Author's note: I promise you will get fluff. I promise that there is light at the end of the tunnel. But the boys have to allow it to happen first, and they're having a hard time with it. It will come with time, though!

The phone buzzes and buzzes and buzzes, and Dean keeps looking up at the sky.

He has nothing to say to his father, not right now. He can't fathom what words could possibly explain the situation to him, especially over the phone. Not when he can barely even come up with the words to explain it to himself, and he's been here the whole time. Luke is Sammy still doesn't make much sense in his head, even though it's so similar to the first thing he thought when he saw the kid to begin with—he's the same age as Sammy. But he'd spent those weeks so certain that Luke was just some kid, some strange kid that he had the chance to protect. He wasn't crazy. He knew his brother was dead, and that dead brothers don't just show up at your campsite looking at you like you're Charles Manson, don't just eat your food and curl up next to you in their blankets and try to comfort you when you cry and carve a new place in your soul for themselves while the other place they'd always held still ached.

So no, he doesn't know what he'd tell John. And anyway he's pretty sure he couldn't make it more than about two sentences in without starting to shout, and probably cry, and that's not how he wants the conversation to go down.

Because John fucked up. He did. In a more monumental way than Dean has the vocabulary for. He fucked up, even if Luke hadn't been Sam—there's no scenario that makes what he did okay. And Dean has questions of the screaming-fight variety to ask, like how the fuck do you not recognize your own son and what can convince a grown man that it's okay to sell a kid of any kind into human trafficking and lastly and perhaps most importantly did you know that Walt was going to kill him.

It's not a phone conversation.

But on top of all that, Dean knows his dad, and there are two facets of that knowledge: first, that he knows how much the revelation of what John did is going to hurt him.

Second, that a vile, cruel part of him wants to see the look on his father's face when he tells him that everything he'd done over the last weeks, he'd done to his own child.

So he lets the phone ring, and stares up at the sky, and ignores the tears that squeeze out of the corners of his eyes.

That's why his eyes are closed when he hears footsteps approach his head and a quiet, tight voice say, "Dean?"

He opens his eyes because it's not his brother. Ava's standing over him, still in the clothes he'd brought her to Missouri's in, ratty and dirty, her jeans high-water and stretched thin over her skinny legs and her maroon sweatshirt frayed at the hems and torn over her right shoulder. He wonders if Walt had given her any other clothes, or if that was all she owned. His stomach clenches at the thought. Her fingers are writhing over her stomach as she clutches and unclutches her hands, pulls at her fingers and cracks her knuckles. It's so he can't see that they're shaking, he knows. He sits up but doesn't stand—doesn't want a height advantage on her. She's scared enough and he knows that he scares the shit out of her. He can't blame her, but he doesn't want to make it worse. "Hey, Ava," he says carefully. "Everything okay?"

He knows that the answer is a negative before she shakes her head. She wouldn't have sought him out otherwise. She's barely made eye contact with him so far, much less tried to speak to him of her own accord, so he figures that something's got to be wrong if she's come to find him. But he also figures that it can't be too urgent, or she would have been running. So he waits for her to collect herself, keeping his posture loose, his expression open and unguarded.

As she bites her lip and steadies her breathing, he thinks about what Luke's told him about her. About what she's been through, what she's suffered, and for the hundredth time since he left the motel room he regrets not killing Walt. Because she's a thousand times worse off than Luke was when Dean met him, and it's entirely Walt's doing. Luke was scared, vulnerable, but he still had a spark in him, still had fight in him. It didn't take much to cow him at first, but he still pushed, seeing how far he could take his attitude before Dean snapped. And he slowly but eventually trusted it when he found that Dean wouldn't hurt him, wouldn't punish him for speaking his mind or being mouthy. Looking at Ava, Dean's not sure that would ever have happened with her.

And then she surprises him by sitting down in front of him—a healthy distance away, but still closer than she'd voluntarily put herself before.

"Luke is having trouble," she says, her eyes averted, plucking a blade of grass and playing with it. Dean leans forward a little, too quickly, and she flinches but holds her ground. "I don't understand everything that's happened, but he's your brother, right?"

"Yeah," Dean breathes with a soft huff of laughter. "Yeah. He's my brother." He can hear the wonder in his voice as he says it. Speaking of his brother in the present tense. Something he never thought he'd do again.

"He's really upset," says Ava, "and if you care about him as much as he thinks you do, you should go talk to him."

Dean lowers his head and grips his temples, cursing under his breath. He had been so overwhelmed back in the kitchen that he hadn't even considered what Luke would think of his hasty exit—that he'd think it was his fault, or some indication of Dean's feelings about him. He was so stupid, and he was about to say as much, but Ava was still talking.

"He talked about you all the time, when he came back," she murmured, her eyes fixed on the blade of grass. "Dean this and Dean that. He'd always talk about how nice you were and how much he missed you, how you were so different and so good to him. Sometimes he'd have dreams about you, just...say your name in his sleep. He'd always sound so relieved. Then he'd wake up, disappointed, like he thought you'd found him but then he was still just in our motel room."

Dean's heart twists unpleasantly, and he grabs at the cuffs of his jacket, hands wandering aimlessly for something to distract him.

"I told him he was making it up," Ava continues, and Dean looks up then, a little bit incredulous and a little bit hurt and a tiny bit angry. He controls his expression, though, because Ava's being shockingly open with him, and he can tell that she's a little frightened of what she's saying and how he might react to it. He doesn't want to prove her right—doesn't want to take advantage of her vulnerability or coerce her into anything she doesn't want to say or do. So he keeps quiet and keeps his features neutral. "I told him, no way some Hunter would act like that. I told him it was Stockholm Syndrome and that just 'cause you didn't beat him like our master did, he thought you liked him."

"I do like him," Dean says, his voice breaking. Ava doesn't meet his eyes. "Fuck, I do. Before I knew he was my brother. It didn't matter. I just wanted—I just want him to be safe. And happy. And..." He trails off, then says, "...and with me."

"That's what he'd say," Ava replies. "That you cared about him."

"Did he know I was looking for him?" Dean asks, barely audible, not sure whether he wants to know or not.

Ava shakes her head, and Dean swallows hard, nods, and looks down. "I don't know," she answers, and he looks back up. "I didn't think you were, and I tried to keep him from getting his hopes up, you know? But he said some things that made me think maybe he did. Or that he hoped you were."

"Why are you telling me this?" Dean whispers.

"Because..." Ava breaks off and bites her lip, drops the grass and settles her hands on her lap, stilling them. She visibly collects herself before continuing. "Because I hope he's right. I hope you care about him. He deserves it."

"He deserves way better," Dean interrupts, but a glance from Ava quiets him.

"And right now something's wrong, and I don't know how to fix it, so you need to—" She pales, then corrects herself: "Maybe you can go inside, show him he was right to trust you. He needs you." She smiles a little, just a tugging at the corner of her lips, but it quickly fades into something that looks like sadness. But after a moment, Dean thinks, maybe not sadness. Maybe longing. "I don't get it. I don't get either of you. But he needs you, and he's hurting right now."

Dean stands up slowly, broadcasting every movement before he makes it, and offers her a hand to help her stand. He's not offended when she doesn't take it, but stands up on her own. "Listen, I feel like I ought to—" he begins, but she's shaking her head almost before he started talking so he shuts up.

"It's hard," she says, slowly, ponderously, as they start to walk back to Missouri's together. Her arms are crossed over her chest, but her back is a little straighter than it's been so far. "That, I get. I get that there's no good choices. If you care about him, you do what you have to do for him. It wasn't about me."

"Doesn't make it right, what I did," Dean murmurs.

"No," Ava agrees softly. "But you were...less wrong. And sometimes you have to settle for that."

Dean turns that over in his head while they walk. Finally he says, "You're an okay kid."

Ava ducks her head and turns a little, but Dean doesn't completely miss her smile.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, broken only by the buzzing of Dean's phone. He pulls it out of his pocket—that same unfamiliar number. His dad. Ava looks at him quizzically, but he just shakes his head and puts the phone back up.

Not now.

Neither of them says a word until they're nearly at Missouri's door. Then Ava murmurs, "I think he's in the bedroom. The one where he slept last night. I'm sure Ms. Moseley will know."

She goes for the door knob, and he starts to catch her arm but remembers himself in time to turn it into just a brush of his fingers against her elbow. She freezes for an instant, then forces herself to relax and turns to him. "I'm gonna take care of him," he promises.

She does met his eyes, then, firm if still a little wary, and her response is, "I hope so." Then she opens the door and walks through, and Dean follows her in.

As soon as they're over the threshold, Missouri looks ready to rip into him, but Ava says "I already told him" before she can start, and the psychic contents herself with crossing her arms and glaring at Dean.

"I know you're hurting, too, boy," she says quietly, her expression already gentling, "but you need to be careful with your brother. He's lost, Dean. He needs you, and what you need, whether you know it or not, is him."

"Is he in the bedroom?" Dean asks instead of responding, and Missouri nods, and as he walks off down the hallway he can see her putting her arm around Ava's shoulders. He's suddenly, painfully glad that Ava has Missouri, because he's not what she needs.

There is somebody who needs him, though. He knocks on the door to Missouri's room, just a light rapping, and waits.

"Not right now, please, Ms. Moseley, I'm okay." Luke's voice is dull, sounds a little congested, like he's been crying.

"It's me, man. Can I come in?" Dean calls, and there's a faint squeaking of bed springs and the soft padding of bare feet on hardwood floor before the door opens and a slightly flushed-looking Luke stands in front of him, eyes wide.

"Hi," Luke breathes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Dean says firmly. "What about you? I kind of lost it back there, skipped out on you, and that wasn't fair."

"It's okay," Luke lies, shifting uncomfortably, then wandering back to the bed. Dean closes the door and follows him. Luke watches him out of the corner of his eye the whole time, which makes Dean a little sad—like Luke's anticipating something bad, some kind of bad reaction from him.

They sit on the bed for a minute, silent, neither one wanting to start talking, but both knowing that it's going to happen sooner or later. Luke twists his hands a little in his lap before deciding to pick at the comforter instead, and Dean just watches him.

Two weeks. Luke had spent two weeks getting beaten and abused, and he'd talked about Dean through it all. It was the memory of Dean that kept him going. Just like it was the hope that Luke was still okay that spurred Dean on through sleepless nights and leads that fell through and bar brawls with other Hunters bigger than him. But the image of this little kid—his little brother, his Sammy—lying dazed on a bed or on the floor after being tortured, telling Ava about how nice Dean was, was just about more than Dean could bear.

Dean wasn't nice. Dean was okay. Dean had been okay to Luke, and it was still the best the kid had ever gotten.

So it's Dean who breaks the silence first, turning to Luke and saying, "I want to make this right."

"Dean," Luke protests, "you've already—"

"No." Dean scrubs his face with his hands and steadies himself. "I kept my promise to keep you safe. Eventually. But I want to make this right. Look, this is...this is really hard. For me. But not the way you're thinking, probably."

Luke raises an eyebrow, but it's a strangely uneasy gesture. "What do you think I'm thinking?" he asks.

"I think you're thinking like you always did," Dean returns, and Luke's eyes widen a little at his tone. "That I'm disappointed. That for whatever reason, I have a problem with...with what Missouri told us. Just—let me?" It's a genuine plea, and where a second ago Luke was opening his mouth to argue, he closes it and settles back onto the bed, unhappy but quiet. Dean sighs, relieved, and continues.

"It's not that I'm...unhappy...about who you are. It's not that I'm, like, mad about it or that I don't think you're enough like the brother I remember. I remember you as a baby. Of course you're gonna be different. It's just that...obviously, I was going to compare you to my brother. You were the same age. It's the first thing I thought, man, that you were the same age he would have been. And I fought...real hard to separate you. So I didn't put all that shit on you. And I thought, if I could protect you, if I could keep you safe, I could forgive myself for letting my little brother down all those years ago."

"You were a kid, too," Luke says softly. "It wasn't your fault."

And it's literally a dream come true—having his brother here, alive, present, forgiving him. But Dean just bites the inside of his cheek and says, "Okay. But whatever shit I'm going through, it doesn't give me the right to ignore you. I don't know what you're going through, but I want to help. I don't—I won't run again. I'm right here. I'm gonna be right here."

Luke nods, then scoots closer to Dean, settling into their comfortable, familiar pose: Dean's arm around his shoulders, chin atop his head. "I don't know how to be Sam," he says.

"You're doing fine," Dean replies. "You're doing great, little brother."

He imagines that he feels Luke grow a little tense in his arms when he says that, but he dismisses it because he has something else he wants to say. "Ava came to talk to me."

Luke startles a little, knocking his head on Dean's chin as he pulls away to stare at him. "Really?" he asks, incredulous.

Dean laughs at his brother's expression. "Yeah. I was as surprised as you. But she...she told me some stuff. About those weeks when I was looking for you."

The incredulity fades, replaced by a very studied stillness. "What did she say?" Luke asks, pulling a little further away, flushing at his ears. He looks small, cowed, like there was something he'd said at the motel that he was ashamed of, or that he doesn't want Dean to know.

That thought sours Dean's stomach a little, but he just says, "She told me you talked about me. That you told her I was different. That you..."

"That I missed you?" Luke interjects, and Dean doesn't say anything. "Of course I did, Dean. What did you expect? That I'd forget about you in two weeks?"

"Did you know I was going to come for you?" Dean blurts, not meaning to say that at all, not meaning to put the kid on the spot like that. So he backtracks a little. "I mean, not know, but...did you think I would?"

There's a moment of silence. But in it, the sad, empty, and slightly frightened look in Luke's eyes tells Dean what he needs to know.

"You didn't," he murmurs.

"I hoped you would." It sounded like an apology. "I dreamed that you did. Pretty much every night. But...I'm sorry, I...I didn't..." Luke swallows hard, and his fists are clenched. "I didn't have any idea. How much you meant it. It's one thing to be nice to a Lilim kid who's traveling with you—even to take care of that kid the way you took care of me. It's another to track him for weeks and have a confrontation with the Hunter who owns him. That's something else, and I didn't know it existed, okay? So please don't be mad. Please."

Dean puts his hands on Luke's shoulders, grounding him as his brother starts to hyperventilate, locking eyes with him.

Luke's eyes are practically the same green as his.

How did he never notice that before?

How did he miss the fact that this was his little brother?

"Calm down," he orders, and Luke obeys reflexively, controlling his breaths and keeping Dean's eyes. "I'm not mad, okay? I couldn't be. If you didn't think I was coming for you, you didn't. It's not on you to, like, create that kind of trust. It was on me."

"Dean," Luke interrupts, but Dean shifts his hands from his shoulders to his arms and pulls him a little closer.

"I promise you, I will always find you," he says. "I will always protect you. You're my responsibility. Taking care of you is my job and I swear, I will be better at it from now on, all right?"

Luke nods and looks like he's going to say something when Dean's phone goes off.

He pulls it out of his pocket, muttering obscenities, and looks down at the number. The same number. Luke looks down at it, too. "Who's that?" he asks.

"I think it's Dad," Dean says. Luke looks up, startled.

"Are you gonna answer it?"

Dean turns the phone over in his hands, hesitating. "Do you think I should?"

"He's not gonna stop calling," Luke points out. "And you're not gonna be able to avoid him forever. Or even for long. You might as well."

Dean bites his lip, but nods and presses the answer button. "H'lo?" he mutters.

"Hell, boy, it's about damn time you answered this piece of shit phone! I've been calling all god damned day!"

Dean heaves a sigh of relief at the sound of Bobby Singer's voice. "Jesus, Bobby. I thought you were someone else."

"Yeah, well, I ain't, and I understand you've got yourself into a hell of a lot of trouble," Bobby retorts, his voice gruffer over the phone than Dean remembers it. But his tone abruptly changes, becomes gentler and even a little choked up, as he adds, "You and that little brother of yours, huh?"

Dean finds himself fighting thickness in his throat when he says, "Yes, sir. Me and m'brother." He glances over at Luke, who's watching him with his brow furrowed. Dean puts his hand over the phone and mouths Bobby Singer. Luke nods, but his expression doesn't change.

"Missouri called Ellen and me, told us somethin's going on that you might need some back-up on. You need me to come in, son? You know I'll help you, but I ain't gonna stick my nose in where it's not wanted."

"No, please," Dean interrupts hurriedly. "I want you to come. We need help, and Missouri's taking care of us right now but it's lookin' like a fight, Bobby. We need all the hands we can get."

A pause on the other line, and then, "Well, then, I'll be on my way soon as I get my things together. You heard from Ellen yet?"

"No," Dean admits. "I haven't called her. A little caught up in things. I'm glad Missouri called her."

Another pause. "You talked to your daddy?"

This time it's harsher when Dean answers, "No."

"I don't blame you, son. From what Missouri said, it's a hell of a thing that's happened. But you could use him right now. You boys got some angry Hunters on your tails, and you can use all the help that's offered. Maybe it'll be a chance for your old man to start makin' up for it."

"I don't know, Bobby," Dean sighs. "What he did—it wasn't to me."

"Like hell it wasn't," Bobby retorts. "But you and Sammy, you work it out. Don't worry about anything else—we'll rally the troops for you. I'll be down by tomorrow morning at the latest. And boy?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You don't answer my calls again and I'm whuppin' your ass when I get there."

Dean smiles. "Yes, sir."

They exchange their good-byes and Dean hangs up, grinning at Luke. "That's Bobby," he says, and Luke nods again. "He's coming down. He's gonna help us with this Black Moon thing."

"And we can trust him?" Luke asks.

"Yes," Dean says. "No doubt."

"Okay," Luke replies, like that's the end of it.

So Dean lets it be, for once, and draws Luke back into his arms until their breathing matches.

Bobby and Ellen and Jo are on their way. His family's coming back together, to protect him, to protect his brother.

He doesn't understand why, then, his brother is so tense in his arms.

Ava didn't have the right to tell Dean what she had.

God, how humiliating.

He had no way of knowing what Ava had even said, but the idea of Dean knowing how he'd cried out in his sleep, hoping for salvation, for rescue, all of his half-conscious murmurings about how 'nice' and 'good' and sometimes 'awesome' Dean was, the way he wept for the loss of his life with Dean...

Pathetic.

Dean's not like that—Dean is tough and strong and proud, brought down only by grief over his little brother's death (his little brother's transformation into Luke).

He wouldn't have cried like that if it had been him taken.

Dean would've taken it like a man; he wouldn't have whined about what he'd lost, ranted and gushed to his fellow captive about how wonderful things had been.

Dean would've fought.

Luke didn't do any of those things.

And yet Dean still managed to make it somehow his own fault, like he'd done something to Luke, something other than rescuing him and taking him to a safe place and letting him play like he's Dean's brother.

But then he makes Luke admit that he'd lost faith—that he didn't believe Dean was going to rescue him.

It's not fair.

How could he have imagined something like that?

He sees how much it hurts Dean that he didn't believe it, that he hadn't expected it, but how was he supposed to dream something like that up—that a Hunter, even Dean, would care enough about him to look for him for weeks?

It still seems like something he's going to wake up from any minute now.

Even when Dean's hands are firm and warm on his arms, even when Dean's arm is around his shoulders, even when Dean's eyes are meeting his.

Their eyes are the same color, or almost.

It gives Luke a tiny amount of comfort, to think about that.

That whether or not he remembers it, on at least a genetic, a biological level, he is Dean's brother.

He is Dean's blood, his family.

Dean promised he wouldn't lose him again, and Luke believes him.

He just wishes he could believe he was something worth holding on to.