Title: From Lake Manitoc to Burkitsville
Authors: frozen_delight and canonisrelative
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester
Category: Missing scene/episode coda fic
Warnings: None
Word count: ~ 8100 words
Status: Complete

Summary: Sam and Dean on the road: glimpses of their first six months back together.

A/N: These drabbles for the episodes Dead in the Water, Skin, Bugs, Home, Asylum and Scarecrow grew out of emails we sent each other as we were watching Supernatural for the first time. After watching all 9 seasons we dug them up, dusted them off, and were pleased to find they still rang true, although there are obviously some slight discordances to later seasons' canon. Sam's POV is written by canonisrelative, Dean's by frozen_delight.


Chapter Summary: After they rescue Lucas, Sam and Dean put Lake Manitoc in their rearview mirror for the second time in as many days, and Sam asks a question that's been on his mind.

Sam

Sam feels like he's holding his breath 'til they pass – for real this time – the sign for 43 North to Milwaukee. When they get on the freeway he lets out a sigh that lasts forever, emptying his lungs, letting it all go. Dean looks over at him with an indulgent smile like he's expecting to see him slumped against the window, half asleep. Instead Sam keeps his eyes trained on his brother, trying to work something out. Dean's own laughing eyes are bright points gleaming in the darkness.

"What?" Dean asks.

Sam gives half a grin and shakes his head, looks away.

"Come on, Sam. What?"

Sam laughs, still looking out the window. "Nothing. Just. What is it with you and damaged chicks, huh Dean?"

Dean's foot weighs heavy on the pedal and he guides them in a graceful arc around a too slow semi, not bothering to return the bird the trucker flips his way. Sam does it for him, anyway, smirking and waving as they leave the John Deer cap in the Impala's dust.

"You got something to say, Sammy?"

Sam turns on that who me look that he knows drives Dean crazy, brushing away the hair falling into his eyes. "I just mean, first that Haley girl, now Andrea?"

"What?" Dean asks again, glaring at him. "She kissed me. I didn't do anything."

"Right," Sam rolls his eyes and turns back to the window.

In the reflection Sam can see his brother watching him, catches the way he keeps taking his eyes off the road to look at him like he's waiting for Sam to go on or like he's got something to say himself, but after a minute Dean only flexes his hand against the steering wheel and returns his attention to the road.

Dean

It's dark and Dean can feel Sam staring at him. Probably it should weird him out but it doesn't. Sam's always been looking for him, at him, up to him, all his life, and Dean was stupid enough to take it for granted, forever and always. Well, tough luck. It's something Dean missed during those ugly last years. He also missed having no one to look after. Or out for. That was his job after all.

In the midst of the surge of happiness at having this back, Dean's thoughts trail back to Lucas. The poor kid never had any of that. No wonder he went plumb loco.

"What?" Dean asks eventually when Sam won't stop staring. Because even though it's not really driving him crazy, he's got certain stellar big brother standards to uphold – in this case, to muster up a touch of annoyance.

Sam just grins and shakes his head, the infuriating brat. "Come on, Sam. What?"

Not looking at him like the cheeky coward he is, his little brother says, "Nothing. Just. What is it with you and damaged chicks, huh Dean?"

In the next minute, Dean expertly navigates the car and what he considers a bitchy conversation about why all the girls they save from wendigos or vengeful spirits would rather kiss him than Sam. To be honest, Dean's already forgotten all about Haley, but, yeah, now he remembers that she kissed him before they left. It was sweet. Definitely one of the perks of working on a job other than watching out for Sammy and Dean's ready to make the most of it. But that doesn't mean Sam gets to call him out on it.

Once he's done his fair share of glaring at Sam for starting the stupid topic, making even more stupid insinuations and looking pleased as punch as he does so, Dean reminds himself that he could easily conjure up a whole list of reasons why girls might pick him over his younger brother without Dean even having to try, his staggeringly good looks featuring on it very prominently. But before he can share this with Sam and wipe that perky grin right off his face, Dean again remembers Lucas, sitting on the park bench, drawing super strange psycho pictures, a lonely nerd. The poor kid never had someone to compare to, for better or worse.

His eyes softening, Dean glances at Sam before turning his attention back to the road. At least you never had to paint wacky pictures because you had no one to talk to, he thinks and he wants to tell Sam, See, it wasn't really so bad with us, right? But he won't. Not just yet.

Sam

Sam watches Dean, watches his face relax and his eyes go soft, introspective, as he purses his lips, his whole bearing turning thoughtful as he keeps his eyes on the road, looking forward, thinking back.

Watching Dean, everything about his brother so familiar, his body language broadcasting on a frequency Sam's been tuned to his whole life, Sam thinks it's not fair or right that just looking at his brother should feel so much like stepping back in time, like these last few years may as well have been a dream. Because he's changed, since the days when he split his time between watching Dean and watching the world fly by out the passenger side window. He's changed, and it would be easy to say that Dean hasn't. Easy, but not entirely true, not the whole picture anyway. The devil's in the details, as they say, and what were their lives woven from if not a hundred thousand tiny details that Sam used to know as easy as breathing, as easy as salting the windows every night before he even knew why. But as they go on, as days become weeks and still nothing on Dad and nothing on Jessica's killer, he's finding more and more threads that seem just a little out of place, things that aren't quite where he was expecting them to be. He's not sure which is the more startling; the things that have changed or the things that should have but haven't.

Sam's grown up since he last sat here, watching Dean. And maybe, a little bit, for all he acts like he hasn't, Dean's grown up too. Sam thinks about Lucas, about how Dean was with him, drawing him out when even his own mom hadn't gotten through to him and Sam feels a wave of guilt for what he'd just called her. Damaged. Sam has to look away from Dean for a minute because Dean always knows when Sam's watching him and Sam doesn't know, yet, if that's one of the details that's changed or if Dean can still read him like an open book. What is it with you and damaged chicks? She'd just lost her husband. He of all people should know just how hard she must be fighting every day, just to keep going, keep her head above water.

Thinking about Jess hurts as bad now as it did in the beginning, but it's a different kind of hurt. The kind with a little distance to put into perspective just how much he's lost. Because Sam knows if he's changed for the better at all since the last time he sat in this car, he knows if he's grown up, it's because of her. He'd found the person he wanted to grow up for. Grow old with. And he can't think like that so he anchors himself on Dean again, sneaking glances at him and wondering what Dean would be like, if he had that. If the only girls to kiss him weren't the damaged, the grieving, the grateful. In a day, Lucas had gone from silent and scared to laughing and loud. Andrea had smiled at Dean, had kissed him and held her head up, ready to move on with her life. Dean has that effect on people and Sam wonders, watching Dean's steady hands on the wheel, what effect the right person might have on Dean.