Author Note: Bringing the setting for the rest of the story into play in this chapter. While the place is real, I've taken some liberties throughout with regards to the building's layout, for my own nefarious purposes.

Thanks for feedback!

Maelstrom

Chapter Two

Sam makes it a point to run every morning, much to the chagrin of an older brother who feels the need to rib him incessantly about it while putting down a Halloween night-sized haul of candy and snack food, like it's a balanced breakfast.

"I'm still faster than you," Dean had argued the last time Sam mentioned his eating habits, mouth full of caramel and nougat. "But you keep practicin.'"

And it pisses Sam off – in the way of general fraternal annoyance rather than any form of deep-seeded fury – because the jerk's right. He is still faster than Sam.

There's no use in pushing the mental health angle, which leaves Dean laughing so hard he's nearly got tears in his eyes.

"Yeah, Sam. You're the most mentally-balanced asshole I know." And then, once he'd wiped the tears away, once he was popping the top of his first beer of the day, still well before lunchtime, "Whew. Thanks, I needed that."

So it's become a solitary venture, and Sam is okay with that, as he takes this time every day to do one normal, benign and non-threatening thing for himself. It's about the only form of structured exercise he can manage these days, the only exercise at all to be found that doesn't involve killing. These thirty minutes each day belong to him, and no one else. He is in complete control of himself, with no outside forces pressing down on that weight that's become a mainstay on his shoulders. That weight that feels like Dean, like Jess, like Dad. Like the whole damn world.

Thirty minutes in which decisions haven't been made for him and nothing is inevitable, beyond the knowledge he'll eventually make a circuit back to the motel. Sometimes he's out longer than thirty minutes. Sometimes two hours have passed before he notices how far he's strayed, and Dean starts blowing up his phone, sounding frightened and panicked and pissed when Sam answers.

He'll always make his way back to the motel, and as Sam pulls himself out of bed this morning, that's about the extent of the kind of nailed-down future he feels up to handling right now.

It's not uncommon for Sam to get up and moving out the world that exists beyond the door of their flavor-of-the-week motel room before Dean's made that first pathetic – and usually unsuccessful – attempt to do so much as peel his eyes open. Between the two of them Sam's certainly the early bird, due to what once was trouble sleeping but has simply become habit. It might take him longer, but once Dean's up, he's up. Once he manages to drag himself from bed and get a good thirty to forty ounces of strong black coffee into his system, he's as chipper a guy as Dean can be expected to be. Some days it just takes a while for him to make that initial crawl off of the mattress, and he doesn't appreciate any help in getting there. It's been that way since they were kids.

Even taking all of this into account, Sam's doesn't remember it ever being quite this hard for his brother to get going in the morning. Knowing Hell is waiting, well, it seems to pretty much be hell. Of course, Sam can only assume, because the son of bitch will pry pry pry if Sam so much as blinks too hard or sighs too long, but when it's for the sake of himself, Dean locks it up and throws away the key. Puts a drink in his hand instead and, if he has it to spare, one in Sam's, in the hopes that, if he can't forget what's coming, maybe little brother will.

Neither of them ever does.

The room remains littered with last night's evidence of this. The empty bottles and the now seriously rank-smelling pizza box. That was more or less to be expected, as there's no fridge, and Sam should have taken care of that. Surveying the room, he thinks back on the conversation that was had and feels a pang of…something. Something not easily identifiable, but falling somewhere between the much-visited territories of guilt and disappointment, though certainly not out of the realm of anger.

There's no one thing to be feeling here, and Sam certainly didn't do either of them any favors by leaving the room in this state. He should have cleaned up before crawling into bed, himself, not only because now he's forced to look it in the face and rehash what was said while dinner was going to untouched ruin on the table between them, but because he knows his brother, and Dean's going to want to pretend that nothing happened and that nothing was said. Sam can at least be doing these little things to make his brother's remaining days easier.

Or maybe Dean should see the mess. Maybe he should have to look his issues and behavior in the face just the same as Sam has had to, and make an informed decision about where to go from here. Because it shouldn't be so easy for Dean to leave Sam cleaning up his mess, both literal and figurative. He's never been the one that needed tending to. If it truly has become so easy to push that emotional broom into his brother's hand, then that's a different problem altogether, and a pattern Sam would like to break away from.

He decides to leave it to fate, if there is such a thing, and ignores the clutter for now. Sam tucks his iPod into a pocket, loops his earbuds around his neck and moves with a fair amount of stealth through the motel room, wary of inadvertently waking Dean, who still sleeps with that big-ass knife tucked under his flat pillow and hasn't ever taken well to being inadvertently woken. A lesson learned young and hard and immediately: you let Dean wake up on his own, because he's inherently and excessively aggressive when startled – even when hungover – and he's wicked fast with that blade.

Sam pauses on the threshold, face painfully obviously screwed up in guilt dressed as concern, and studies the way Dean is twisted up in his covers. Cocooned not solely for protection from the chill of the night but rolled up tight like a burrito, and you only get that way from continuous thrashing. From struggling through nightmares. Sam knows better than maybe anyone.

Like he knows Sam watching him, Dean swallows and groans and jerks roughly in his sleep, wrapping the musty quilted duvet even tighter around himself.

Sam feels as though he's breaking some unspoken agreement of trust by staring this way, and ducks through the fire-engine red door of the room and into the nip of an early Midwestern winter morning. It's just after dawn, and the cold air hits his exposed skin in an immediate and aggressive fashion. As he pulls the door shut behind him, he sees that tacky plastic candle still glowing in the window across the street, and the sight of it is much like a fresh stab at his very soul.

"Can't just bury me, Sammy. S'not gonna be enough."

That selfish son of a bitch. Like the thought is some foreign object blown by the wind into his head, Sam is quick to drag the hood of his gray sweatshirt up over his neck and ears, blocking the bash of it from biting his ears and cheeks and obscuring the dim light across the way from his view. He just wants to take off, to get away, and forgoes the idea of music for the time being. He turns toward town and sets off down the cracked blacktop of another unfamiliar road.

Sometimes when he goes on these runs, he keeps pace with the drumbeat of songs thumping away his thoughts. Random tunes he'd caught flipping through small town radio stations that appealed at the time, mostly because they annoyed his brother. It's not quite Dean's preferred classic rock – DAD'S classic rock – but all the same, appreciation of music is something they've always had in common. Sometimes Sam runs to a simpler, homemade soundtrack of labored breathing and soles slapping pavement as he pushes his limits for no other reason than because he can.

It might go without saying, but Sam's always enjoyed as much independence as he can finagle from each day. They keep extremely close quarters, and he loves his brother and owes him a lot, but Dean is always there. There's something liberating about having this time for himself, and even more so about never having the opportunity to run the same route twice. It might be a stretch to call that a silver lining in their way of life, but there aren't many perks to be found these days. Not when your brother is on the backend of a year-long deadline.

At that thought, that recurring one he can't ever seem to sidetrack before it takes over his mind and destroys him bit by bit from the inside out, Sam decides that maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty to give up on the music. He picks up the pace and pushes himself faster and further, until the stitch in his side and the dull roar in his calves occupy any available mental real estate previously occupied by morbid thought. He cuts a path through the small town based solely on instinct, keeping his eyes down, tracking cracks in the road.

Dean has yet to wake and is oddly still when Sam unlocks the door and reenters the motel room, but there is still the evidence that the sleep he's gotten has been anything but restful. More nightmares. Like Sam, he's always had them. He's just typically quieter about it.

His icy cheeks tingling from the relative furnace blast of warmth inside, Sam stuffs his cold hands into the depths of his sweatshirt pockets and tears his eyes away from Dean, grants them instead another long, slow circuit of the state of the room. That pizza box, God, but it stinks, and the line of dead soldiers along the edge of the table, rings of condensation all across the flat surface where the bottles were left in sweating clusters. He swallows the difficult pill that is the confirmation of his brother's inner struggle. The turmoil Dean's clearly experiencing but would rather put alcohol to than words. Maybe Sam should be able to understand that, how the words can sometimes hurt worse.

He can understand, sure, if he's looking to, but all the same, a familiar anger begins to build in Sam's gut. Like an old friend, it's come and gone a dozen times over since finding out about the crossroads deal. Anger first over such a decision being made for him, such a trade regarding life and soul being made without his input or consent. Anger more recently over being left out, or more accurately pushed out, of what Dean's going through when he's supposed to be the only thing Dean's got that matters.

The reconnection with his anger has Sam wanting to ignore the mess he's already resigned himself to clean. He has an urge to just kick the edge of the asshole's bed instead, jostle the mattress and get this day rolling. Get this hangover started. But he slams a lid down on that always-boiling pot inside, brings it forcibly back to a manageable simmer and, with nostrils still flaring, moves swiftly and silently around the room collecting the trash and bottles, and ties it all up in the liner from the can by the door. The pizza box has left a circular smear of sweaty grease on the table but Sam ignores it. He opens the door long enough to lay the bag on the narrow porch outside and heads back across the room to shut himself safely in the bathroom before he shakes his brother awake and starts a fight.

Since Dad died, Sam's been finding himself itching more and more to pick fights with Dean, like he doesn't quite know how else to communicate, or maybe just like his brother's the next best thing. He's no idiot, and self-aware enough to acknowledge the similarities between himself and his father, those traits he'd abhorred as an adolescent yet can't seem to combat emerging in his own patterns of behavior. Namely, this need to argue. The stubbornness and fury, and an obsessive drive for revenge. All are roaring in tandem through these not-long-enough days as he's apparently expected to simply sit by and watch Dean die for him.

A lot has transpired in the months since, but it wasn't really all that long ago Dean had finally cracked in Connecticut and said what Dad had put on him was crap. He probably only said it because Sam was drunk and not supposed to remember what he'd let slip. What Dad had done, bringing him back to life, and what he had left Dean to deal with after. A cryptic message regarding Sam and his tracks not at all covered, not when his boys were hunters. The all of it had nearly killed him anyway, and then Dean had gone and done the same damn thing without any hesitation or thought of what Sam would want, leaving his brother to a solitary future covered in blood.

As much and as often as he's forced to think about it, he's having a damn hard time keeping that boiling pot of anger covered.

Sam strips the sweatshirt and tee from over his head, and as always, he looks. He has to. He turns his gaze to the mirror and the sight of the long-healed wound along his spine in the mirror holds his eye, and he studies the mark. That spot there where he has a scar, just like Dean has a scar. Thick and deep and purple, it states in no uncertain terms, this is the blow that killed me. And for Dean, it's that faintly discolored line splitting his forehead and announcing his fragility. Together, they're a pair of warnings, reminders that there are some hits you're not meant to get up from.

But Winchesters always get up. They always find a way, because nothing is inevitable.

Not unless your big brother is so much an asshole who doesn't want to be saved that he goes and makes it impossible to save him.

Sam reaches behind the smudgy plastic shower curtain, lip curling at the sight of black mold spotting the edges of the liner, and turns on the water. The spray starts with a groan of rusty pipe, then spits with enough force to probably cut glass. Steam begins to rise and fill the tiny bathroom, fogging over the small mirror. Sam reacts, moving immediately to twist the faucets and adjust the temperature of the water to something more tepid, something just above bearable.

Dean might be an asshole, but he gave his soul to save his little brother. The least Sam can do to return the favor is make sure the guy gets a hot shower.

Every morning that Dean wakes is merely a delay of the inevitable.

He knows it, can't possibly forget it, and it takes some difficulty to peel his eyes open, like even his eyelids know how futile resistance will prove to be in the end. When he finally succeeds in working them open, when the motel room stops spinning around him, it's dark and still and silent. Not for the first time, he's momentarily both relieved and terrified by the short-lived thought that Sam has taken off on him.

But Sam wouldn't do that. Once upon a time, for sure. No question about it. But not now; he's too good a guy now, and he takes responsibility for too much. He's got both feet back in the game, and there doesn't seem to be any looking back. This was Dean's call and Dean's decision, and it's Dean's damn life, but Sam refuses to chill and relax and his own life go on. His own life that sure cost enough, and Dean would appreciate it if his brother would stop fuming and moping and start living, and maybe sometime soon, so he can enjoy seeing Sam live a little.

It would maybe be easier if he simply didn't wake one of these days. Easier for him, and certainly easier for Sammy. It would have to be easier if his death came as a surprise, if they both didn't have to stare the unavoidability of it all right in the damn face as it comes snarling toward them. And that's all Dean's ever wanted, to make things easier and better for Sammy.

Sometimes it takes a few minutes upon waking for Dean to really be sure he isn't dead, and that's something that's becoming harder to determine by the day. He lays still a long moment, giving in to his churning gut and pounding head, feeling the oddness and discomfort of the way his arms and legs have twisted up in his blankets throughout the night. His muscles had been well on the way to stiffening up before he dropped like a stone into bed, and the night has not been kind to his body. His right hand, as always, is tucked under the pillow, hilt of his knife gripped tightly. He feels the draft coming in through the generous gap under the room's door and blinks up at the water-stained ceiling over his head, ears now keyed to the sound of the shower spitting through the thin door of the bathroom.

Sam's here, obviously, and that knowledge is a weight lifted and a burden carried, all at the same time.

Dean releases his grip on the knife and finds his palms sweaty, the flesh of his forearms crawling with goosebumps. The lingering evidence of another nightmare he'll never quite remember well enough. The damage has been done, though, same as the day before and same as every day yet to come. Poisoning his mind and shifting his priorities and he never wakes thinking of the day that still lies ahead but the day left behind, the one that's full of regrets and has been forever lost.

At first, seeing Sam alive and well and standing there, it'd felt worth it, dammit. Like a weight that had been suddenly lifted from his shoulders, one the size of Dad and Sammy and the whole damn world. It felt RIGHT, like he'd finally – God, FINALLY – found something he was meant to do. A choice he made all on his own, too. No orders to follow, and there's a bit of smug satisfaction to be felt, knowing that for all Sam's jibes, for all Dad's demands…he'd done this. He'd made the tough call. And Sammy's going to be okay now. He's going to live now.

And Dean prefers not to think of what's going to come after. He figures that's what the nightmares are for. He doesn't have to think about it, but he's sure as hell – no pun intended – not going to be able to forget what's coming for him.

Dean lays there a while, feeling sweaty and scared and relieved and smug…and, damn it, quite a bit hungover, and he doesn't move to pull himself upright until the water shuts off.

Sam isn't in a position to relish the small things, not yet. He doesn't understand how wonderful it can be to linger a moment in a warm, steamy bathroom, isolated from the world and all of the tough calls there are to make on the other side of the door. All he'll be thinking about is whether or not Dean is up and about.

Dean knows he doesn't have much of a window here, knows he'd better be a little more vertical and mobile before the door opens, or there'll be a conversation regarding the reason there's a fucking jackhammer going to work on his skull right now.

He gets himself upright but seems to have gotten himself twisted up just enough in his covers that he can't quite kick the damn sheet completely free of his sweaty legs before a damp and dripping Sam rips the door open, with enough speed and force Dean would think the kid didn't expect him to be alive on the other side.

Dean sits there, feet hanging almost off the edge of the bed, feeling caught and guilty and not at all knowing why. "Morning," he says, voice sounding rough and abused and betraying the true state of a great many things.

"Morning," Sam returns. He cocks his head as he hastily towels off his hair. "Sleep well?"

Small talk, Sammy? Fuck. But this talk isn't at all small. This is the same sort of crap Dean used to sling, himself, when Sam was shooting up in bed in the middle of the night, from a nightmare of Jessica or a vision from ol' Yellow Eyes. Like, I know the truth and I'm standing here, and what are you gonna do about it?

Bob and weave, and break every damn tackle. "Like a champ," Dean says, but the lie gets caught in his dry throat and his eyes scout the room for water. Sam used to do those things for him when he took the night too far, leaving out some water and aspirin. Guess that train's left the station. And that's fine, really, because Dean's not even sure he deserves it.

Sam drops his hands, damp towel hanging limply in his grasp. There might not be a glass of water readily available, but his eyebrows pull together into the look of childish, innocent concern that gets him whatever he wants. "Y'all right, man?"

Not now, dude. Already gave you everything I've got. Dean doesn't want to be honest anymore, just nods as he moves to fully extricate himself from the suddenly suffocating confinement of the blankets. It sends a flash of agony behind his eyeballs and sort of makes him want to puke but he nods anyway, because it doesn't really matter whether he's okay or not.

And for the record, he's not okay. He's really, really not.

He's fucking terrified.

He'd decided to forego the shower, because hangover headache plus water divided by slippery tile just wasn't an equation that Dean felt his body was going to be successful in solving this morning.

Something about that fact wipes the bit of concern from Sam's face, seems to drop him instead into a somber, distant mood, and he's silent as they load up the gear in the car. Dean slides slowly onto the bench, folding himself behind the steering wheel with the sort of deliberate movements his throbbing head can appreciate. Then Sam settles on the seat next to him and pulls his door shut with a slam that Dean feels in his teeth.

His fingers tighten around the wheel as he winces and rotates his head slowly to level a perfect glare of displeasure at his brother. Slowly, to keep from hurling all over his baby. "Was that completely necessary?"

Sam holds up his hands and paints a look on his face he's long outgrown, that sweet spot between ignorance and goodness that covers everything darker growing and rumbling inside. "Hey, if you're allowed to drink half the beer in the town, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to have fun with your hangover."

Dean rolls his eyes – another not-so-bright idea – and twists the key in the ignition. "You know, I think I liked it better when you were giving me deathbed eyes."

"No, you didn't," Sam grits, Dean's crack sending him a few steps past annoyed into truly infuriated.

You're too easy a mark, Sammy. Dean grins tightly. "Well, at least you were nicer then. Respectful of your elders, or whatever."

Sam sighs and sets his moody gaze out of the window as they pull out of the parking lot. "You're a jerk."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean takes one hand off of the wheel and kneads at a stubborn tight spot in his neck. "So why do you think Bobby's got us driving all the way out to New York? What do you think Bobby's doing in New York?"

Sam shrugs, and goes to sitting silent and ramrod-straight against the soft leather of the bench seat. But a quiet Sam can actually prove to be the loudest version of them all, and Dean allows his eyes to slide sideways a few times, registering the clench of his brother's jaw and knowing there's a storm brewing in there.

He could ignore the warning signs, but it's much easier to disarm a brooding Sam right off the bat, before he picks up enough momentum to take out an entire city block when he inevitably blows.

"Uh oh," Dean says as calmly as possible, turning the wheel lazily in his hands as he sends the Impala climbing the ramp back toward the interstate.

Sam sighs but doesn't turn his attention away from the window. "What?"

"You've got that face."

The painted-on expression comes back as Sam shoots dinner-plate-sized eyes his way. Then the kid's eyebrows scrunch together until they're nearly one entity. "It's my normal face."

Dean shakes his head. "It's not. What's goin' on?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Sammy. Don't make me pull out one of my 'one last wishes' on you." Dean forces a grin on the heel of his words, because there's very little chance Sam's going to find anything funny in what he's just said. But that's just too damn bad, because Dean left self-censorship behind a few months ago.

Predictably, Sam doesn't so much as smile, but Dean's kinda built up a stash of 'get out of jail free' cards. So Sam just sighs again and runs his palms along his jeans, staring down at his shoes. "So, your birthday's coming up."

He was expecting something whiny and unnecessary to come out of his brother's mouth. Something naggy, because he really did drink more than he probably should have last night, minus the probably, and Sam obviously cleaned the room up this morning so Dean wouldn't have to. Something bitchy, like the quality of their meals the past few weeks, because Sam likes food that isn't really food, that's green and meant for four-legged critters. He wasn't expecting this, whatever this is about to be.

The sheer randomness of this statement of Sam's throws Dean for a loop. There is, obviously, still some degree of hangover to take into account here, but all the same, he's slow enough in forming a response that Sam seems encouraged to keep on.

"Did you forget?"

"No," Dean replies quickly, sharply, and without much honesty. In truth, it's not uncommon for Dean to forget this sort of thing, and he prefers to keep to the sidelines, anyway. Hit up a strip club for Sammy's birthday, sure, because he's a lightweight and nervous around pretty and/or half-naked girls and the result is always hilarious and providing future blackmail opportunities, but Dean likes his own to go past unacknowledged, if at all possible. He doesn't really do attention, or expectations, and those two things seem to go hand-in-hand on one's birthday. Besides, it wasn't a day that tended to carry much weight, anyway, not until Sam came back into the picture.

But Sam doesn't do subtle. Sam does in your face and answers now and we're talking about this. This is the third go-round of birthdays since he'd dragged Sam back into his life, and Dean's got himself a great big goose egg in getting what he wants. They've got a lot in common, despite protestations on both of their parts, but it's times like this in which their differences of personality stand out starkly. Sam would string up a piñata in the damn motel room if Dean would let him, because he dwells on the ordinary, white-bread things he's lost. And Dean is very much ix-naying the piñata.

Dean slipped up at Christmas, and it cost him. It's still costing him, clearly. They're coming down the home stretch here, and he needs to have resolve, and strength, and instead, that night had let a little bit of resignation into the building. A little bit of, if I have this moment to remember my brother by, that's enough. That'll do.

Putting into words that it was going to be his last Christmas, so he wanted to do it right.

That slip-up cemented some resolve in Sam but broke something inside of Dean. Something he hasn't been able to put back together. He's scared, and he's uncertain…but one thing he knows for damn sure is that he can't allow another blunder like the night of Sammy's Special Nog. That was a one-time thing, and he can't have Sam making a production at every opportunity over the next few months. He's not going to allow his last couple of months to become a never-ending string of One Lasts, because he won't even make it to the hounds. Sam and his weepy eyes will kill Dean before he hears the first howl.

He's been quiet for too long, and his pauses give Sam power. Dean exhales roughly through his nose, hoping Sam will let this one go and knowing he won't. "You wanna know what I want, Sam? Really?"

Mr. Subtlety nods eagerly and dramatically. "Yeah, I do."

Dean's head bobs, and he throws one for nothing. "Man, I just want us to go about the day like it's any other day. All right?"

Sam's head whips over so fast, Dean feels the whiplash for him. The rest of his body is slow in catching up as he tucks one long leg onto the seat between them, a posture that displays his full confidence in his brother, because he'd be all kinds of broken in an accident. "You can't be serious, Dean. I mean, we just had this awesome Christmas, and there's gotta be something else that you – "

"I mean it, Sam," Dean interrupts him, sharp and drawing out that line between his brother's eyebrows that betrays hurt feelings. "I don't need you to make any kinda…thing out of this. Okay?"

"Okay," Sam surrenders. "Okay, if that's what you want."

"It is. Dude, I swear it is."

"Okay." But it's not okay, clearly, because Sam is slouching in the seat and he's thinking, because he's always thinking, and he's hardly ever thinking, yeah, great idea, Dean.

Dean doesn't need this. Doesn't need the guilt trip and the fucking puppy face when his head is pounding and he's already given Sam literally everything he has to give. But he doesn't know how to do anything other than make it better for Sammy. "Hey," he offers. "Maybe we'll still be on this job. Just you and me and Bobby. Some burgers and beers and no one sayin' anything about it, huh? Perfect birthday."

Dean sees it as a compromise, but God only knows how Sam sees it. Especially when he turns back to him with that curled lip of disbelief. "You're serious?"

Dean nods. "As a crossroads deal."

It's a damn long moment before Sam sees fit to speak to him again.

"That wasn't even a little funny."

And Dean doesn't really give a shit, because he wasn't remotely trying to be funny.

They don't even spare the time to look around the parking lot for Bobby when they pull into the designated rendezvous point, some nondescript mom n' pop convenience mart with rusty sign swaying with a sawing groan at the roadside. They're still a little ways from their final destination, and Sam's got the passenger door open and one leg thrown out before the car has fully stopped.

"Swear to God, Dean, I'm gonna piss in the goddamn car if you keep driving this slow." He looks just pissed enough for there to maybe be some weight behind that threat, and he's been bitching for hours.

Dean chuckles and brings the Impala to a sudden, jerky stop at the curb, and throws an arm up over the back of the seat as he watches Sam put together a less-than-dignified little hop-skip-run into the store. He sits there a moment, feeling a flush of affection for the kid, and possibly missing him a little already, before flinging his own door wide and stepping out to stretch his legs and crack his spine and maybe leave that thought behind in the car.

A sharp whistle from somewhere behind Dean draws his attention, with an accompanying call of, "Hey. Princess."

Dean reflexively whirls at the sound of Bobby's voice, doesn't catch himself before realizing he's already most of the way through the motion and he's gone and done exactly what the older man was hoping for.

They'd driven right past him and not even noticed. At the far end of the lot and leaning with crossed arms against whichever of his nondescript eighties model cars he'd been able to get running this week, something vaguely blue and looking like a Dodge, Bobby chuckles. "That one never gets old." It's damn cold outside, but Bobby is armed against the chill with no more than his standard garb – a neutral-toned crewneck sweatshirt with sleeves pushed to his elbows and down vest, topped off with a mesh-backed trucker cap that looks as though he pulled it out of a dumpster.

In short, he's a sight for Dean's sore eyes.

Dean rolls those sore eyes as he throws a hand behind him to swing the door shut. He crams his fists into the pockets of his jacket and covers the space between them with long strides. "It's gotten old. Trust me."

"Yeah, well, so have you." Bobby shifts his weight and drags his right arm free, tosses a small box at Dean.

He catches the package against his chest. Just as nondescript as the man's car and about the size of one of Sam's dorky hardback novels, the box is wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a length of twine that's knotted simply over his name but, curiously, Bobby's address. Dean looks up quizzically at the man. "What's this?"

"Before you try to hug me or somethin,' it ain't from me. Came to my place a few days ago." Bobby points to a corner of the package, where a scrawled 'happy birthday!' and a faded red lip imprint stand in lieu of any return address. "You still givin' girls my address?"

Dean shakes his head, studying the lip print like there's any chance in hell he'd be able to pull a name out of his head. "No." He frowns at Bobby. "What, you were just carryin' it around?"

Bobby snorts. "Yeah, because my whole world revolves around you, kid." He shakes his head. "Delivery guy came by while I was packing up the car. Tossed it in the trunk and forgot about it til I called you boys yesterday." He gestures to the package in Dean's hand. "You're sure I can't blame this invasion of my hard-earned privacy on your late night loose lips?"

"Come on, Bobby," Dean snaps. "No."

"Then you've left a hell of an impression on some poor gullible girl somewhere along the line, boy, to go through the trouble to tracking down the one stable address you'd be connected to." Bobby shrugs, still seemingly unaffected by the chill that has Dean's ears and fingers going numb from this short amount of exposure.

He flexes his cold digits around the thick paper wrapping. "Yes, I guess."

"You gonna open it?"

Dean makes a face, and before he has a chance to say hell no, Sam approaches with an easy, much-relieved lope, hands likewise stuffed into the warm pockets of his Carhart jacket, the lucky, unencumbered bastard. "Hey, Bobby."

Dean quirks an eyebrow up at his brother and because he can't help himself, snipes, "What, were you fixin' your makeup in there or something, Sam?"

Sam rolls his eyes, then jerks his chin at the package in Dean's hand. "What's that?"

And, yeah, that was pretty damn stupid of him to dig at Sam while he's little more than a sitting duck here. Dean can feel his previously numb ears now, burning red under the combined scrutiny of his brother and Bobby. "Dunno."

"Birthday present from a girl," Bobby supplies from his lean against his car.

"Thank you," Dean grits with a glare, as the snow begins to fall.

Sam pulls out that huff/laugh combination that's exclusively his. His shoulders hitch and his cheeks are cherry-red from the cold. "So lemme get this straight, I'm not allowed to make any kind of deal about your birthday, but Bobby's hand-delivering gifts from your one-night stands?"

There's all sorts of subtext in his brother's words, but Dean's not feeling up to translating at the moment. He just blinks. "I don't know what it is, Sam."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Then open it."

"No," Dean says simply.

"Why not?"

He squirms, hates himself for every bit of it. "You guys are staring at me."

"It's us, Dean," Sam says with a patient sigh. "It's me, and it's Bobby. We're not other people, and whatever that is, it didn't come from one of us. You're not going to disappoint us by not liking it."

"Shut up." For no other reason than to bring this conversation to an end, Dean rips the twine aside, letting it fall to the parking lot and drawing a do-gooder noise of protest from his brother. He digs frozen fingers under the tape on the side of the package and tears the plain paper, already dampened from the fat snowflakes, away without much care.

Sam sighs and holds his hand out to take the wrapping before Dean drops that, as well.

Under the simple wrapping is a wooden case, exactly the size and shape of one of Sam's nerdy books. "Look," Dean comments, blinking. "She got me wood."

"DON'T say it," Sam says pissily before Dean can complete his joke.

"Just sayin'," he goes on anyway, with a smirk. "Probably not the first time."

Sam throws his arms out. "I just said don't say it."

Bobby looks between them, shaking his head in amusement. "What's in the box?"

Dean wrinkles his nose and opens the wooden case, the pad of his thumb grazing a thin slip of fabric nestled inside. Blue, with silver along the border, and some kind of marking all around the edges. Nothing that rings any sort of bells, or has any significance whatsoever. Would've preferred the wood.

Sam reaches out a nosy, need-to-know hand, fingers brushing against the edge of the ribbon. "What is that?"

"I got no freakin' clue, man. Some chick thing, I guess." And that's more than enough attention for the time being. Dean rips open the rear door on the passenger side of Bobby's car and carelessly tosses the open package onto the bench. It smacks against the split upholstery and bounces to the floor mat. He opens up the collar of his coat and finally crams his frozen fingers back into his pockets. "So what are we doing here, Bobby?" he demands, somewhat harshly, eager to change the subject.

Bobby's pretty well-seasoned to this attitude both of them inherited from their father, and he doesn't even flinch. Plus there's the whole one-way-ticket to Hell thing, which Dean feels a momentary pang of guilt over cashing in on something as stupid as a birthday present. "You boys ever hear of Grossinger's?"

Dean frowns, bouncing on his boot heels to generate some blood flow and warmth. "Is that the guy with the dead cat in a box? What's he got to do with anything?"

Sam sighs his most patient of sighs, the one that makes Dean want to hit him. "That's Schrodinger." He cocks his head, considering. "But I am pretty impressed you knew that."

Dean rolls his eyes. "So what's Grossinger's?"

Bobby jerks his head backwards, towards the snowy mountains rising up behind him. "Resort up in the Catskills. Closed back in '86."

"Oh, yeah, I know that place." Dean withdraws a hand from the blissful comfort of his flannel-lined pocket and snaps his fingers. "Rocky Marciano used to train there, right?"

Bobby nods, but Sam's face is a palette of lost and confused hues. "Who?"

Dean leans closer to his brother and smirks. "Pretty sure you just proved that I'm the smartest person in this conversation."

"You boys plannin' on listenin' any time soon, or do I need to knock your damn bickering heads together?"

Dean holds his hands up in surrender and Sam shoots him an exasperated glare before turning apologetically to Bobby. "Sorry, Bobby, we're listening."

"Well, like I said, place has been closed near thirty years now. S'been quiet. Past few weeks, though, they've had a coupla bodies turn up."

"Who?" Sam asks. "And turn up how?"

Dead? Dean sarcastically supplies in his head, but bites his tongue. There shouldn't be limit on jabs per conversation he's allowed to get in at his brother, but the kid's taking this whole Hell thing pretty hard, and he shouldn't be taking advantage of Sammy's fragile mental state.

"Kids, graffiti artists. One in the bottom of the pool, skull split open. The other was found frozen to death in the snow outside the old dining room. That was this past weekend."

"Could just be accidents," Dean says, shrugging his shoulders. The snowfall picks up, dropped from the gray sky above and collecting quickly on the blacktop and cooling car.

Bobby levels a glare at him. "Would I have asked you boys to drive all the way out here for a couple of accidents?"

Dean winces. "No." The man's right; the mere fact he called them out here lends enough validity to the job to call it a job. He claps his hands together. "Well, then, let's get a move on, fellas. We're burnin' daylight, and my balls are freezin' off, here."

He raises a vague hand to Bobby as the older man turns to dip into the bucket seat of his ride, and a sense of strangeness skitters across Dean's mind, some intimate knowledge of a recognizable emotion dancing somewhere on the outskirts of his own. Like catching a glimpse of someone in your periphery that you can't quite identify. It's…annoyance, maybe? Yet oddly, not his. It's there, whatever it is, but separate from the goings-on of his own mind.

Dean frowns and chews the inside of his cheek. On a pretty healthy hunch, he bumps Sam with his elbow. "Hey, what's the matter with you?"

Sam rocks a step back, caught off guard, maybe. He stares at Dean a long moment, blinking. "I didn't say anything," he finally responds as he drops into the car, but it's not without an edge.

To be continued...