While Dean showered, Sam lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling until it started to burn.

Next to him, Jess screamed as her skin blackened and split. He tried to reach her, but something pulled at him, held him back. He cursed and struggled, punched and bit and clawed until he forgot why he was even fighting.

When he was too exhausted to move anymore, when Jess' scream was a whimper and her blood had boiled down to black, he heard someone calling his name.

Sam opened his eyes. For a disorientating moment Dean was standing in the flames, then the shadows extinguished the fire completely. The room became cold and dark and Sam patted at the bed sheets, not quite able to let the nightmare go. He croaked. Tried again. "Dean?"

One of the shadows bent and the bedside lamp flicked on; the room washed over in pale light. Dean stared down with wide eyes, a thin rivulet of blood running down his chin.

Sam untangled himself from the sheets and pulled himself up to sit against the reassuringly solid headboard. "What happened?"

Dean dabbed at his bottom lip and winced, but he looked less freaked out. "Your elbow. You okay? That was pretty intense."

"Yeah," Sam said automatically and blinked rapidly. "Yeah, I'm fine. What time is it?"

"Too damn early," Dean groused as he turned away.

Sam looked at the clock; it was almost 4am. They'd only had a couple hours sleep, but he wasn't going to try for more and he was too restless to just lie there and count the cracks in the ceiling.

He sat up and saw he was still clothed, but his boots were gone. He reached down beside the bed and found them, tugged them on and tied the laces with shaking fingers.

Dean managed to stay silent until Sam reached the door, then he coughed and spoke too nonchalantly. "Heading out?"

"I'll bring back coffee," Sam promised, and hoped this wasn't going to become a thing again, like before he'd left for college. Dean had started asking where he was going all the damn time. Like he'd known, somehow.

Dean dropped back on his bed and turned his back, reaching for the light switch. "Coffee and donuts. With sprinkles. You owe me sprinkles, dude."

The walk into town took less than twenty minutes. Sam wandered the dark streets until they begin to wake up around him, winding up on the sidewalk opposite a diner. He leaned against the wall and watched the staff moving around the bright interior.

They talked, they laughed, they yelled – someone threw a spoon and someone else dropped a whole tray of ketchup bottles. It was a little shard of life so tightly set in its fitting that, by the time the diner opened at six, the world was almost back on its axis.

When the sign flipped to open, he pushed stiffly away from the wall and then jerked back as Danica swung around the corner and into his space.

She grinned up as he recoiled. "Long night, huh? And, yeah, I've been here a while. You looked pretty out of it … buy a girl breakfast?"

She was still wearing the same outfit from the bar, but in the thin daylight, the satin vest was stained and her jeans were threadbare. Her skin was wan and a pattern of tiny cuts and bruises on her cheek blended into the shadows under her eyes. Her fingers rose to cover the marks when she saw him looking and then her hand dropped almost defiantly.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Walked into a door." Her smile was edged and mocking. "Once or twice."

He was off the hook to care and wasn't sure if he was glad or a little disgusted with himself. He tried, he told himself, and she shut him down. Still. "Wear a lot of rings, that door?"

"Don't they all?" She smiled crookedly and walked ahead of him into the diner.

–o–

"I said I'd call, I'm calling." Dean finished tugging on his jacket and then looked around for his keys. He'd come in … he'd turned on the TV ... he'd taken a shower …

"It's gone noon, Dean." Bobby managed to give nuanced layers to his annoyance, even down a bad line. "You said morning – that's before the little hand is on the twelve."

Time to take the offensive. "What the hell were you thinking, calling Cas? He plays guitar, Bobby – what's he going to do?"

"Well for a start, he can pick up a damn phone." Bobby sounded unmoved.

Dean paused. "Yeah? That's new."

"He managed to leave a message, anyway." There was a heavy sigh. "Second or third try. Which is the only reason I'm not knocking on your door."

"Thank you, Cas," Dean murmured under his breath.

"I heard that," Bobby said darkly, then went on more tentatively. "How's Sam doing?"

"Good. He's great. He's fine. Never better." Dean winced and, before Bobby could call him on it, admitted, "He went out a while ago. His cell's going to voicemail; I'm going to go look for him."

Bobby was completely silent, but waves of disapproval were still loud and clear. Dean scowled. "He's fine," he repeated.

"You let him out there on his own?" Bobby asked at last, too mildly.

"In case you didn't notice, Sam's not a kid anymore. I start that shit and he'll be gone so fast..." Dean's mouth twisted. "And if he goes after Meg or Ava on his own, I won't get him back."

"Sam won't run from you." Bobby said with absolute certainty. "You aren't your daddy, boy."

"Tell me something I don't know," Dean muttered as he fished the car keys out from under his pillow. He grabbed his knife while he was there. "I gotta go, Bobby. When I find him, I'll call. Pinkie Swear."

He hung up before Bobby could yell, wrenched open the door and then pulled back sharply to avoid Cas knocking on his face.

The raised fist lowered. "Dean." Cas nodded in greeting. "I was just passing. Somewhere over there." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the highway.

"You're a stone cold master of deception, dude. Come on." Dean pushed Cas' shoulder to spin him and then shoved him gently towards the Impala. "And the next time Bobby calls, you hang up."

Cas allowed the manhandling. "I pressed the buttons, but he kept talking. Where are we going?"

"To find Sam, wherever he's holed up." Dean looked around. "This town got a library? Or a Starbucks? Some foofy art gallery, maybe?"

Cas stopped with his hand on the door. "Sam's in Moe's Diner. With a woman."

"Good for him," Dean said dubiously and slid into the driver's seat. "How do you even know that?"

"I was in Moe's Diner." Cas explained as he carefully buckled his seatbelt. "I wasn't with a woman, but I did have coffee and pie."

Dean turned the engine, looked back over his shoulder, and threw the car into reverse. "Awesome."

–o–

It was lunchtime, but the diner wasn't that crowded; Dean could see Sam and the dealer they'd bounced in a corner booth at the back.

Sam was slumped with his head pillowed on his arms, eyes closed and mouth hanging a little open. Beside him, the dealer sipped her coffee and flicked disinterestedly through the pages of a garishly covered magazine.

She looked up as Dean headed over and raised a finger to her lips when he stopped. "He's asleep," she whispered.

"Yeah, I can see that." Dean gritted his teeth, but he was quiet and careful as he sat. "Danica, right?"

Cas silently took the seat next to him.

"And you're Dean. Sam and Dean Winchester, in our little town," she lisped cloyingly. Her smile sharpened to the point of spite, but softened again when she glanced at Sam. "He was pretty wiped out. I didn't want to wake him up, you know?"

She couldn't be something wholesome, like a stripper or an escort. No, Sammy had to make friends with the local pusher. "Thanks," Dean ground out.

She laughed under her breath at his discomfort. "Don't hurt yourself, Dean."

He gave her an unfriendly smile. "You're not getting back in the bar, you know that, right?"

Her expression tightened, but she shrugged, tried to look unconcerned. "I can take a couple weeks off. Maybe I'll go on holiday. Someplace warm."

"Two weeks, that's all you give us, huh?"

"Maybe a month," she amended, generously.

"Who're you dealing for?" Dean focused on the bruise on her cheek. "Looks like they were pissed."

She shrugged again. "No one you know."

"Silas?" Dean guessed.

Her expression hardened and he nodded. "So what's his deal with the bar, anyway?"

Danica closed her magazine. "It was his brother's. He really, really wants it back – he even tried making an offer."

"His brother's?" Dean tried to ask carelessly, like it didn't matter, but knew he failed when Danica smirked.

"Joe, Silas, and Ed Reed," she said, hissing like they were swapping horror stories around some campfire. "All the bad blood in the world." She dropped the sinister tone abruptly. "There was a sister, too. Karen, Kathy, something like that. She and her mom disappeared back in the eighties."

"You're from around here?" Dean wasn't sure why that surprised him, but it did just the same. Drug dealers weren't meant to have families. Roots.

Her mouth twisted into an unpleasant smile. "I might as well be."

Grudgingly, Dean sympathized. One way or another, he'd seen Danica's story in a hundred little towns that no one ever really made it out of alive. He steered the conversation back on course. "You think Silas wants the bar bad enough to be running off the staff?"

"Sure, but it's not him," she answered easily. "There's a Fed with a hard on for the RICO act on his ass, he wouldn't–."

Sam's hand twitched.

"He wouldn't risk it." When she finished when he settled again.

"Henriksen? I met him. So if it's not Silas, who is it?"

Danica rolled her eyes and looked down at Sam again before tracking back to Dean. Her mouth pinched and there was something scared and young in her expression and her attempt at a smirk did nothing to hide it. "Maybe you want to ask a little closer to home, see what that sweet little waitress and her baby brother have to say. See what the guy they hired has to say."

She gathered her things and stood, careful not to rock the table. "Five weeks, max."

When she'd left, Dean sat back and then looked to Cas. "What do you think?"

"However long you have," he said after a moment, "she has one day less."

So that was – yeah, that was pretty much Cas. Dean shook it off. "Save the morbid for later, dude – you got a gig tonight if you want it. Playing for tips."

"Okay." Cas nodded agreeably, accepting the job the way he accepted everything else life threw his way.

Dean reached across the table and gently shook Sam's arm. "Hey, Sammy. Come join the world of tomorrow, we have hover boards now."

Sam jerked and then straightened. He blinked and squinted against the light and for a horrible moment Dean thought it would be the diner outside Greenfield all over again, but then Sam focused. "Dean? What are you doing here? What time is it?"

"Lunch." Dean mustered a bright smile. "Someone forgot the donuts. I'm starving, what's good to eat?"

Sam blinked owlishly in the face of Dean's brisk enthusiasm. "Where's Danica?"

"She left when we got here – you were drooling on her and she never wants to see you again." Dean leaned into the path of a passing waitress. "Hey, sweetheart. Can I get three coffees and a slice of apple pie? Wait, make it three slices."

Sam turned to the comparative ocean of serenity that was Cas and tried again. "Danica?"

"Stayed until we got here, said a lot and then left." Cas raised a plaintive hand to the waitress as she passed. "I don't want pie."

Dean nodded. "She had some suggestions who we can talk to."

"This is stupid. We're not investigators, Dean." Sam said abruptly. "I was wrong, we should head out now." His eyes were smudged and his hair was rumpled, and Dean guessed whatever sleep he'd gotten in the diner hadn't been a whole lot better than he had at the motel.

The sugar pourer spun between Sam's agitated hands, scraping the table as it wobbled back and forth. Dean reached forward and deftly plucked the helpless victim away. "It's been a day, Sammy. Sam. Give it some time. Give Bobby some time."

With nothing else to occupy them, Sam's hands tightened into fists. "I want – I need to find Meg."

"We can't just walk out on the job," Dean said, as reasonably as he could. He wasn't good at this; he'd never been good at this. When Sam wanted something, really wanted something, Dean always found a way to give it to him. This time, he couldn't.

Wouldn't, he told himself. He wouldn't. "Ed and Rafe are in trouble, you want to bail on them? On Haley? On Danica?" He added, in desperation. "You saw her face."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Like you care about them – you were always the first one in the car at the end of a job."

"At the end of the job, sure. Not in the middle, not at the freaking beginning." Dean lowered his voice and tried a softer, persuasive approach – from when they were kids and he was trying to get Sam to take a nap, or eat his greens, or stop asking when Dad would come home. "I get it. I do. But Bobby's still getting intel – even if we left today, we got nowhere to go. This way, we're laying low, maybe bringing them to us. And we're earning some money to go on the road with."

"Intel. You sound like Dad."

Normally that would be the start of a fight, but Dean managed to keep his mouth resolutely shut until the pie arrived. Cas stared at his unwanted slice almost warily, Sam pushed his around the plate with his fork and Dean ignored them both, eating quickly.

"Okay," Sam said finally. "Fine. I'll give Bobby some time. But if he turns something up, I'm going."

Dean nodded and spoke around a mouthful of apple. "Eat your pie."

Unenthusiastically, Sam speared a piece of crust. "So what's the plan?"

"You're going to go talk to Silas, find out what's going on at the bar. Danica says he's not the one making people disappear – and I'm trusting that about as far as I could throw a truck – but maybe he knows who is. Turns out he's Ed's brother."

"Huh." Sam smiled as if things were looking up. "We don't get in the middle of family disputes, rule six. We can be out of here in an hour."

"Nice try, but Dad would have known and he still took the job, so I guess he figured it was worth it."

"Heprobably heard about the money." Sam's tone was waspish and edged. From the way his jaw clenched and he looked away, he heard it too.

Dean chewed in resolute silence.

And Cas was staring between them like he was watching a spectator sport, more curious than judgmental.

Sam cleared his throat and went on more evenly. "Okay. But why would Silas talk to me?"

"He liked you, you can tell by the way there aren't tire treads where your face used to be." Dean chased the last few crumbs around his plate with his fork. "We both go and it's a challenge. He doesn't know me, so that leaves you – enjoy, try not to come back with any tattoos."

"Great. Where will you be?"

"Asking questions at the sheriff's office. And Danica said Haley and Roy might know something."

Sam paused with his own fork half way to his mouth. "So you get Haley – who's only putting up with you because she's incredibly lonely, by the way – and I get the psychos with guns?"

"You're welcome." Dean grinned sunnily and stole Cas' pie.