They left the next day, Impala loaded up with their few belongings, Dean loaded up in the back with prescription painkillers and antibiotics and an incessantly chatty Sammy who had decided to take on the sole positions of physical therapist and pain in the ass.

"Okay, I've got one pillow here for your knee and the other one for your back. If your chest or incisions start to hurt lemme know and I'll pull over and we'll try something else. If you get tired or you want to stop to eat or something just say it, no problem. And if—"

"Sam."

"What?" Hair strewn about his face, blankets and pillows in his hands, Sam looked like a harried mother rushing to make her children's beds in the morning.

"Give me the pillows. Get in the front seat, start the car, and drive."

"Oh." Sam looked down at himself, realizing what he was doing. "Okay."

Dean rolled his eyes at the mother of all mother hens, certain he was going to lose his mind before the drive was done.

"Hurry your ass up. Sooner we get somewhere, the sooner we can look up another hunt to chew into. I tell you, I'm going stir crazy."

Sam didn't bother to look at him when he spoke, putting the car into drive and hearing her pleasant roar over being back on the road again. "Not an icicle's chance in hell, man. We hole up and you heal and no hunts until you can outrun me again. And no debate or you don't get a motel with magic fingers."

"Well, you're no fun."


They stopped a few hours later, back in another motel in another nameless city, but further away from the town that neither one wanted to be near. Both took up their posts and for a while just enjoyed each other's company.

Out of the blue, Dean approached another subject that had been stewing away in the back of his mind, just another one to add to the neverending list of items to worry about. "Hey, how we doing on finances?"

"Hm?"

"Well, my little stint in the hospital means we burned out an insurance and a credit card, and you paid for that dingy motel for two weeks, so how laid up are we?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Sam—"

"It's not a big deal, okay? Yeah, we're a little low, but we've got a few more cards we can use if we really need to and we still have the cash that you got…that you got at the bar."

Dean sighed, feeling the weight in his chest grow a little more, and not from the broken ribs or scarring, healing tissue above them. "Sorry, Sammy. I guess we'll be living a bit more tightly than usual for a bit."

He could practically hear his brother's eyes roll before the huff that followed. "Shut up, Dean. You don't get to apologize for that, you idiot."

"Will you stop calling me an idiot? I'm still the injured one, here."

"Exactly, you jerk, you're injured! So don't worry about the money or the driving or hunts or me, and just focus on yourself for a change!"

It was back again, the anger with the undercurrent of something more, something unhealthy. Something that Dean had to get rid of before it swallowed his little brother whole.

"I have to worry about you Sam, you know that, especially—"

"Dean—"

"Ahem, especially, when you still seem to find a way to worry yourself sick over things you can't stop focusing on."

"What?"

"See, you can't call me an idiot. I got that, at least. What's eating you now? You still somehow blaming yourself for this? I tell you what, you let this go and the next time I stub my toe you can get all upset over that instead, okay? Anything to get you to stop beating yourself up over it, because, for the last time, this was not your fault."

"Shuddup, Dean. That's…" Sam trailed off with a huff of irritation, running his hand over his face and leaning up over the side of the bed. "That's not it."

Dean pushed himself up to try and match his brother's stance, succeeding only partially when his ribs started to protest and leaning back with a small groan. "Then what is it?"

"I just…I don't get how you can just let them go."

"Oh." Dean averted his eyes, not wanting to broach the subject. He didn't want to admit to his brother that he had no idea how to handle it, no clue on the right path to take.

It was for things like these that he was reminded again how much he missed his father. John always just knew what to do, never doubting his convictions for a moment. He'd have it all figured out in an instant complete with a small affectionate whack on the back of Dean's head for not seeing the solution himself.

Sam, on the other hand, had all nerve firings focused directly on Dean. "Oh? I was expecting a little more fight from you than that, man." He had been ready for a confrontation, some rough words and then a dismissive 'I'm the older brother so we do it my way' of some sort.

"Look, I—"

"I know what you said, and I know we can't have you go up against them, but we can't just let them go like that. I can't."

"Stop right there, because you're sure as hell not going after them yourself."

"Dean—"

"It's not gonna happen, Sammy. For the record, I've been thinking, and I agree with you, alright? Those guys shouldn't be out on the streets, I mean, chances are they've done this to other people, too.

"Okay, so, what do we do, then?"

Dean sighed heavily again. Sam was looking to him for answers, just like he used to, the older brother who always had the solution. It was a mirror image of how Dean used to view John, an idealistic pedestal that he sometimes still put his father on—like now. It appeared Sam was doing the same thing here, and he almost laughed at the way they both had regressed. Although, teenaged Sam never really figured out that Dean's supposed knowledge of all was a poor mockery, a carefully constructed façade to cover his terror over making a mistake and getting his family hurt or letting his brother down.

"I don't know. We can't go to the cops, you know that, but this isn't some case where we go in and gank the monster, you know? They're still people."

"So, what, you just wanna beat the crap out of them? Dean, that's not what I meant."

"It doesn't matter now anyway." Dean let out a small, halfhearted laugh. "Two on eight won't go so well even if we're prepared, and yeah, I hate to admit it, but I'm not really up for throwing punches right now. I think we gotta wait, figure out something else."

"That's it?" Sam's crestfallen face made Dean want to lie, come up with a perfect solution to make his little brother happy.

But it just couldn't happen here.

"Yeah, Sam, that's it. We wait a while, keep tabs on them, and see what happens. I don't really see another option right now. I'm sorry."

With that, Sam finally let his protestations go, shoulders slumping as he threw in the towel on this one. "Okay. It's okay. I'll just flag the town and police reports there, maybe if there's a bar brawl or another assault we can call in a tip or something." The words left acid in his mouth.

Wait until someone else got hurt. They'd had to do it on hunts before, but this…just felt worse, knowing that it came not from the evil of beasts or demons but from ordinary people gone down the wrong paths.

"Trust me Sam, I don't like it either."

"I know." Sam rose from the bed and over to the phone. "Takeout? I'll pick you up some pie if you want."

A small smile greeted him.


A/N: Okay, so not much happening here other than some setup, I know, but the conclusion will be here, I promise. The ending might take you by surprise, but I hope you'll like it. It's mostly finished, and actually was one of the first scenes I wrote after starting this fic when I figured out how I wanted it to go. I'll try to have it up in the next few days, classes have started once again and I want to have this finished before my professors resume their usual 'let's pile on everything at once because sleep-deprived students are funny' routine. Psh, don't they know I spend my nights on fanfic anyway? :)