Chapter Thirteen: Birthdays and Bare Rafters
The mood was different in the morning.
John felt it the moment he opened his eyes; the simplicity of knowing Dean was back lifted a sort of pall that had been hanging over the house since New Year's. With the constraining sling still binding his fractured arm to his chest, John pushed himself off the couch and into a luxurious stretch, loosening up and blinking when he saw Mary treading her way soundlessly down the stairs.
She held a finger to her lips. "The boys are still asleep."
John nodded, following her into the kitchen where they could talk without being overheard; he was less put-off and more resigned by the way Mary grouped Dean and Sam together. "It's Dean's twenty-fifth today."
"You remembered." Mary's tone wasn't accusatory or surprised, neutral as she turned to face him, leaning her hands on the edge of the sink behind her.
"I never forgot." John said.
There was an empty chasm, the yawning question between them that begged an explanation for no contact, no letters, no phone calls for twelve birthdays.
Mary cleared her throat in two quick beats. "I'll take Dean to the mini-mart to pick up some pie for breakfast." Her voice was soft, but her eyes shone with so much excitement John almost felt it reaching out and beckoning him in.
"You look happy," He said, simply, and some of the softness traveled from Mary's voice to her eyes.
"Dean and I haven't been apart since we left Lawrence. It was a little bit of an eye-opening experience for me."
John chuckled. "S'that why I had my head crammed under the sink for a whole weekend, doing your dirty-work? You needed a distraction, so you put me on the grindstone?"
Mary shrugged with delicate nonchalance. "Maybe I just wanted to see your ass from that angle."
The humor of the situation cut off like a flipped switch, both of them gaping at the other. They hadn't bantered, hadn't flirted in so long that John had forgotten exactly how that sort of talk rolled off the tongue.
Mary blushed a furious, and not unattractive, shade of pink. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
John scrambled to recover the easygoing mood. "I'm an ass from every angle."
A surprised laugh escaped her, and it was almost a reward.
Footsteps drummed overhead, and John remembered the thing he hadn't missed: Dean interrupting these kinds of conversations.
Dean slid around the corner, almost hitting the wall, and dropped an arm over Mary's shoulders and kissed her cheek. "Morning!"
"Well, somebody's cheerful." Mary commented.
Pulling away, Dean sauntered to the fridge, tugging it open before reality caught up to him: he was back in a house with no electricity and no working fridge. He shut the door. "I slept in. I feel awesome."
"Dean, it's nine in the morning. How is this sleeping in?" John asked.
"Oh, man, spend a couple weeks with Bobby and sleep is a gameshow prize."
John chuckled. "Enjoy it while it lasts. Your mother's desperate to get this house in working order. Last weekend, we were cleaning the attic."
"Yeah?" Dean arched an eyebrow. "Find any dead bodies up there?"
"Just a lot of asbestos and crawl-spaces." Mary said. "I thought we were all going to contract a parasite. We were coughing black for days."
Dean winced sympathetically. "I hear ya. I haven't felt clean since I left. It's like I got this layer of grime on me that I can't scrub off."
"Well, give it your best shot." Mary gave the ends of his hair a tug. "Because you and I have a trip to the mini-mart in our future."
Dean's eyes lit up, a Christmas tree glow. "Pie?" Mary nodded. "Dude. Yes." He pointed to her. "Shower. I'm on it." He was almost back through the doorway when he stopped, looking over his shoulder. "Hey, maybe we should all go together. I bet dad's dyin' to take baby for a spin."
The generosity of the offer left John stumped. Dean stayed planted, waiting, until John found his way around to saying, "Yeah, Deano. Sounds good."
Dean nodded and disappeared upstairs.
John and Mary exchanged wide-eyed glances.
"What did Bobby—?" Mary began.
"The man's a voodoo priest." John held up his good hand. "That's all I've got to say." Despite the humor of the response, he found himself wondering if Bobby really had used black-magic on their son.
The shower hissed to life over their heads, and Mary sat at the table, holding her hair away from her temples. "I didn't even buy him a present."
"I don't think Dean cares." John reassured her. "He's back home. That's all that matters." He didn't add that a twenty-five-year-old who was learning to be a Handler didn't exactly need any of the pointless trinkets you could find outside of a big city. His Christmas present had been shaving cream.
Mary looked up, abandoning her studious observation of the scuffed table. "When's your next fight."
"In a week." John said. "Denver."
"And you haven't crossed paths with the demon that hit you?"
John shook his head. "I keep telling myself he must not've cared about Sam that much, if he hasn't shown his face since Tulsa. But—"
"You know that's a lie." Mary concluded. "They're planning something."
An awful, ugly uneasy thing reared its near-dormant head, gliding its way in to find a home, curled around John's middle. "Feels like it."
"Does Sam know?" Mary asked, and John looked away. "Let me rephrase that: does Sam talk about it?"
"Not to me. But it's eating at him, I can tell. He's been asking me nonstop when Dean would be home." He paused, the next question sliding out like a punch from between his teeth. "You saw him sleeping in—?"
"Mmm-hmm." Mary balanced her chin on the palm of her hand. "It's a comfort issue. Sam draws comfort from Dean being close. I think he's been taking that bed for a while. Maybe since Dean left."
John pillowed his forehead against his fingertips, his elbow propped on the table. "I can't win, can I?"
"Maybe you should pick a different battle, John." Mary suggested, and then she changed the subject. "I wonder if Dean will still want to go with you. To Denver."
"We'll see. Since Bobby worked a body-snatch on him, he may prefer to stay here and bake cookies with you."
"The oven doesn't work."
"I was trying to joke, Mary."
The tinny report of the shower cut off abruptly, followed by the double thump of feet hopping across the floor. Dean reappeared in the kitchen doorway several minutes later, damp and with flushed skin from the heat of the water. He hurried to fill a glass at the sink and downed it in two swallows, banging it down on the counter.
"I am velvety smooth." He announced, bringing a smile to Mary's face and eliciting an eye-roll from John. "And I'm starving."
John wanted to voice the suggestion that they let Sam sleep and just bring food back for him, but that was nullified by the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs. Sam came in yawning, his hair disheveled with sleep and the heel of his hand mashing his eye.
"Hey, I thought I heard—" He cut off suddenly, coming wide-awake, staring at Dean standing by the sink. The look of intensity on his face made it seem like he was facing a specter he couldn't trust to be real.
"I'm back," Dean said, finally, when the silence waxed into something almost uncomfortable.
Sam crossed the kitchen in one massive stride and crowded Dean back against the counter, cinching a grip on him and crushing Dean, damp hair and all, into a hug; the fierce, determined expression never left Sam's face.
The discomfort ratcheted up for John, then banked into a sharp sense of wary curiosity as, after a few frozen seconds, Dean looped an arm around Sam's back, holding him steady and safe. John saw Dean's lips form the caustic words, "You're such a girl," but his eyes betrayed a kind of reckless, haphazard vulnerability that made John want to step between his son and some kind of agony he didn't understand.
Dean shifted his arm tighter around Sam's shoulders and his face scrunched, eyes squeezing shut, his hand conforming itself to the back of Sam's shoulder.
And it was the strangest feeling, the blankest, most empty he'd ever known, as John realized that he and Mary no longer existed in this moment. They were adrift souls allowed a chance to look inside something that wasn't theirs to hold.
After several seconds, Dean finally pushed Sam out to arm's length, looking him over critically. "You don't look too bad yourself."
"What?" Sam seemed dumbfounded, his voice breathless with happiness. "Oh. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I'm great." He tilted his head slightly. "You came home."
John and Mary exchanged a long glance, twenty-five nights of restlessness and Sam's distant expressions hanging between them; Sam sitting on the front porch, staring at the dustless, cold road leading out away from the gate during long stretches of unoccupied daylight. Waiting. Always.
"'Course I came home." Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder. "I mean, yeah, Bobby's great, he's practically family. But I missed this place. Bobby's house kinda smells like oil and ass."
"Language." Mary said reflexively. "Who's hungry?"
And then they were stepping out onto the frosty lawn, and John was back behind the wheel of the Impala for the first time in a month, and finding it hard to believe how good she looked. Buffed until she shined, his oldest and most faithful companion bearing a few scrapes from the accident, scars like medals of honor.
"Not bad, Deano." John ran his hand over the dash, the smoothness of the upholstery welcoming his touch. "How much of this did you do yourself?"
"I wasn't keepin' track." Dean replied easily from his perch in the backseat. "We kinda split it down the middle."
"John?" Mary prompted. "We have mouths to feed."
John glanced at her and felt the scene of perfection complete; with her arm on the windowsill and her hair falling in waves over her back and one shoulder, Mary was the picture of everything he'd wanted and missed for twelve years, back in the front seat beside him.
"Yep," His voice was gruff as he put the car into reverse. The restored engine gunned to life, and he turned her on a dime, taking to the open road.
In the backseat, Sam was talking a mile a minute, filling Dean in on fights and the renovation of the house. John didn't think Sam paused for more than one breath in between sentences, with skittering glimpses on the corners of John's vision as Sam gestured broadly with his hands, expounding on the scenes of Oakland's Pit.
John caught Dean's eye in the rearview mirror, and Dean flipped him a slightly arrogant, bright grin before he turned his attention back to Sam.
Mary pulled her legs up onto the seat, stretching out, the toes of her winter boots grazing his knee. For the first time in years, John felt so full he thought it would strangle the life out of him.
They were the only ones in the mini-mart when they arrived, and Dean seemed to take advantage of that, inviting Sam with a cocky curl of his hand for the first round of Jujutsu, right in the middle of the canned goods aisle. John had to snag them by their collars to keep them from going after each other.
"You aren't wolves," He reminded them, and then regretted it instantly as some kind of door slammed shut on the happiness in Dean's eyes. He fell back with a small shrug, wandering toward one of the shelves at the end of the row. With a confused glance John and Mary's way, Sam followed him, falling in close, his shoulder brushing Dean's.
"Something happened," Mary's voice was soft with worry as she watched Dean swing a glance toward Sam. "While he was at Bobby's. Something changed him."
John's mind raced itself back to the roadside in California. "Maybe we're all changin', Mare."
She looked up to him, one studious sweep of the eyes. "Let's just hope it's for the better, hm?" She brushed his jaw with the back of two fingers before joining Sam and Dean further down the aisle.
The lingering touch both burned like flame and chilled him; John found himself wishing that the sense of lighthearted togetherness from Dean's return could last well beyond the event itself. But there was an unhappy, uneasy part of him that was just waiting for the next big fight.
Things in the Winchester household were never peaceful for long.
-X-
They circled each other on the grassy slope behind the house, bare feet sliding across half-frozen ground.
The pie was untouched on the kitchen table and Dean couldn't focus, couldn't concentrate on the fact the he was now twenty-five and the Impala was fixed and things were on a highwire of some kind of decent with his family.
So here they were, in the cold quiet of the empty world behind their house, Sam and Dean with their cold-raw feet shifting, sliding, circling. Reading each other for the smallest signs of intent, and Dean was surprised that after almost a month apart, he could read Sam like they hadn't missed a day of training.
They were supposed to be on second-tier, starting weeks before now. But today wasn't a time for intentional, practiced moves.
Today was pure, simple sparring.
Sam still had tricks, things Dean didn't bank on; they came at each other with Sam going low, sweeping Dean's legs and whirling up for an elbow to the chest that winded him. But when his brain recovered, caught up, Dean was able to grapple Sam around the waist and take him down on his back.
He sprang away almost as fast, letting Sam up, starting the circle again with their breaths a bit more staggered by degrees.
Sam feinted and came in with a punch that Dean easily deflected off his upraised arm, but the second blow that followed clipped his ear, tilting his world as he swayed out of reach.
"What happened?" Sam puffed.
"Nothing happened, Sam." Dean managed to slip a hit past Sam's guard, the punch knocking the air in an audible gust from Sam's lungs. He doubled over and Dean managed to get a grip on the back of his neck, aiming a kick for Sam's side that was met with a shove of hands and Sam breaking his hold, stepping back with one hand guarding his chest as he dragged in air.
"That's crap, Dean, I can see right through it. Talk to me."
"You wish." Dean plowed back in, coming up with his hands curled slightly, dodging his weight from foot to foot, looking for a break; Sam found his stance and moved seamlessly, shadowing Dean's footwork to a science. They fell back to circling.
Dean came in first this time, sliding one leg in behind both of Sam's, going hip-to-hip with him, grabbing his arm to twist it behind his back. Sam moved with him, again, spinning around behind Dean, his arm slipping loose from Dean's grip as he put him in a chokehold. It wasn't painful, nowhere near the tightness that would put him under, but Dean's instincts kicked in regardless. He elbowed Sam in the face, busting his lip, fumbling free and spinning.
The pulled their punches by a margin, never wanting to hurt the other, weaving the things they couldn't say into glancing blows. I fought without you, mingling with, Chelsea, and, Dad's a Hunter before a Handler, and Faceless. Dean tried to sweep Sam's legs, somehow ended up back-to-back with him as Sam evaded, and with a smirk Dean poured in, I missed you, yanking a handful of Sam's hair before he grabbed him and tried to flip him onto the ground.
Sam balked out of it, closing the distance between them for a punch that Dean caught with both hands. Chest-to-chest, their faces inches apart, Dean felt Sam's breath ruffling his hair. Green eyes crossed hazel.
Sam hooked Dean's legs out from under him and put him flat on his back, pinning his whole weight on Dean's chest and digging his knee into the artery on Dean's inner thigh. Sweat ran down Sam's arm, his fist, with the long sleeves under his t-shirt rucked up to the elbow, trails of grime and grass-stains and dampness wrapping circles around the healing Winchester scar on Sam's arm.
Dean planted his knee into Sam's ribs and bucked him off, Sam rolling into the grass beside Dean, flat on his back.
Gasping for breath, they sprawled out, limbs bent, chests heaving to catch the sun and the wind and the sky. Dean's body burned with exertion that was so different from the repetitive physical motions of repairing the Impala; his muscles had forgotten some of the finer details of how it felt to move through the patterns of sparring.
After a few minutes, Sam folded his hands on his chest, turning his head to the side. "You wanna tell me what happened?"
Marginally calmer, without the feeling of Chelsea's death snapping at his heels, Dean tucked one arm behind his head. "Nah."
Sam snuffed a laugh, "Right," and rocked his head back again, gazing up. "Well, whenever you're ready to talk about it, you know where to find me."
"Under my feet, being a pain in the ass," Dean tossed back. When Sam laughed, more genuinely this time, Dean managed a half-smile. "Thanks."
"Anytime." Sam shifted his hips, finding a more comfortable position on the ground. "We're more than halfway through the Prelims, Dean."
"Yup. I noticed."
Sam linked one arm behind his head, mirroring Dean's posture in an almost unconscious movement. "You still think we can make it?"
"To the Leagues? Anything's possible, I guess."
"But, to actually do that…Dean, no human has ever actually gotten that far. They always fall out before the last fight."
"What about Gordon Walker, huh? He's on his last round."
"I dunno, I never saw him in Oakland or anywhere else after you left. John thinks he's training his vampire, getting her ready."
"Well, he's got the money. Bastard can afford to take his time and train her up before his next fight," Dean sniffed. "Part of me kinda hopes he makes it, just so he can get his ass handed to him by a demon."
"Dean."
"What? The guy's dangerous, Sam."
"I hear you, I just…" Sam broke off for a few seconds. "You don't know what it's like out there. The Leagues are scary as hell, man."
"Well, that's kinda where we're heading."
There was a long, fraught silence. "I know." Sam dipped his chin, looking down. "This is different. What we're doing. It's not like Gordon, he's just in it for the money. Right? Or, fame, or power, or whatever."
"So, what about you, huh?" Dean asked lazily. "What's Sammy fighting for?"
Sam's cheek dimpled on one side and he hauled himself up onto one elbow. "So, uh," He cleared his throat. "I saw that paper bag you left in the bedroom."
Dean let the change in subject slide. "What, the one from Bobby?"
Sam nodded. "It's something we talked about before you left. I'm…kinda surprised he remembered, to be honest."
"What is it, a pipe bomb?"
Sam looked at him cock-eyed. "You're weird." He reached into his back pocket and fished something out, weighing it in his palm before he handed it over. "It's not exactly…practical, I just," He dropped his hand. "I just felt like, after Christmas, y'know, and the way you saved my life in the first place…I guessed I wanted to say, thanks."
"You puttin' your life on the line in the Pits sorta balances things out." Dean took the offering from Sam anyway, letting the cord slide down and the flat silver rectangle on the end swing free. "What is this?"
"Dogtag." Sam gestured vaguely. "It's Latin: Non Timebo Mala. It means I will fear no evil."
Dean weighed the substantial metal in his hands. "Bobby gave this to you? It looks like it's fifty years old, at least. He could sell this thing."
Sam shrugged. "I just…asked him for something he thought you'd like."
Dean slipped the black leather cord over his neck, the dog tag settling against his chest. "Thanks, Sammy."
"Happy birthday, Dean."
The fact that it was his birthday registered all over again, with a sense of ease that hadn't been there since the mini-mart. Dean flipped onto his knees, then to his feet, clapping a hand on Sam's forearm and pulling him up as well. "C'mon, let's get some food. I dunno about you, but I'm starving."
A few flurries of snow whirled across the yard as they crossed it, shoving shoulders on their way up the porch steps and piling through the door.
John was sitting on the couch, head tipped back, eyes closed; flames whistled and lapped through the fireplace. The apple pie they'd bought was dominating the coffee table, the cratered crust letting loose the sweet aroma of brown sugar. Dean's mouth started watering.
"Hey, mom!" Dean called.
"Don't yell through the house, Dean," John cracked an eye open, then picked his head up. The glint of the dogtag in the folds of his hoodie threw a stripe of sherbet-orange across John's face. "Where'd you get that?"
"I gave it to him, sir." Sam said. "Bobby found it for me."
John nodded, sitting forward as Mary descended the stairs, a taped-shut cardboard box in her hands.
Dean groaned. "Aw, mom, tell me that's not—"
"Yes, this is a present, and, yes, you are going to grin and bear it." Mary pointed to the couch. "Sit."
Dean sat, giving John his space, and Sam flopped unceremoniously onto the rug beside the table, putting his chin down on it.
"Sam," John said, warningly, and Sam straightened up.
John wasn't yelling, though, and it tipped Dean off that maybe there'd been some progress on that front while he was away.
Mary perched on the arm of the couch next to Dean and set the box on his knees. Dean peeled the tape back and flipped it open, pulling out a bottle of hair gel, a package of Poptarts and, buried under a thin layer of tattered tissues, an un-inflated football.
Dean hauled it out with a grin. "Sweet."
"The first time you throw that in the house, I'll beat you black and blue. Hear me?" John said, but there wasn't any fervor behind the threat.
"I hear ya." Dean slung an arm around Mary's waist in a sideways hug, tipping his head against her side. "Thanks, mom."
"Happy birthday, Dean." Mary slid off the arm of the couch and knelt next to the table. "Who wants pie?"
Dean scooted closer. "Hey, you know I'm game."
John cleared his throat. "Actually, I need to borrow you for a minute, Dean." He stood, motioning with his head. "The pie'll still be here when you get back."
"It's gonna get cold," Dean complained.
"It's already cold."
Sam nodded encouragingly, and Dean gave in.
The upstairs was quiet except for the breathy gusts of wind smoothing their way across the windows. Hands stuffed in his pockets, Dean followed John to the master bedroom; it smelled like Mary, looked like she lived there, with her pillow on the bed and her quilt draped halfway on the floor. Dean leaned his shoulder against the door and watched as John made his way to the dresser, pulling the top drawer open and rooting around inside.
"So? What? Did you bring me up here for another lecture?" Dean punctuated the question with a laugh, trying to blunt the edges of it.
"I'm tired of fightin' with you, Dean." John didn't turn around to face him, and maybe that was what made the statement itself seem surreal.
"Dad, all we do is fight," Dean pointed out.
"Exactly. Y'know, most of the time I'm not even sure why we're fighting. It's like we're lookin' for every little thing." He closed hand around something in the drawer, bringing it out with a chatter of metal on metal.
"Yeah, well, a lotta crap's gone down."
"Too much crap," John agreed.
There was a bout of awkward silence.
"So, you brought me upstairs for a heart-to-heart?" Dean ventured.
"No, I brought you up here for this." John clapped something against Dean's chest on his way toward the door. "Figured you'd like the set, since I gave Bobby that one you're wearing twenty years ago."
Dean caught the flash of silver before it fell to the floor in absence of John's hand, a similar weight to the one strung around his neck. Dean stared down at the Marine Corps dogtag in his hand, the starch engraving of Semper Fi standing out on the tarnished background.
"Always faithful." Dean murmured; he'd seen John wear the tag for years before it had vanished into the top drawer of the dresser, a reminder of better days, the few weeks John had spent in the Marine Corps until it had disbanded.
Dean clenched his fist around the dogtag and thumped it against his forehead, sliding his eyes shut.
The door eased open on well-oiled hinges. "Dean, we're waiting," Mary announced. And then, much more quietly when she noticed his rigid stance, "Sweetheart?"
"Coming." Dean slipped the second chain over his head and followed Mary back downstairs, the skittering of the two dogtags together feeling like a collective heartbeat over his.
-X-
Dean couldn't sleep.
He wasn't sure if it was the absence of the fan that had been running in his room at Bobby's, if it was his botched sleeping schedule or just too many thoughts crowding his mind, but when he rolled over and checked the clock on the floor to see the dying glow reflecting three in the morning, frustration made him feel almost desperate. He hated insomnia.
Rolling out of bed, he yanked on his jeans and slid his jacket on.
The door of the guest bedroom was closed; Dean knocked quietly, waited a few seconds, then opened it anyway.
Sam was crashed out on his back, a thin stream of saliva trickling from the corner of open mouth. Dean grinned and toed the door shut behind him, moving to Sam's bedside and grabbing his shoulder, giving it a shake.
"Sam. Sammy. Hey. Drooler." Dean pressed a flat hand on Sam's chest and shoved down, hard, jolting him into the mattress.
"What, what?" Sam floundered upright, blinking in the dim moonlight pouring through the window over his head. "Dean, what?"
"Surprise." Dean grabbed Sam's folded jeans off the three-legged chair and tossed them to him. "C'mon, get dressed. Let's go train or something."
"What time is it?" Sam yawned, sliding his jeans on.
"Three in the morning. S'matter, tough stuff? Too early?"
"No, it's fine." Sam didn't rise to the bait. "Is everything okay?"
"Can't sleep." Dean said. "I feel like my skin's crawling or the walls are closing in or something."
"Okay." Sam nodded. "We could always start tier two."
Dean snapped his fingers and pointed to Sam. "That's the kinda talk a man likes to hear. Let's move."
They slipped out the front door and ran across the moonlit lawn to the barn, Dean shoving the doors in with a roll of muscle from his forearms to his shoulders. Bright ashy light filtered in through the windows and their breaths puffed with the straw dust around them.
Dean clumped down to the indent in the floor and turned to face Sam, still at the top of the steps. "What's the hold up, dude? You wanna train, or not?"
Sam was stiff, immobile, his eyes sliding up toward the rafters. Dean followed Sam's gaze and heard a distant, jittery, nails-on-chalkboard rattle that set his teeth on edge, and it took him a second to understand why.
The punching bag was gone; the chain that had held it up for decades, however, remained intact, rusted and bangling around in the breeze, creating that wind-chime echo that resembled the sound of rattling keys.
"Aw, crap, crap, crap," Dean cussed under his breath, leaping back up the steps and stopping abreast of Sam. "Sam, listen to me—listen up! That's nothing, all right, it doesn't matter. Look at me. Sam!"
Sam's eyes were pinned to the rafters, white-water fear spilling through his gaze. Dean cocked a look over his shoulder toward the chain, wondering if he'd be able to climb that high and cut it loose before Sam lost is composure completely.
Dean gripped Sam's shoulders instead. "Hey! Eyes on me!"
Sam's focus traveled to Dean for a split second, then reverted, internalizing.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean slung an arm around Sam's chest and bundled him backwards, out onto the lawn, where he threw him down and crouched over him. "Snap out of it, Sam, come on!"
It was another minute or more before clarity returned to Sam's vision. He blinked, forehead furrowing, nose scrunching. "Dean?"
Dean couldn't manage a smile. "That's my name, don't wear it out."
Sam scrambled to sit up, contrition overtaking his gaze. "Sorry. I didn't…that sound just kind of…"
"Froze you up?" Dean suggested, and Sam nodded sheepishly. "Sam. Dude, you gotta get your head around that."
"It's not like I can control it, Dean. I just hear it and I—"
"Wig out. You panic, Sam. You think something's gonna get its hands on you?"
Sam shrugged, plucking at the grass with his long fingers.
"Hey! Look at me!" Dean snapped, and Sam raised his eyes reluctantly. "Inside of the Pit, outside of the Pit, I've still got your back. Right?"
Sam managed the world's smallest smile before he went back to studying the grass. "Dean, I'm scared, man. With what's coming? Azazel's not gonna stop. If he hurts John, if he hurts Mary…if he goes after you…"
"I'm not gonna let some ass-hat demon get the jump on me, Sam. C'mon, gimmie a little credit, here." Dean reached up and smacked Sam on the back of the head. "Pull it together, and let's work on the second tier. All right?"
Sam rubbed his neck, then nodded. "Outside the barn?"
"Yeah, outside the barn." Weighing the cold against Sam's fear, Dean decided it was worth it to take their chances with frostbite.
"Dean?" Sam stretched, loosening his muscles, shaking off the fear.
"Yeah, Sammy."
"I don't…I don't think I have a birthday. I mean. I do. I just…I don't remember when it is"
"Then we're gonna make one up." Dean fell back a few steps. "All right, first tier was Savate. Second tier's Jujutsu. This is where you're really gonna kick ass. This one's all that slippery crap you're good at. Dodging and getting people into holds."
"Not people. Monsters." Sam reminded him.
"Eh. Either way, this is gonna help." Dean held up one hand. "Five arts. One style. Two months."
"I'm ready."
And in one step, they were back into the flow.