AN: Plot courtesy of Jenjoremy. The final chapter is the prompt itself, put there instead of here to avoid spoilers.

Season one, no particular place.

I do not own Supernatural or its characters. I do not make money from my stories. Darn shame that.

* * *

Another turning point,

A fork stuck in the road

Time grabs you by the wrist,

Directs you where to go

Good Riddance, by Green Day

* * *

The third time Sam rubbed his eyes, Dean began to swear. Silently, of course, since they were Hunting.

Dean preferred things to be simple, like Hunting following Dad's rules. Not easy, but simple.

Kill the supernatural thing, protect the people. Watch each other's backs. Don't form attachments outside of family. Don't talk about Hunting outside the family. Don't draw attention to yourself. Be over armed, over prepared, always alert.

When you screwed up, you could figure out which rule you'd messed up and do better the next time.

Nothing was simple with Sam. Not how Dean felt about him, which was big and mushy and overflowed into the other areas of life with the absolute assurance that it belonged.

And everything else about Sam was a constant push / pull of conflicting needs and impulses.

Protect / respect. Little brother / partner / equal / friend. Proud of / afraid for. Want him safe / want him happy.

All messy, confusing, shifting and changing. Even a very little Sammy hadn't been simple, though he'd been simpler than this big, complicated version. When other kids asked things like why is the sky blue? little Sammy asked things along the lines of why do some people hurt animals? Complicated.

Sam going off to Stanford just made things more complicated. Somehow, him back Hunting didn't clear them all up because Dean wasn't that lucky.

Now, the kid was hard-core mourning. He hadn't chosen to come back to the life so much as his other life had been ripped away. And as much as Dean has wanted his brother back at his side Hunting, he'd never wanted it to happen this way. As good as it felt to be working in tandem again with the one guy who fit seamlessly into the role -- in a way that even Dad didn't -- Dean would trade it back if it meant Sam would lose the darkness in his eyes. If he'd go on without nightmares, the pain and loss and need for revenge commingled on his expressive face. Complicated, complicated, complicated.

Not that anything could ever change how much Dean loved the kid. Even if he did make Dean introspective, which was all kinds of wrong.

Sam stifled a yawn. Dean stifled a sigh. If he were Hunting with Dad or even alone, the decision would have been simple: people were disappearing, ergo you Hunt, even if you don't know what's out there. But Sam couldn't have gotten more than a couple hours of sleep last night again. Dean had seen healthier looking roadkill. Sam had no business Hunting like this.

So Dean was back to complicated, the push / pull of needing to look after Sam but also do his damn job and protect the innocent.

Not that Sam had given him a choice.

Sam had been pacing the motel as he read, a sure sign that he was worried he'd fall asleep if he sat, even though he'd killed an entire pot of coffee before Dean even got up.

Sam was walking a complicated pair of figure eights between the beds, then the long ways across the room, avoiding Dean's feet and other obstacles. It was almost hypnotic and more than a little impressive since his head never lifted from the book he carried. Dean found himself missing the days Sam tripped over his own feet about once every ten minutes. Of course, there'd been a lot less of him to catch back then too. Dean remembered giving Sam a pair of knee pads as a joke and couldn't keep a little smile off his face.

The police band radio crackled to life and Dean's smile died a quick death at what it had to say: missing juvenile.

Sam froze at the words.

"We can wait one more day, Sam. Aren't you always the one who says we need to do more research and make sure we know what we're facing?" The words felt foreign in Dean's mouth. After all, Winchesters rush in where angels fear to tread, especially when kids were in danger.

But there was that tension again. A kid was in danger, but Dean didn't want Sam out there -- his kid -- when the circles under his eyes stood out like bruises and the remnants of actual bruises still colored his neck.

He couldn't protect Sam from nightmares and sleep deprivation, but from jumping into a Hunt unprepared and exhausted? That he could do.

Or not.

Dean had no intention of looking Sam in the eye. He didn't want to see the disappointment there, and he certainly didn't want to give Sam the opportunity to unleash his deadliest weapon: The Eyes of Mass Destruction, which could have convinced the wicked witch to apologize to Dorothy. But somehow Sam caught his gaze, the cheater.

Dean steeled himself. Except, there was no anger or disgust in the liquid hazel. Just understanding, tempered with the determination which was the bedrock on which all Winchesters were built.

"Dean," said Sam softly, and that one word held all the contradictions that were Sam Winchester. There was the plea of a little brother who needed Dean to fix it, the iron of Dad's convictions, the calm confidence that Dean could occasionally admit Sam had learned from him, and the resilient compassion that Dean suspected he'd inherited from their mom. It added up to a man very different from the teen who'd gotten on a bus to Stanford, yet the same in many ways. "We have to help. Please."

The teen would have demanded, the boy would have yelled. The man asked, and trusted his big brother to make the right choice. Dammit.

So now they were hiking through old growth forest dense enough that it felt more like twilight than early afternoon. They'd been in the area for three days already, and though they didn't know what was drawing people into the woods, they'd figured out the pattern of where to look. Dean was half wishing they hadn't, with Sam looking like he could fall asleep standing up and a sense of wrongness pricking at Dean like a thousand biting gnats.

Never mind that it was daytime and the birds were singing and they were experienced Hunters who were armed to the gills. Something felt off to Dean. Something had bugged him about the case from the very start.

Without a word, Sam moved up to walk next to Dean, close enough that their coat sleeves touched. It was a silent I'm okay and don't worry and get your head in the game and it made Dean's throat grow tight. Sure, sometimes it was like they were starting over, renegotiating and reworking how they fit together. But sometimes it was like Sam had never left.

Complicated. But complicated with Sam was better than simple with anyone else.

The birds went silent and Dean slid into the shadow of a giant oak and soundlessly eased his pack off, not having to consciously register Sam doing the same thing with a massive pine perfectly positioned for him to watch Dean's back.

And just like that, things were simple.

* * *

AN: No author's notes really necessary for this chapter, so I'll just tell you that my family discovered and adopted a Painter Turtle that has been dubbed Wilhelmina Mack. Now isn't your life richer for knowing that?