AN: Here's the next chapter! I'm glad people like the review idea, I hope people are hatching story ideas :P Also I tried to reply to all my reviewers but there were a lot of people without accounts so Thank you to all the anons and not logged in people! :P

Chapter Six

Sam

To be honest the hand holding doesn't really bother him. Once he gets use to the feel of Dean's palm against his, the way their hands mold together, then he actually kind of likes it. In an odd way, it's nice to have Dean really focused on him like this. They're from a family that did little more than pat you on the back unless you have just come back from the dead, so having the contact, the human touch he supposes, makes Sam feel that much more here. It makes him feel more present, more alive.

Of course he would never tell Dean that. It sounds weird, even to him and he can do without his brother laughing at him.

At first they do it only in the car, driving between their room and breakfast and the gas station, and then without thinking, Sam reaches for Dean while they are in line to pay for some gasoline and new lighters and he doesn't realize he's done it until he looks at Dean. Dean is watching him with wide, searching eyes and clinging to Sam so desperately that he doesn't even think about pulling away. He smiles at Dean and pretends that nothing unusual is happening.

They reach Glendale by mid morning, all the rush gone from them. Dean seems fine, as far as Sam can tell. In fact, he is acting basically like himself, aside from the way, he touches Sam's arm when he's talking to him, or periodically leans against him.

If Sam knew this was all it took to have Dean normal once again, he would have been doing it from the start.

Sam spends most of the afternoon recollecting everyone they saw in Glendale. He writes down all the names that he remembers, plus the ones that he doesn't remember, but Dean does. They have all of the previous print outs still, and a couple of numbers, but it is nothing that they can't figure out given some time.

The first clues had been that teenage boys were going missing, one a week on Friday nights while they were out partying. Dean thought it was kind of hilarious when they realized that the thing doing it was nothing other than just the angry spirit of a mother. She had the boys in the cellar where her son had been trapped and died one drunken night. She was punishing them for acting out.

Sam dug up the bones, salted and burned them, and called Dean. Dean was still fighting off a ghost and trying desperately to get three kids to safety. In the end, burning up her wigs was the last straw. Again, hilarious.

Except that three kids were scarred for life, both physically and mentally. Sam chose not to think about that.

"We've dealt with a lot worse than this little curse before," Sam says.

Dean snorts and reaches for Sam's hand over the table. He reaches for him without thinking and Dean says nothing while he entwines their fingers.

"Okay, so we started with the Benson twins," Sam says.

Dean grins.

"Dude, I'm not about to forget them."

Sam raises a brow at their joined hands.

"Huh, I thought I was like, the centre of your universe now, or something."

For a moment, Dean looks taken aback, like he's actually offended Sam or something and Sam can't help the burst of laughter. Dean rolls his eyes.

"Not the centre, just the focus."

Sam clears his throat and looks back down at his list.

"Okay but we saw them on the first day we were here, three days before we left, you want to start a little later?"

Dean seems to think, tracing his thumb over Sam's knuckles, focusing on that. After a minute Sam realizes that if Dean is thinking at all, it's definitely not about their last salt and burn.

He clears his throat again and waits for Dean to look at him.

"We said goodbye to Mrs. Bridges and her Son right before we left town. I say we start there."

Dean nods.

"Yeah sure."

He seems kind of indifferent to his own fate and it's a little irritating but mostly because it reminds Sam of the first couple of days before the "bedroom scene" when Dean couldn't hide the curse any more. Detached, living in his own head.

"Alright, let's go, this curse isn't going to break itself."

He claps his hands together and pushes to his feet and relief swims through Sam.

They knock on Mrs. Bridges door not ten minutes later. The town is small and fairly quiet aside from the recent haunting. Sam remembers how simple the case had seemed at first.

Mrs. Bridges opens the door with a wide smile, her permed hair up around her head like a little cloud that makes her look far older than she is.

"Sam, Dean! How are you boys?"

"We're good…"

Sam trails off when her smile falters and she stares. Sam looks down, realizing that Dean is clasped to his arm, his head resting gently on his shoulder.

He has the good grace to straighten and pull away.

"Uh," Sam clears his throat. "We—"

"Let me guess," she says her eyes twinkling. "You boys lied about more than your jobs didn't you?"

Actually, no they hadn't.

"Guilty," Dean says at once.

He shrugs and looks at Sam.

"We're not brothers."

She invites them in without a blink and in no time they are eating her apple pie and sitting around her lunch table as though they hadn't left at all.

"Don't tell me the ghost is back," she says finally.

"No, it's not," Sam assures her. "Really we just wanted to check in on you and Mick."

She gives Sam a searching look that has him squirming in his seat.

"No offence boy, but that's a load of bull. Now, are you going to tell me what's really brought you here?"

She looks between them seriously and Sam can hear Dean gulp from across the table.

Finally he sighs.

"Look, ever since we left this town I haven't been feeling right… we're trying to retrace our steps, see where I might have caught it."

Apparently that answer makes more sense than Sam's because she comes forward at once, putting a hand to Dean's forehead.

"Well there's a nasty bug going around this area. It's a strong cold, but it feels like the flu. Hm, you feel okay though."

She leans back on the counter, thinking.

"I don't think that's what you have," she says. "What are your symptoms?"

Clearly, coming to the over-protective mother first was a bad idea.

"Uh." Dean is shifting in his seat, shooting Sam glances and flushing as though they can read his mind.

"Mostly headaches," he says finally. "There's just this pressure…"

He waves in the general direction of his head.

"…and then…my chest starts to hurt like—like its getting crushed." He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. "It's freaky. I—I can feel my chest rising and falling but it's like I'm not getting any air. It's like I'm suffocating and I'm about to…"

Sam is staring at Dean, can't drag his eyes away in fact, because he has never heard this before. Dean has told him some five-second thing about feeling pressure in his chest and that is about it. He hasn't said it like he was actually dying from some fatal disease.

"You're about to what, Dean?" he presses, hearing his voice trembling.

He sighs and looks at Sam, his eyes more open and revealing than Sam thinks he knows.

"Like I'm about to break apart."

There is a long silence and then Mrs. Bridges breaks it.

"Dean I think a doctor would have been a better stop. That sounds really serious."

Dean finally looks away, but Sam is still watching him. He looks at Mrs. Bridges and pushes to his feet.

"It is," he agrees, "but we'll take care of it, don't worry."

In the car, Sam sits in his seat unmoving. It was stupid of them to start with the nicest woman in town. No way is she a witch. That's not so much what has Sam immobile in his seat though. He hasn't started the engine or put in the key at all and Dean is doing everything he can to just avoid eye contact and face away.

He still reaches over though, finding Sam's hand where it sits on his thigh and entwining their fingers that same familiar way that Sam has gotten use to.

Sam squeezes his fingers and Dean finally looks at him.

"Does this even help at all?" he asks. His voice sounds choked and he hates himself for it because guilt instantly flushes over Dean's face and that's not what he wanted.

Dean bites his lips and nods.

"Yeah," he says. "It dulls it but…"

"But?"

A laugh escapes his brother and it pains him too hear the sound so devoid of humour.

Dean looks back out the window.

"It's working less and less, Sammy."

That's definitely not something that Sam wants to hear because the only other thing that has made his brother relatively himself again was yesterday morning, on that creaky bed in the middle of nowhere.

"We have to break this fast, Dean."

Dean nods, his voice heavy with regret.

"I know."