AN: I once read a fanfiction that was a WIP and took 5 years for the author to finish. They'd post a chapter like once every 6 months, and right when I finally gave up hope that it would ever be finished, they would update. So hey, maybe this story will also be finished. Miracles happen. (This chapter happened because I had to write brother fluff between our Sam and not our Dean for reasons).

Dean huffed around the motel room for a little while, digging through his (not really his?) bags, searching his wallet and then car and then Sam's own bags, looking for answers. Sam sat back against the headboard for most of this, eyes shut tight against the light of the lamp, rubbing his temples in an effort to ease the headache building there.

After about an hour of the stomping and what not, Sam suddenly became aware of a presence standing over him. He cracked open one eye to look at Dean.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Dean asked.

Sam sighed heavily and slid his eye closed again, "'m fine." The words didn't sound convincing, even to himself. It felt as if there was a stake being driven through his forehead at this point.

"Right," Dean said, the sarcasm dripping from his voice, "well get your shit, we're going."

"Going where, Dean?" Sam groaned. "I promise you, I promise, you're not going to find Henry anywhere. Henry hasn't even been born."

"Shut up!" Dean snaped, and Sam winced at the way his raised voice dug the stake of pain deeper between his eyes, "I'm not just gonna—what, sit around here waiting for the solution to just drop out of thin air, am I. So, either you're coming with me, or you're not. I'm not waiting around."

"Ok," Sam breathed, "ok, fine. But we're not just gonna drive around anywhere. We have a place, in Kansas."

"A—place," Dean repeated.

"Mmhmm. A bunker full of shit that could help, ok?" Sam paused and squinted at Dean to gauge his reaction, when he got none, he continued. "So if we're going anywhere, we're going there, so I can sleep in a bed where the sheets have actually been washed in this century, alright?"

"Fine."

When they finally got out to the car, Sam slid into the passenger seat and slumped against the door so that he could get a couple more hours of sleep, when Dean shoved him.

"Sam."

"What now?" He whined and opened his eyes to see Dean considering him with both eyebrows raised.

"What are you, five?"

"I'm tired. Can't I be tired? What do you want?" Sam groaned.

"Where are we going."

"Kansas," Sam told him, saying the word slowly and deliberately, and exasperated look on his face.

"No shit, Sherlock. You said that already. Where in Kansas. How the hell do we get there?" Dean questioned.

"Oh," Sam mumbled, pulling out his phone and hitting a few keys, "here, google mapped it, wake me when we get there." He shoved the phone at Dean before slumping back against the door.

Fifteen minutes later, and Sam still hadn't slipped off into sleep, his head throbbing with each jolt in the road. Sam kept huffing and adjusting himself, propping an arm against the window, then shoving his jacket there instead, anything to get more comfortable, before giving up and slouching down into his seat, chin to his chest.

Dean shifted next to him.

"Do you ah—" Dean started awkwardly, "do you always ride with me?"

"Mmhmm," Sam hummed.

"Oh," Dean stated simply.

The reply had Sam scrunching his face up, "do I not—where you're from?"

"Ah—not lately, no. Not in a while, actually," Dean admitted.

Sam peeked over at him through squinted eyes, "why not?"

"We don't, uh—I wouldn't say we're on the best of terms," Dean said.

"Huh." Sam knew there were times him and Dean fought, times where they didn't speak to each other, Hell, times Sam didn't ride around with Dean, but it certainly wasn't the norm. It certainly wasn't something he would have expected.

"Are we—here, are we on good terms?"

"Not—not lately," Sam told him honestly, "you're kind of pissed at me right now, and I'm not really sure if I can do anything to fix it—not sure I would want to if I could, knowing what 'fixing' it would probably entail." If Dean not being mad at him meant that Dean would get to do the trials, well, Sam wasn't sure that was a price he was willing to pay. Sam had no idea what the consequences were going to be down the line, but only one down so far and he was already wiped. Who knew what would happen after the third, though Sam had his suspicious it wasn't anything good.

"Well, that sounds like you, anyways," Dean grumbled bitterly.

"No! No Dean, not like that," Sam exclaimed, "it's not—I don't want you to be mad at me, I don't. But I don't want you to go and hurt yourself either, and I know—I know if I let you do the thing you wanted to do, you'd end up hurt. It's not, you not being mad at me isn't worth you getting yourself killed." Sam rubbed at his temples again, trying to relieve the ache that had steadily grown over the course of their conversation.

"Oh," Dean said again, a little unsure of himself. "But—but before all that, we were—okay?"

"We're all we've got," Sam mumbled, slouching further down, trying to find some position that didn't make his head throb. "God knows we've fucked up the world enough trying to keep it that way."

Dean was quiet for a long while before he spoke again. "Did you—uh. Here. With the—blood—and Lucifer."

"I did a lot of things I shouldn't have, Dean," Sam admitted softly, "don't gotta remind me."

"I'm not—I wasn't trying to. I was just trying to see how different, things were here," Dean explained, but he didn't press the subject further.

A long while of shifting in his seat later, Sam spoke up.

"Hey Dean?" Sam asked, a little uncertain. The request he was about to make wasn't one that his Dean always allowed in his best of moods. In fact, Sam was pretty sure the last time it had been permitted was when Sam was well into his mental break hallucinating Lucifer. And it was pretty clear that this Dean rarely had good moods when it came to Sam.

"Yeah?"

"I uh—I've got one hell of a headache, and laying up against the window—all the jolting and stuff it uh, it kind of makes it worse, but I'm so tired and—could I uh—"

"What?" Dean turned to glance at him for a moment.

"Could I uh—" he continued sheepishly, "sometimes you let me lie down, when I get car sick and stuff."

"You want me to pull over so you can lay down in the back? Sam, if you wanted to sleep, why didn't you get back there in the first place?" Dean questioned.

"No, no um, sometimes you let me lie down up here—" Sam trailed off.

"You're like eight feet tall, Sam. How the hell are you going to manage that? You couldn't even fit your entire body on your half."

"That's—well that's kind of the point."

"You want to—you want to use me as a pillow?" Dean's eyes were wide now, even if his gaze was stuck straight ahead on the road.

Sam nodded carefully and could see the way Dean's hands tightened on the wheel in response.

"And this is something you've—done before?" Dean asked carefully.

"Every now and then," Sam agreed, "more when I was younger, but—"

"Oh—o-kay," Dean stumbled over the word.

Sam didn't wait for the other man to change his mind. He curled up quickly on the seat so that his head was pressed against Dean's thigh. Dean stiffened at the touch, but Sam was so relieved that the swimming of his head had immediately eased some, he couldn't bring himself to pull away. He quickly fell into a light doze.

"Sam?" Dean asked quietly after a little while. Even though Sam heard him, he remained quiet, too out of it at that point to form a response.

"Sam?" Dean repeated, a little louder. When it became clear to Dean that Sam must be asleep, the man relaxed a fraction of an inch. He took one hand from the wheel and slowly lowered it to push a few stray strands of hair off of Sam's face, exhaling sharply at the motion. "We don't uh," Dean started, talking mostly to himself, his voice a low hush against the sound of the radio, "this is more like something I'd do with Henry, I guess. We aren't—we've never been that close. You've never, uh, needed me like that. Or maybe you did, huh? Maybe you did and I just never noticed. I don't think—I couldn't have raised both of you. I couldn't. And Henry needed me more. And I didn't think—"

Dean sighed and pulled his hand away, placing it back on the wheel. He shifted slightly. "But here—apparently it's always just been you and me, huh? God, you look like shit, Sam. I know—I know you said you were fine earlier, but you're not that great a liar. I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I know that much. Which I guess is how I know you're not lying about Henry. You're not fucking with me just for kicks. Which isn't something I'm certain my Sam wouldn't do."