Sam was quiet as Dean came into the room, he had his elbow on the table and his hand over his mouth as he stared down at the table.
"Mom and Mills are asleep." Dean told him, sitting across from him and stared at him for a moment. "What's wrong?"
Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A part of him wanted to lie to Dean, wanted to say that everything was fine and everything was okay, like they always did.
But he was tired of the lies, he was tired of hiding everything and then having it all blow up in their faces one way or the other.
Without opening his eyes he reached into his jeans pockets and pulled out a handful of blood covered tissues, placing them delicately on the table. He heard Deans sharp intake of breath and could imagine his brother tensing up.
"How long?" Dean asked, his fingers tapping on the table top anxiously.
Sam opened his eyes to stare at the napkins, not able to look up at him just yet. "Just a day."
"You coughing it up or its a nosebleed?" Dean asked him, shifting in his seat.
"Nosebleeds." Sam answered, reaching out to play with one of the napkins. "Happened in the kitchen when I was making lunch and stopped in a few seconds. But then it started and stopped again throughout the day."
He chanced a glance at his brother, a relief he didn't realize he needed when Dean was looking back at him unguarded and open.
"Anything else?" Dean asked, his fingers rubbing against each other as he watched his little brother.
"Just a headache, not sure if it has to do with the nosebleeds but," he shrugged, at this point everything meant something and nothing was too insignificant to not notice.
Dean nodded at that, Sam could see him mentally tallying everything in a list in his head.
"Thanks for telling me." Dean said quietly. "Usually...we don't. And you telling me now, it...it feels good. Means that we can work on it immediately instead of when-"
"When it blows up in our face." Sam finished for him. "Yeah, it's why I decided to tell you. I'm sick and tired of hiding and keeping secrets like this."
Dean nodded again, running his fingers along the table. "Gotta say, its makes things a lot easier. Makes it easier to talk too."
"So does this mean we're done with secrets for good now?" Sam asked, a slight tease to his tone. "No more secrets, no more lies, no more of any of that crap?"
"Now you're pushing it." Dean warned him, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "But yeah, we gotta be a good role model for our little sister."
"If we're going to try to be good role models for her we're going to need to change a lot more than just not lying." Sam told him. "Means we need to change our diets, our lifestyle, make sure that we're being healthy and good and-"
"Sam stop, baby steps." Dean interrupted. "We're doing step one and we're taking a break, a long break, before we do another step."
Sam laughed at that, unable to keep from laughing just a bit. He glanced at his blood soaked napkins and debated to throw one of them at his brother before he decided not to.
Shaking his head Dean got up and went to the mini fridge they kept stocked in the room and took two bottles of beer. He placed the both of them onto the table and opened one, then the other.
Sam reached for his bottle, waited for Dean to slide it over to him like he always did, when the bottle suddenly slid along the table and into his waiting hand.
Without Dean touching it.
The two of them stared at the bottle that was now in Sam's hand in stunned silence. Sam had reflexively wrapped his hand around it and now he let go.
"Okay." Dean finally said. "That's happening again."
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