read it in magazines, and cast his own eyes upon it, and it is the same. A girl who seemingly no one could want to do harm to, suddenly brutally slaughtered in her own home. Her only companions stolen away from her – in Ms. Bradbury's case, a rabbit. In Sarah Blake's case, her dog and her roommate. In Mrs. Milton's case, her daughter and her husband had both mysteriously disappeared before her murder. He had shown up eight days later in a ditch outside of Pontiac, and Mrs. Milton had been cradling the body of her dead child when she had been shot and carved up like a steak. They had all struck Dean as false, somehow – Sarah and Charlotte, something about them, he thinks, looked fake and shimmering. Glitter and glass across their faces. He had not seen the Blake or the Milton crime scene, otherwise he thinks he would have an answer already, but he cannot help that – it had, after all, occurred many miles away and far outside of his quasi-department's jurisdiction.

Sarah, Amelia, Charlotte…nothing connecting them that he can see, or tell from what information he can gather. They are too far apart, they say, too distant to be related at all. But he knows. Someone is hunting these women down and Dean has been sniffing at their trail from the first day.

Dean sighs, closing his eyes, and tips his head back to wash the shampoo out of his hair. He doesn't bother with his body aside from a cursory swipe of soapy hands, because he is about to try and catch some more sleep and however clean he is at the beginning, he won't be when he wakes up again – that is something he knows for certain. He sighs, shoving at the water until it turns off, and steps out, giving himself another cursory wipe-down, still with water droplets clinging to his shoulders, and collapses in his bed and pulls the sheet up around his eyes. The blackout curtains will give him a few more hours' respite, at the very least.

He dreams of a giant black panther, tracking down young does in the forest, and chasing them until they collapse from exhaustion and scream and scream and scream.

Dean jerks awake in a cold sweat, the smell of blood in his nose and coating the inside of his mouth, and he sighs out heavily, rolling onto his back, and throws an arm over his eyes. The same dream, this giant black cat hunting these women – young, female deer – down. There are more within the animal's sights, he knows – he will not stop at Charlotte Bradbury. If it is a he – Dean cannot tell. There is something distinctly vicious about the killings that Dean thinks only a woman would be capable of, but then again, it is too early to say.

He pushes the sheets to the floor and sheds his clothes, quickly using the towel from before to wipe himself down again and change into new clothes. The clock by his bed blares out dark red numbers in the form of 10:31, so Dean figures he has slept enough of the day away. Perhaps it is time to see if his investigator friend has found any leads on the Bradbury case.

When he plods downstairs, he finds a note slipped through his letterbox: Come to the station when you get this. Got some history on our vic. Dean smiles to himself, crumbling the piece of paper and lighting it on fire over the gas stove, before tossing it into the sink and opening the faucet over it. Nervous habit – whatever. He's burned his mail ever since so many years ago when their father had found Sam's letter from Stanford, and gone into such a brutish rampage that Dean had decided to up and join Sam instead of staying under his father's thumb. When a letter is burned, only a mind reader can find it again.

So, Ms. Bradbury does have a past. Dean grins – good, maybe he can finally convince everyone that there is more to this investigation than meets the eye. Dean pours himself another glass of water and downs it, before slipping on his leather jacket and boots again, and heading out into the brightly-lit midmorning.

Victor Henricksen is not an unimpressive man – Dean just finds him unimpressive. He has a character about him, a cold kind of charisma that Dean thinks dictators have, that make people bow to his words while fearing his fist up their ass. He is the kind of man who carries a weapon simply because he can. He also has the unfortunate quality of absolutely hating Dean's guts – Dean couldn't blame him, he was the whole package, after all, but it was a matter that Victor's hatred of Dean made it very hard for him to believe anything Dean has to say, which merely slows things down.

Dean doesn't tolerate being slow about something.

"When will you start to believe that these three are connected?" Dean demands, gesturing between the case file of Charlotte Bradbury, and the two he himself is holding in his hands – that of Amelia Milton and Sarah Blake. "Each of the women," he begins, throwing down Sarah's file, "has something close to them gone missing – in Sarah's case, her dog and her roommate, leaving her totally defenseless. In Amelia's," the second file lands with a heavy sound, "her kid, and we can safely presume her husband was a target as well. Bradbury had a pet she clearly kept in good condition, and the killer used it to give her walls a paintjob."

"A rabbit and a child are hardly grounds for comparison, Mister Winchester," Henricksen replies with a raised eyebrow, not looking at Dean and merely thumbing through the Bradbury file. His eyelids are heavy and Dean narrows his eyes.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Is that any business of yours?"

Dean bares his teeth in a small, bitter grin. "Listen to me, Henricksen," he whispers, soft and low enough to get the other man's attention, and then without warning he slams his hand loudly on the desk, making Victor wince and stifle an expletive behind his teeth. "Women are dying here, and you've got your own head too far up your ass to see it!"

"Mister Winchester, I'd have you quiet down right now, or I will have you escorted from these premises."

"I'd just crawl back in," Dean hisses, biting out the words behind clenched teeth. His fingers curl and he knows Henricksen would never really throw him out – he's too valuable here, too damn good at what he does. "Your dickish attitude towards me is gonna get another girl killed, you know that?"

"Thank you, Mister Winchester, I think I have all I need from you now."

Dean knows when he is being dismissed, but it doesn't stop the low growl threatening to spill from his mouth, so he shoves off from Victor's desk and takes his leave of the man's office – he considers slamming the door for a moment, just to spite him, but thinks better of it because he doesn't need to be calling the whole floor's attention to himself.

The investigator – Pike, Dean remembers his name being – waylays him on his way to the elevator. "Come here, Winchester, you're gonna wanna see this."

Pike leads Dean over to one of the computers sitting on his desk, all minimal desktop icons and dark blue swirl of a background that is the same for every desktop except Henricksen's, and pulls open a video file. On it, Dean watches the black and white, grainy images of people and animals walking past, going about their daily lives, before his eyes widen in realization when he understands what he is looking at.

"Is this outside Bradbury's apartment?" he asks, tilting the screen to see it better and rewinding the clip to the beginning.

Pike nods and hums, pressing his lips together. "Footage from the grocer opposite her gives us a corner view. No front-door image, unfortunately, but we can rule out anyone using her living room window to get in."

Dean barely controls his reaction – of course there was no window access, is he kidding? Dean could have told him that. Instead he smiles tightly, and pauses the clip and sits back. "Any chance I can get these forwarded to me at home?"

Pike nods again, already pulling up an email file to attach the clips to, and Dean thanks him with a hand on his shoulder and takes his leave again.

Then, he pauses. "What about this history we got on the vic?"

"Oh, of course, right," Pike says, standing and gesturing for Dean to follow again. Dean barely manages to stop himself rolling his eyes – Pike is a good man, he supposes, if a little wishy washy and would forget his own head some days if it weren't screwed on. Pike leads him to a box of case files labeled 'Unsolved: 17-32', and opens it, flicking through the manila envelopes until he comes across an impressively thick one, pulls it out and opens it for Dean to see. Her hair is a different color and she is about five years younger, but that is definitely Charlotte Bradbury. "It appears our vic has surfaced before. She was charged for cyber terrorism, breaking and entering, assault charges against a one Dick Roman, and escaped from prison back in 2008."

Dean raises an eyebrow, taking the folder. A fiery girl indeed. He whistles low under his breath. "Sounds like the kind of girl who makes a lot of old friends."

"You think one of them got the drop on her?"

"Someone she didn't expect to ever see again," Dean replies, nodding his head. "Mind if I…?" He gestures with the folder, and Pike merely nods and makes a vague sound of assent.

"Yeah, go ahead. She's a cold case now, I guess, as far as that file's concerned."

Dean nods again, tucking the file underneath his arm. "Well, if that's all of it – pretty sure Henricksen's two wrong words away from havin' my head, so I think I'm gonna skip out. Call me if you catch anything else, yeah?" Pike nods and Dean makes his way out, rubbing at his temples. He's jonesing for another caffeine hit already, and despite the fact that he slept through his first four shots, four more is sounding more and more like a good idea with every passing second.

He stops at the cafeteria adjacent to the police station and buys a cup of their drip coffee, tossing it back like medicine as soon as it gets cool enough – which, luckily, doesn't take that long, since the cups are about as capable of insulation as a mesh shirt. After that he heads back home, because he has nothing pressing to take care of and, if worse should come to worst, he can try and catch a few more hours of sleep. There's something in the air, he thinks – something big is brewing, and like an owl he'll have to be up more night than day.

When he gets back home, he goes to the spare room next to his bedroom, flicking the light on and setting down the Bradbury file. Within this room are several TV sets, a photo frame with three hundred photos on constant shuffle, and a book of crossword puzzles about one thousand pages thick sitting, open, next to an unfolded futon bed. Dean is half-way through the puzzle book, and when he is done with it, it will join the three others stacked behind the photo frame. Dean sighs, sitting down on the futon, and turns on the televisions, one at a time until the room is full of news anchors, children's cartoons, a Die Hard marathon, and a documentary on Pavarotti. He lays down on the futon, on his left side, so that he can see the sliding photos within the frame, and then he picks up the crossword book, and sets to work finishing number five-thirty-six.

Sometimes, Dean will catch himself quoting along with Bruce Willis' dialogue with Alan Rickman, and he presses his lips together, shaking his head until he stops. He's slipping – he knows it, because he gets three-down wrong and cannot finish the puzzle until he turns off everything but the news anchor and tunes out her drawl about fiscal drops and triple-dip recessions and so on.

Eventually, he does though, and with a self-satisfied smile, he turns the other channels back on and lets the stimulus soak into him until his headache finally goes away, and turns to puzzle number five-thirty-seven.

"Hello?"

"Lisa, baby, how've you been?"

"Dean." The name is sighed, a mix of irritation and amusement in Lisa Braeden's voice. Dean grins to himself, picking at a bit of dirt under his fingernails. He is still lying on the futon, feet kicked up against the wall so his heels are braced against it, staring up at the ceiling. Around him, the televisions drone on at a lower volume and he makes sure the picture frame is still in the corner of his eye so that his periphery can catch it. "Do what do I owe the…. What do you want?"

"S'been a while, hasn't it?" Dean asks, clucking his tongue against his teeth again as he stares up at the ceiling. When coffee and sensory training fail to stabilize him, he often turns to Lisa – that woman can make Dean's brain shut down in a way that, well, let's just say you'd need to be a lot less legal to get something else with that kind of effect.

"Forty-nine days, but who's counting?" she replies dryly, and Dean finds it utterly adorable and annoying as Hell that she actually does count. He purses his lips, making another low sound, and swings his legs down onto the ground, pushing himself upright.

"Let me take you out," he murmurs, grinning wide because he already knows she'll say 'Yes'. Dean has an eye for people like that, he supposes – comes with the territory. Lisa is a woman who is born of manipulation and self-appeasement. She lives in a world where if she keeps accepting Dean's offers of attention and love and wild one-nights, Dean will start to believe it, and leave less often, and for as long. It is, Dean knows, a complete manipulation on her part, but he's willing to play along because he is smarter than that. "That little Italian place you love – Giovanni's, right? You can wear that purple dress – the one I first met you in. And we can go dancing…?" Dean lets himself trail off, tongue mapping the bite of his lower teeth, along his lips. She can never resist a dance.

There is a pause, but Dean knows he's won her because she is making him wait for it – she delights in making him chase her, and if she wants a chase, well, Dean will definitely give her one. "I'm free tomorrow night," she finally says, like she has spent a long time thinking about it and debating her free time, and Dean's fingers curl against the futon in victory.

"I'll see you at eight," he says quickly, because she would never allow him to pick her up at her house, and then hangs up before she can reply – it takes the wind out of her sails, stops her from being able to do it first, and it gets her fired up and wild and Dean can hardly fucking wait. He's going to be so fucking relaxed by the end of tomorrow night, wrung dry by Lisa's special brand of enthusiastic, take-no-prisoners sex.

But that still leaves tonight open, and Dean debates to himself making dinner for Sam or watching more TV. If he turns the televisions back on, he'll likely waste the whole night up here, and there is a whole city begging for his attention. So, in the end, he supposes it's a no-brainer, and he shoves himself off of the futon, turns off all of the machines and carefully closes the door behind him so that he doesn't wake Sam. That done, he treks downstairs and starts a pot of water going to boil – something simple, he thinks, that'll keep for a while if there's leftovers. He'll be having Italian tomorrow night, which likely means noodles, so rice it is.

Rice and…oh, sliced and grilled chicken breast. And some diced tomatoes. Dean smiles to himself, taking out the chicken from the fridge and the can of tomatoes from the pantry, and starts slicing the meat. When the water is boiling he throws some rice in there, stirring it in with a wooden spoon and then leaves it.

Sam comes downstairs as Dean is grilling the chicken, the rice nicely simmering and the tomatoes just waiting to be added, and he smiles despite himself. "You going out tonight?" he asks, because he recognizes Dean's signs – though he suspects Dean himself doesn't realize it. He always overcompensates when he won't be home with Sam.

"Was thinking about it," Dean replies, shoulders drawing in a little despite himself, as though expecting some kind of blow or reprimand for saying it. Sam swallows, and frowns, and instead of saying anything he grabs Dean a beer and sets it down, opened, next to him. Dean gives a small nod of thanks and takes a swig. "You going for another all-nighter?"

"Um, later in the evening, yeah."

Sam sounds nervous, and Dean grins despite himself. "Say 'Hi' to Jess for me."

"Is there anything you don't know?" Sam asks, laughter in his voice, and Dean swallows and goes back to stirring the rice, because yeah, there are things – things like he's slipping, and there are women dying, and he couldn't figure out three down in the stupid crossword and even now he can't remember which cartoon was on except it had a cat and a mouse and that doesn't really narrow it down anymore, does it, and -. "Dean."

A hand settles itself, warm and large, between his shoulder blades, and Dean sighs, making a conscious effort to relax his muscles to give the illusion of calm. "I'm okay," he replies, rolling his shoulders to dislodge Sam's hand, and after a moment it finally goes, leaving a brace of chilly air behind. "You've been dating Jess a while, Sammy, haven't ya?" he asks instead of anything else, turning down the heat on the rice and pouring it into a colander to drain.

There is a brief pause. "Seventeen months or so, why?"

"Why haven't you married her yet?"

This time, there is a much longer pause – so long, in fact, that Dean is able to stir in the tomatoes and spoon a hearty helping into a bowl for Sam and lay some of the chicken on top, and then some for himself, and pack away the rest into Tupperware before Sam replies: "Because…well, she's in training still – to be a nurse, I mean – and, well."

"Well?" Dean presses, turning around and regarding Sam with a level gaze. Sam looks guilty, shoulders hunched up and staring down at his food. He's picking at it and Dean always knows when that's a bad sign. "Are you just screwin' around, Sammy? 'Cause your average for that is about six weeks. Unless she's got her hooks farther into you than I'd thought – I mean, you've never let me meet the girl, but -."

"I want to marry her, Dean," Sam finally says, looking up through his stupidly-long hair. Dean hates it. It makes reading Sam's eyes that much harder, but Dean thinks that might just be the point. Some people talk with their hands: Sam talks with his eyes. "But I'm afraid for you to meet her. And I can't marry her if she can't meet my only family."

Dean nods, eyes flicking away from Sam, and he draws his lower lip into his mouth before releasing it with a loud sucking sound. "Right," he finally says, setting his bowl down and leaning back against the kitchen counter. "And she can't meet me 'cause…?"

"Because you'll see right through her, Dean – you always do. You pick at people, and rip them apart and you do it all so cleanly. People don't like that, Dean," Sam replies, sounding like he's in pain, and Dean nods again, shoulders rolling as he folds his arms across his chest. He knows he's giving himself away with his defensive posture, but Sam looks for the eyes too and so Dean does his best to keep them averted so that Sam can't see, can't read him like Dean does. "I want you to meet her, Dean," Sam says, "but I'm afraid of it."

"You think I can't control myself?" Dean asks, brows drawing together as a frown when he finally meets Sam's eyes. His anger hides him, he thinks, defends and misleads so Sam won't see, and he gestures towards his own head. "That I got no filter on this thing?"

"You don't have a filter," Sam replies. "I know how much you see – you see everything, and yeah, you might hide it well enough, but I'd still know you were thinking stuff about her, stuff I would never know unless I asked, and I don't like the idea of you knowing her better than I do, or figuring out if she has anything to hide. Because I don't care, but you'll make me care, and I don't want that."

"Fine, then," Dean bites out, raising his hands in a gesture of defeat and acceptance. "I won't meet her – maybe you two can fucking elope or something if it'll put your conscience at rest. Have a good night, Sam."

"Dean! Come on, Dean!" And yeah, maybe he is getting a little overemotional about the whole thing, but fuck it – this isn't the first time his little 'trick' has gotten him under strain from his family. Besides, everyone deserves some secrets.

He takes his dinner up to his extra room and sits on the futon and looks over the Bradbury case file until he hears Sam shut the front door behind him and sees from his angle at the top of the stairs that the lower level light has been turned off. So he's alone in the house. Good.

The case file is boring to him – nothing in it gives him any clues as to who might be after her. She pissed off a lot of people, it seems, and unfortunately 'a lot' doesn't give him much to work with. He can't profile 'a lot'. So he finishes his food instead and goes back downstairs, glad to see that at least Sam had the good decency to wash his bowl and fork before leaving, and he does the same before going to the front hallway. Keys, wallet, phone, shoes, jacket – all present and accounted for. "Great," he mutters to himself, and heads out, careful to lock the door and spray a new line of paint down on the ground with the canister he keeps in a small missing-brick sized hole at the bottom of the stairs.