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Jess is plastered to the ceiling, eyes sad and hair burning, when Dean drags Sam from the nightmare, his brother's warm, heavy hand on his shoulder the only real, safe thing in the world for a long, hard moment.

When Sam can shake the tight, clenched feeling from his limbs, can tell himself he doesn't smell the hot, acrid burn of flesh and hair and plaster anymore, he looks around at the low, dry scrub and bristly trees, and is about to ask Dean how long he's been out when he sees how much effort it takes his brother to move his arm back to the gear shift, how moving to accommodate that pain sets off a dozen other tics and twinges of hurts ignored.

"You didn't take any pain meds this morning, did you?" he demands, taking a long, hard look at how gingerly Dean's holding himself in the seat, the stiff neck and uneasy shifting that Sam knows means his brother is hurting, definitely more than he has to be, and has been for a long time.

"I may have..." his brother begins, but Sam glares, and Dean folds like wet cardboard, "forgotten to do that. Somehow."

"Pull over," Sam demands, fishing in the back seat for the first aid kit and a bottle of water.

He knew this would happen. Knew it. He is fine. Absolutely fine. But as long as Dean can see the bandage and thinks something is even the least little bit wrong with Sam, it's overprotective overdrive, and to hell with health or safety or physical comfort. Sam's pretty sure Dean could actually be on fire, and he would just move so that none of the smoke or cinders got on Sam and keep mother henning until he was nothing but a black stain on the carpet.

Stupid, self-sacrificing dumbass.

"What? I'm fine, Sammy," Dean protests, making Sam want to bean him in the head with the bottle of opiates in his hand. "I can still drive."

"Well, you're not gonna," Sam tosses back, fighting to get the stupid childproof cap off with his left hand.

Dean doesn't have a prescription for these. What is the point of having the Fort Knox of plastic safety caps on stolen pills? The good ship Responsibility has clearly sailed!

"You sure about that?" Dean asks, watching Sam's fight with the pill bottle with measured interest.

"Don't make me pull the key out, Dean" Sam warns, his eyes narrowing as he gives up on wrenching the cap off the bottle without tearing his arm open. Again.

"What?" Dean sputters. "Sammy, that wouldn't even-"

"I don't care! I respect your unhealthy obsession with this car," Sam explains heatedly, "but so help me, if it's a choice between the two of you-"

"Alright, alright, I'm pulling over. Untwist your panties, Samantha, Jesus," Dean bitches, guiding the Impala onto the shoulder.

Sam's out and stomping to the driver's side door before she comes to a complete stop.

"Just shut up and take care of yourself for once in your life!" Sam snaps, forcing the pills on Dean and shoving himself into the driver's seat.

"Alright, that settles it," Dean says decisively, popping the painkillers in his mouth and kicking back a healthy swallow of the water as Sam pulls back onto the blacktop. "Take the next exit."

He nods to the sign informing them that the next handful of turnoffs will drop them off in San Antonio.

"What?" Sam gapes, jerking his head to glare at Dean.

"You're moodier than usual, Bridget," Dean begins, impatiently fixing the bandage over a bite on his wrist. "And we've been on the road non-stop since breakfast, which means your bloodsugar is low. If you want to have any hope of holding down dinner, we need to get food in you ASAP. So, I say again: Pull. Over."

"I'm not-"

"Sam, I don't know whether you're about to punch me or start crying because you just got your period and the mini mart didn't have your favorite brand of lady products. You really wanna tell me how you're not eighteen kinds of mood-swingin' right now?"

"I was gonna say 'I'm not eating gross diner food again,'" Sam grumbles rebelliously as a long pause, glaring at the long ribbon of asphalt in front of them.

"Yeah, sure you were," Dean laughs, confident and cocky, and cranks up "Iron Man".

Just because Sam was about to yell at Dean for being a domineering jerkass - a move which, in light of the allegations of his moodiness, does seem a bit of an extreme response to what was basically 'Let's pull over for lunch.' - doesn't mean that Dean can get all smug about it.

They end up going for sandwiches somewhere in San Antonio that Sam strenuously denies is a cafe. He's sick of takeout, though, and if he has another soggy, soup-saturated cracker, he's gonna hit someone. Probably Dean.

Knowing his brother, he'd probably deserve it, but it's not getting any earlier in the day and going to sleep anywhere near a Dean Winchester who felt he had been somehow wronged would run the very real risk of waking up sans eyebrows.

Or other things.

Sam is pretty sure that since Dean's so gung-ho about treating his arm with kid gloves, he'd be safe from retaliation. But then again, he was pretty sure at sixteen that Dean would never actually put Nair in his shampoo, too.

Look how that one turned out.

Sam can remember, with perfect, unforgiving clarity, being gawky, sixteen, and completely bald, Dad and Dean bursting into hysterical laughter every time they saw him for over a month.

Not something Sam's looking to revisit anytime soon. But then, the Dean that's sitting across from him now, flipping through the laminated not-a-cafe menu to find the biggest, grossest sandwich the place offers, is not exactly the same one that couldn't go through with a salt-n-burn for weeks without cracking up at the way Sam's bald head gleamed in the match-light.

The closer Sam looks at his brother, slouched in the booth across from Sam, arms everywhere and boots crammed against his sneakers beneath the cracking formica table, the more it hits him that Dean's burst of adrenaline, purpose, whatever it was that's gotten him swearing and swaggering through the past few days, has worn off in a big way.

Dean's pale and drawn, less the grinning brother Sam is used to and more the limp, listless wreck he pulled from that basement in Louisiana. And sure, Dean's splayed across the booth as usual, but it'd take a better actor than Dean ever was to hide how much the casual act costs him, how every move and motion sets off another chain of tugged bites, beaten bruises, and pulled muscles.

Either Dean's complete shit at picking out painkillers or he didn't take nearly enough of them. One way or the other, it's clear he's hurting in no small way, and of course, in typical Dean Winchester fashion, he's keeping his mouth shut about it.

Because Sam doesn't have enough on his plate before. Now he's gotta deal with Dean's "'Tis But a Flesh Wound" routine. Great.

It pissed Dad off when they were kids for the exact same reason it's driving Sam up the wall now: There's no way to tell with Dean. Absolutely no way. It could actually be no big deal, or he could be ignoring fucking arterial spray because, in his mind, Dad or Sam needs the attention more.

It's macho, martyrdom bullshit, and Sam has exactly zero patience for it. Not now. Not when he found Dean bleeding out in a fucking cage three days ago more dead than alive.

And sure, considering how long Sam hid the cut on his arm, maybe he's a hypocrite. Maybe he's the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world, but it played out exactly like he knew it would:

Dean found out Sam was hurt and went from zero to insanely overprotective in two seconds flat. And while that's understandable, Sam is fine. His arm is healing, his bruises are fading, and he no longer looks like death warmed over.

The same cannot be said for Dean, who's trying and failing to put mustard on his sandwich without wincing in pain.

Sam decides then and there that he's not just driving from here to wherever they crash for the night, he's going to repay Dean's nannying from the past couple of days with interest.

If his brother thinks Sam's going to let him out of his sight in anything less than perfect health, he's got another thing coming to him.

There's no way in heaven or earth that Sam is letting Dean tear off half-cocked and still bleeding to whatever is waiting for them in Black Water Ridge. With their luck, it's eight feet tall and armor plated, and knowing his brother's stubborn, stupid devotion to whatever suicidal mission Dad shoots his way, Dean would probably insult its mother and try to bare-knuckle box it.

The idea of finding Dean, saving him from Dad's blind devotion to the mission, only to lose him the second he's well enough to drive off, of facing weeks of awful, unknowing silence and then a phone call in the small hours of the morning, telling him Dean's missing... Dean's injured... Dean's...

No.

Just. No.

Sam will not do this again. Dean is staying with him, where Sam knows he's safe and taken care of, where Sam knows some god-awful nightmare isn't going to snatch him away and destroy the only real family he's got in the blink of an eye.

He's got the interview in a few days. He can keep Dean at the apartment until then, drag him kicking and screaming back to good health, and search up every scrap of information there is on Black Water Ridge while he's at it at one of the nation's best research libraries.

Honestly, between the University archives, interlibrary communications system, and subject matter specialists on almost every world religion and culture, researching whatever wicked thing Black Water's way comes is going to be the easy part.

It's getting Dean to stay in one place for three days that's going to take everything Sam's got.

When they get back to the car, Dean moves automatically to the driver's seat, stopping short when Sam plants himself firmly between the driver's side door and his brother.

"Aw, come on, Sammy," Dean protests. "I feel fine!"

Sam just crosses his arms and glares.

"Fine, but I'm driving tomorrow, ya killjoy," Dean grumbles, tossing him the keys and making for the passenger door, trying and failing to hide how much his brisk stride costs him.

"Over my dead body you are," Sam mutters, unlocking the car and sliding into the seat.

"You say somethin'?" Dean demands, narrowing his eyes at Sam.

"You should double up on the painkillers," Sam supplies brightly, firing up the engine. "You're still moving like a ninety year old man."

"Nah, Sammy, I'm good," Dean dismisses, digging through the cassette box with deliberate focus.

"Take the pills, Dean," Sam grits out.

This, this right here is what's gonna drive Sam insane. Dean's in pain. He knows it. Sam knows it. But Dean's not gonna do anything about it, he's just still gonna put himself through hell for no good goddamn reason.

"No," Dean answers stubbornly.

"Fine," Sam bites out, pulling onto the Interstate.

If he has to play dirty, he will. Dean is bringing this on himself.

"Zepplin sucks," Sam announces loudly as the Impala barrels down I-10. "Really, really sucks. It's like the world's worst vocalist and the world's most up-his-own-ass guitarist got together to have hideous, pompous, lyrically indigent babies for nine albums of audio torture."

Sam waits for Dean's mouth to pop open to defend his beloved Zep, then pops the painkillers in and claps his hand over it to keep Dean from spitting out the pills.

He gets a dirty look and a long, hot, sloppy lick over the palm for his troubles, but Dean swallows the meds and settles back into the passenger seat with a pair of sunglasses before he crosses his arms over his chest and sulks, so Sam counts it as a win, even as he grumbles and scrubs his hand against his jeans.

Sam is being a bitch.

First with his little tantrum outside of San Antonio, then insisting on driving despite the fact that his last stint at the wheel landed him in the emergency room, then that stunt with the painkillers.

It's like some malicious intelligence picked up on Dean's nostalgia for the days when it was just him and Sa and saddled him with a Sammy in a bitch fit to end all bitch fits.

So Dean was a living, breathing buffet for a sociopathic vampire. He's over it. A little sore, maybe, but fine. It's not like he was in the hospital or anything, unlike someone he could mention (SAM).

So really, Sammy should stop with the coddling and let Dean recover in manly, dignified silence.

Not that there aren't upsides to Sam's sudden need to pamper Dean to within an inch of his life. Apparently vampire bite victims get to pick the music even when riding shotgun, and Sam doesn't even roll his eyes when Dean decides that it's a crime that they're halfway through Texas and haven't eaten anything served on a tortilla yet, so since Sam's delicate constitution has apparently recovered, they're both eating Tex-Mex for dinner.

Dean figures out just where 'accommodating' stops and 'stubborn' starts with this new mood of Sammy's right after that, though, when his baby brother announces that they won't just be hitting the nearest Burrito Barn and moving on for the night, but are finding a hotel and bedding down.

At the oh-so-late hour of seven-thirty.

"Oh, come on, Sammy!" Dean groans. "What am I, five?"

"You need rest," Sam insists, glaring, "and I'm not redressing those bites in a truck stop bathroom. We're getting dinner and a hotel, and if you shut up about it now, we can go for beers after."

Dean raises and eyebrow, universally acknowledged brother-speak for 'And if I don't wanna shut up, dickbag?'

"Dean, fight me on this and I will destroy every cassette tape you own," Sam promises, answering the challenge in his brother's eyes.

"You wouldn't!" Dean huffs defensively, his eyes darting to the mangled shoebox of tapes at his feet. They can both see Zeppelin II on top. Exposed. Vulnerable.

"Try me," Sam laughs, not a little wickedly. "You'll be getting the Led out with pliers and a flashlight."

Dean decides to slump against the window and feign sleep for the rest of the drive. For the music.

As he leans against smooth leather and cool chrome, though, it's not the tapes at his feet that his eyes flick to, but the barest hint of white teeth in the darkness, his brother's half-smothered grin flashing in the gloom.

Bright and just for him, even after everything.