A Brother's Sacrifice

by ayosb2000

Completely AU. John really did want Dean to have a home and for Sam to go to school. At Sonny's, Dean saw the possibility of another life, but chose family. Sam is chafing under his father's thumb. An exploration of what might have happened if Dean stood up to his father and decided that normal and hunting could co-exist. A large re-write of a previous story I wrote years ago.

17. September 2001

A/N This chapter was very hard to write. It may be even harder to read for some. It contains real details about a real national tragedy. If this is something that might be hard for you to read in depth, or upset you too much to remember, you may want to seriously consider giving it a pass. Or at least stop around the halfway point.

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I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up. ~ Dean Winchester - Devil's Trap 1x22

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Pittsburgh, PA- December 1987

Snow had been falling fairly steadily throughout the day, so when John finally clocked out and got in the Impala, he needed to drive a little more slowly than he would have liked through the ice and slush covered streets. The Impala's windshield was streaked with smeared, frosty gashes that the worn down wipers couldn't fully clean, and he wasn't about to waste his limited funds on a new set at the moment.

His body was pushing its limits of endurance between the endless hours of hunting mixed in with the ones punching a time card for the first time in a couple of years. It wasn't easy to run from legitimate job to hunting job day after day, especially when the weather had been foul like it usually was in Western Pennsylvania in the winter. The perpetual cold and damp making every joint in his body ache.

Between Christmas coming up sooner than he was financially ready for, and the friendly and not-so-subtle suggestion by Jim that the boys needed some stability once in a while, John had made the decision to put down roots for a few months in the relative anonymity of the Steel City. Normally, he eschewed larger urban areas, but Pittsburgh had a mixture of just enough convenience and small neighborhoods to be attractive temporarily.

The rent for the third floor apartment of a three family row house in one of the sketchier neighborhoods was pretty much all John could afford with his starting pay at the struggling steel mill, but it was furnished, and the downstairs neighbor lady was a semi-reliable, although fairly lazy babysitter for the boys while John was out.

A lonely, chain-smoking divorcee in her mid-forties, John suspected that her willingness to watch his kids stemmed more from her slightly desperate and lonely interest in him personally, rather than the couple of bucks he threw her way every day when he got home.

Still, she always seemed to be around and willing to help out, fortunately for him.

She wasn't exactly the maternal type, what with her preponderance of desperately slutty clothes that didn't suit a slowly widening middle aged figure, and a continuously lit cigarette dangling out of her mouth that she swore was kept away from his sons' tiny lungs. But it was an adult presence in the apartment in case of emergency, and John didn't have the luxury of being terribly picky.

John knew better than anyone that people could be just as, if not more than evil than some of the things he hunted. Before he left his kids in her care, he covertly did the standards tests that cleared her of any supernatural afflictions or tendencies. He also knew that Dean was solicitous enough about his little brother's happiness and safety that he would have immediately told John if she treated them badly in his absence.

So far the only grumbled complaints his firstborn had voiced regarding Ms. Chancey was that all she really cared about was Dynasty and bedtimes.

If a fondness for crap television and a desire to get his kids to go to sleep on time for a change were the only things John had to worry about while he was out on the hunt, he was counting himself lucky.

He worked a long day shift at the mill six days a week, and was usually either researching or out on the hunt once the boys had been fed dinner. With them getting a little older, it was becoming easier in his mind to leave them in the care of another for short periods of time, and if he had to do a little gratuitous flirting with a women he had zero interest in to ensure their safety and protection in his absence, well….he'd done worse things in life.

Trudging up the stairs today took more energy out of him than it normally would, and John half suspected that he was coming down with the flu that Dean was already recuperating from and that Sammy was still deep in the throes of. A trip to the walk-in clinic down the road a few days ago had resulted in some budget tightening antibiotics for both boys, and John already knew that he wouldn't be wasting any cash for more on himself.

He would maybe consider taking tonight off and rest to give his body a chance to heal on its own as a compromise.

The apartment was fairly quiet when he unlocked the door and strode in. The ancient steam radiators pumping out enough heat to make it cozy, which was a nice change from some of the places he had needed to park his kids. A lot of borderline slumlords were almost unfailingly stingy when it came to the quality of the utilities they provided, and John was especially grateful that he didn't need to worry about warmth with two sick kids at home this time around.

Although, he suspected that it was more because this particular landlord lived on the first floor himself, and there was no way to separate the heating system between units, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As was usual these days, Dean was laying on his stomach in front of the television. A bad habit he was immediately falling into after the bus dropped him off after school. Day after day, John would return home to find his eldest deeply engrossed in late afternoon programming.

As quick as he could, Dean turned his head just long enough to give his dad a rushed perfunctory hello and then was right back to being glued to the screen. More than once, John had given the boy a stern lecture on the dangers of distractions for that level of dismissal, but he just didn't have it in him today.

Especially with an audience.

On the sofa, Sammy was bundled under a blanket, his chubby little four year old face still flushed with a slight fever. He gave his father a pathetically sad pleading stare with glazed hazel eyes that screamed out for comfort and John immediately scooped him up, blanket at all, and plopped down in the recently vacated spot with his youngest cuddled in his lap. John could feel the heat radiating from his little boy's skin as Sammy burrowed into his chest, clearly glad to see his father.

That was when John made up his mind to definitely stay home.

"Poor thing," Rita Chancey clucked, overly sincere as she pursed her poorly made up lips in Sammy's direction. "It's always hard to see a little one suffer."

John mentally rolled his eyes over her false concern. He had enough skill reading people to detect her bullshit a mile away, and the way she shifted in the easy chair next to the couch to draw attention to her underwhelming cleavage was almost laughable in its attempt to be flirtatious. He restrained, because he still needed her good graces for as long as they stayed around, so he gave her his most charming smile instead.

"I appreciate all the attention you've been giving him, Rita."

The playful lilt in his voice struck just the right chord with her and she beamed a worn, slightly grotesque smile at him. John was apparently wrong about just how much attention Dean was paying them since he heard his firstborn snort quietly while never glancing away from the TV.

Suddenly John was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to feed his boys and get them all settled in for the evening. Rita had been overtly hinting for an evening of company between the two of them for days now, so he knew it was going to be tricky getting rid of her, but even the exertion of faux romantic banter was too much to endure at the moment.

"I think the boys have shared their flu with me," he said, with a heavy amount of carefully constructed regret in his voice. "I'll be staying in tonight with them, and heading to bed early."

He could see on her face that she wanted to object. To offer assistance and a further push for friendship with benefits after bedtime. Crafting a reasonable case for her continuing presence in their apartment in an effort to solidify a place in his affections, but she must have seen something in John's eyes tonight that convinced her to make a graceful retreat.

Reluctantly she stood up and plastered a forced smile on her face as she straightened out the wrinkles in her skirt that was simply too short. Mary would have had a few choice words to say about that.

"If you need anything," Rita simpered, eyelashes fluttering. "Anything at all. You know where I'll be, John."

John smiled wider, his teeth almost predatory in their sharpness. Pushing every bit of charm he could into his expression, even though he wanted her gone.

Like...yesterday.

"Thanks, Rita. You're a sweetheart. Boys, say thank you to Ms. Chancey for being kind enough to watch you today."

Obediently, Dean turned around long enough to say the words prompted by his father, with just a little too much insincerity that would normally have gotten him reprimanded if John wasn't so physically and mentally wiped out. Sammy snaked a tiny arm out from underneath the blanket just long enough to give her a shy wave before he curled it around his father's neck, shifting just enough to bury his face in John's shoulder.

As Rita reluctantly closed the door behind her, John frowned when he felt the blistering warmth of his son's forehead against his own skin, made only more concerning when Sammy slipped a surreptitious thumb in his mouth. Sammy had been weaned off his thumb for well over a year, only falling back into babyish behavior when he truly felt awful. Looking over at the starburst clock on the wall, John realized that it was almost time for the boys' next dose of antibiotics.

"Dean, what time did you two have lunch today?"

Still looking at the screen in rapt attention, Dean's answer is hurried and too distracted for his father's tastes. John preferred to have his sons' full attention when he addressed them, because it was never too early for them to learn that mistakes can be made in the blink of an eye when you disregarded your surroundings and your orders in a combat situation.

"Ms. Chancey made sandwiches at noon, but Sammy didn't eat his."

Sighing, John brushed damp bangs from Sammy's forehead. In his arms, his youngest was like a tiny furnace pumping out a million BTUs of paternal panic inducing worry. The fever he had been battling over the last couple of days clearly creeping back up. Sammy could be fussy at mealtimes, but he never outright refused to eat what was put in front of him.

John wouldn't stand for his boys to skip meals. Not just because of their own sometimes precarious situation, but because it was how he was raised himself.

Sam was going to need something lining his stomach before he took his medication, especially if he hadn't eaten anything since the oatmeal his father had coaxed into him that morning. On a different day, John would already be pulling out pots and pans to rustle up some dinner for his kids, but today he wasn't doing too well himself and he was even more unwilling to let go of his sick kid when Sammy was being so clingy.

As usual, money was tight, especially since John couldn't afford to use his fake cards anywhere in the area where his face was known and his oldest had to go to school. He had also been steadily paying off the Christmas gifts he had put on layaway for the boys, but he was just about caught up with that, so he wasn't completely broke at the moment.

Payday was only two days away, and with the extra hours he had managed to put in over the weekend, it should be a fairly good check. Tired, hungry and worn out, he decided on splurging for take out instead.

"What do you think kiddo?," he said softy, his head tilted against his son's sweaty brow. "Will you eat some Chinese soup so Daddy can give you something to make your head feel better?"

He felt an almost imperceptible nod against his shoulder as Sammy gripped his shirt collar a little tighter. Poor little guy looked as rough as John felt, and his heart ached in sympathy for his son's misery. From the television John heard the distantly familiar chimes of a firehouse alarm, and with the way his kid was staring himself bug-eyed at the screen, the action must have been about to start.

It took John a minute to recognize the show Dean was watching, and he felt a small smirk of amusement pass over his lips. With the cast of decidedly too pretty fireman and the cheesy dialogue, he remembered having watched Emergency! more than once with Mary a decade ago. She would laugh and tease him and profess overly exaggerated affinity for men in uniform.

Ah, the wonders of syndicated television.

"Dean, grab the take out menu for Plum Garden, will ya?"

"Aw Dad, can it wait a minute? The commercial will be on soon."

It was on the tip of John's tongue to scold his son for his disobedience, because Dean knew better than to not do what he was told as soon as he was told, but he refrained. His firstborn never asked for much consideration for himself, even as a young boy of only eight. Always ready, willing and able to help care for his little brother.

Sometimes John had to remind himself of the unfair expectations he laid on his oldest child.

Right now Sammy was quiet and almost half asleep in John's arms, and John wasn't so sure he could make himself eat at the moment either. They clearly had some time to spare. For once, Dean could exert a little rebellion and watch his show until the break just as long as he didn't make a habit of it.

Twenty minutes later found them all lumped on the couch together. Dean had dashed into the kitchen during a commercial for Doublemint gum that was entirely too colorful and perky for John to appreciate in his current state of mind, and the exceptionally quick Chinese place down the street had already come and delivered their dinner. John was pretty sure that they must have a psychic working for them, since they never seemed to wait longer than ten minutes for a food delivery.

Sammy was now propped up against his father's shoulder. His small frame drooping with feverish lethargy as John slowly spooned scoops of wonton soup in his tiny rosebud mouth, but at least he was eating. Next to them, Dean was putting away large forkfuls of lo mein like it was a competitive sport, his eyes still glued to the show.

Not usually interested in the humdrum world of low budget televised entertainment, John allowed himself to be drawn in. A wave of nostalgia washing over him as he remembered better times with his beautiful wife, when the two of them would cuddle on the couch and forget the rest of the world for a while. He's even fairly sure that he had already watched this particular episode once or twice, and then proved it to himself by predicting the end.

Although that could just be his sharpened investigative skills at play.

Sammy is a human thermal reactor pressed against his chest, John's skin sweating from his son's elevated body heat, the extra blanket and what is unmistakably the increase in the tired father's own core temperature. Without being asked, Dean retrieved the glass thermometer from the cup on the sink in the bathroom where John has been leaving it for quick access and sanitizing. His youngest's temperature is slightly lower now that he has been dosed with the prescription meds and a Children's Tylenol broken in half.

Thankfully, Dean seems almost completely over the bug that is wreaking havoc over his other family members. Then again, John's firstborn is rarely kept down by anything for long, as if his will is strong enough to keep him on his toes and ready for whatever may come at him.

An admirable trait in an adult man, but one that darkens John's bleary eyes with worry and shame when he ponders the reality that he has played some part in that himself.

Together, they watch the end credits in silence. It's still very early, but John is prepared to pull rank right now and shuffle his kids off to bed. Somehow it always seems easier to get compliance in the wintertime, when the sky is dark early and the thought of a soft warm bed makes resistance to sleep less likely. Sammy is already half gone anyways, and as much as Dean would like to make the world believe that he is indestructible, he's still battling the last vestiges of flu as well.

They all know that both brothers will rest a little easier if they are bundled into their shared bed together. Neither one of them has ever really done well without the other right by his side.

"Bedtime, boys," John announces wearily, carefully lifting Sam up in his arms as he pushes himself to his feet.

He can tell that Dean wants to protest and posture, but one look at Sammy's flushed pink face has the older brother resigned and complacent. Ever helpful, the eight year old cleans up the remains of dinner while John helps his youngest in the bathroom. Making sure that Sammy uses the toilet, because he's still young enough to have the occasional accident when he's not feeling well, and John has been pushing fluids since he arrived home from work.

To spare himself an unnecessary fight, he skips getting Sammy's teeth brushed when the little boy tries to climb back up into his arms, and settles for getting him dressed in clean and dry pajamas instead. The ones he had been wearing all day are damp with sweat and covered in splotches of spilled soup, and John drops them into the makeshift hamper in the corner of the boys' room, making a mental note that laundry needs to be done soon.

Taught by his father to be quick in his movements, Dean washes up for bed and gets into his own pjs, and he's already under the blankets waiting by the time John has Sammy re-dressed. John tucks his already slumbering youngest under the covers next to his brother and presses a kiss to Sam's warm forehead.

Dean's old enough to have started to protest against a good night kiss from his father, but tonight John catches the quick wistful spark in his firstborn's eyes. He's not going to push affection on Dean, but he does go around to the other side of the bed to sit next to his eldest son for a moment.

"You really liked that show, didn't you kiddo."

Dean's vibrant green eyes light up and a huge grin spreads out over his freckled face, so pure and innocent that John has a quick stab of a reminder of just how young the boy really is. His oldest is a complex mixture of son, hunting partner and best friend on occasion, even at this tender age, and it takes a second for his father to see him as the small boy he actually is sometimes.

"I'm going to be a fireman someday, Dad!"

John chuckles as he presses a warm affectionate hand to Dean's hip over the blanket and gives him a quick pat. With all of the scary baggage John brings home routinely, he's suddenly inordinately pleased that his firstborn still has the typical childish ambitions of any other eight year old.

How many times did John and his own friends at that age express a desire to be something similar in the future?

I wanna be a policeman.

I wanna be a doctor.

I wanna be a fireman.

One whole minute goes by while John reassures himself that he might not have screwed up his kid for life after all.

"You are, huh?" John asks, smiling widely under his beard. "What makes you say that?"

Dean's grin grows wider, if that's even possible. He's so excited that John fears for half a second that the unconscious bouncing that Dean's now doing will be enough to rouse Sammy from his feverish sleep.

"Because they're cool, Dad," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "And they save people all the time. They're heroes."

John has to chuckle softly at that, because he can't debate it.

It's true.

Of course, what he does saves people too, and there is half a heartbeat where he feels slightly hurt by the idea that maybe his son doesn't see what his dad does the same way John sees himself. Then, like usual, his bright and sensitive boy surprises him once again.

"I mean, you save people too, Dad," Dean whispers conspiratorially, since Sammy is still out of the loop.

And John smiles and nods his head, ashamed of his first knee jerk reaction, because it's his own insecurity that has him worried that his children will never understand his motivations for essentially robbing them of a stable home during these formative years.

"But," and Dean continues, a little unsure now as his face puckers into a frown and he shoots sad eyes at John, desperately pleading for his father's understanding, "I want to save them from fires."

The underlining meaning there hits John like a Mack truck, sucking all the air from his lungs as he fully comprehends just exactly how dedicated and mature his eight year old is after all. It's not the first or the last time he worries about exactly how much of Mary's death Dean oversaw and still remembers.

That night, John puts aside his determination to stop babying his firstborn for a moment, and he gathers Dean up in his arms and holds him close for a while before tucking him in with a kiss.

Promising himself that he won't let either of them forget his son's childhood dreams.

/

Stage Two: Anger

/

Every step ached.

Not that it wasn't to be expected. Not after the extent of his injuries. Without being told, Dean knew that the ache he felt now would only become more pronounced as the weather turned colder.

Something about how a broken bone that never truly mended all the way reminded you to be more careful in the future.

After what seemed like an incredibly horrible nightmare, he was finally feeling free of all of the constriction of the past weeks, but sadly was still almost invalid in physical strength in his mind. The casts that kept him immobilized in practically straitjacket confinement left behind a phantom suppressing sensation that he couldn't seem to shake. The lack of the regular vigorous physical exertions he was used to engaging in resulting in low stamina and short breaths.

His body was weak now. Almost two full months of being, more or less, off his feet and pampering his fractured limbs back to life.

A Winchester didn't baby his body.

Couldn't afford to.

Their lives were too jacked up to allow indulgence and complacency, and their job was too strenuous and unfortunately too necessary to ignore. Because of those very real factors, their bodies were every bit as important to the successful completion of a hunt as the weapons they carried.

You can't be soft and weak when you are in a constant run for your own life.

He wasn't yet up for running in the morning. Not like he had every day before with…

No...don't go there.

When it came to certain aspects of his life, Dean was every bit a creature of habit. As much as he wanted to get back into a routine, his recently broken leg wasn't going to hold up under the stress of pounding the pavement in a conditioning run at the moment.

Nothing really felt good or familiar right now, and it irritated him to be less than his usual strong self, like a foreign itch under his skin that he couldn't scratch at.

Grudgingly, he knew that he needed to heed his father's strict orders to avoid putting unnecessary pressure on his vulnerable limb until it had more time to fully heal. Until then, he would have to make do with a daily brisk low impact walk around the neighborhood.

Like some sort of candy ass crybaby that couldn't handle a little pain, and the more he thought about that comparison, the more he realized that he hadn't really done anything to disabuse his father of that notion in the past month. What with the way he had wallowed like a teenage girl getting dumped the day before prom and was coping by holing up in her room and mainlining the giant Whitman's Sampler box.

Ignoring the increasing pain, with his jaw set firmly in a molar crushing clench, he powered his way down the uneven sidewalk, taking care to avoid the stray tree roots spilling up from the ground that threatened to dislodge the large stone slabs. In the air he could smell the heralding scents of a brisk fall in the near future. The slightly earthy tang of decaying greenery riding the wind and kicking up mental images of leaf piles and snatches of Indian Summer afternoons.

Already the leaves were losing a little of their vibrant tint. It would still be awhile before a full foliage was in bloom, but you could almost sense a change taking place. The days were growing a little shorter. The breeze a little cooler and fresher. It was wet and slippery today from a brief shower earlier, scattering fallen leaves plastered into the stones, and the dampness in the air wasn't helping the dull throbbing of either his leg or shoulder.

Dean had missed the entirety of the summer while he was holed up inside the hospital and then the house, and he was now finding himself neck deep in early autumn, feeling more than a little disoriented by lack of focus over the passage of time.

Missing his usual warm weather pursuits of driving flat out with the windows rolled all the way down while Led Zeppelin thundered from his car speakers. Finding swimming holes in the small towns they made their own for a week or two here and there. Where the local girls invariably competed to see who could wear the tiniest bikini, and every local guy got taken down a peg when they realized that Dean could have his pick of their girlfriends.

Watching two-for-one double features at the ubiquitous old school drive-ins, and stuffing Sammy with junk food from the concession stand and the contraband beer that Dean would pile in the green cooler and hide under blankets in the back seat. Sammy grinning at the carefree easiness of it all, without the pinched frown that routinely painted his young face.

Fuck

Stop thinking, Dean.

Early September had always meant getting prepared for the new school year.

Finding a school somewhere close enough to Dad's next job that he could come home to them at night, but not so close they were in any danger of getting hurt. Getting registered and classes situated by using his not insubstantial charm to wheedle his way through spotty records and missed deadlines with love struck office clerks that had no business flirting with a kid half their age, but did anyway.

Using the funds Dean had spent the summer squirreling away to augment the wad of cash that Dad would hand him to buy new-to-them clothes and notebooks and pens and whatever else was on the supply list that was pushed at him with their schedules.

Back to school for less prosperous families meant that you needed to hit Goodwill and Salvation Army early if you wanted to get shirts and pants that didn't actually look like they came from thrift shops. Making sure that you didn't pick out anything too ostentatious, because styles for teenagers changed fast, or too easily recognizable because kids from small towns could be cruel if they saw the new boy wearing what was clearly their cast offs from last year.

Dean preferred basic for his own wardrobe, but his annoyingly particular little brother started yearning for quality early on.

Sometimes Dean had allowed trendier and upmarket used items to be purchased, if they were still in good shape, with the clear understanding that they didn't get worn until the next town.

The next school.

A place where the Winchesters wouldn't be looked down on or made fun of for wearing a shirt they never could have afforded when it was new and had routinely been seen the previous year being worn by the rich asshole that got his kicks from picking on the less popular students.

It seemed foreign to Dean to not be worried about those details right now. For the first time since he was a young boy himself, there was no first day of school concerns to address and focus on.

No one needing him to…

Suddenly, he was feeling rudderless.

Alone and adrift on an ocean of uselessness and loneliness.

Dad was finally gone.

A thought that would have given Dean significant pause just a scant couple of weeks ago when he sat in stony silence with his world spinning out of control around him. Blocking out all thought and sensation except for the necessary tasks of a rudimentary simple existence.

Now it just seemed like a chance for Dean to fully exhale the breath he had been holding, painful and tight in his chest for close for a month.

Not that he didn't appreciate his father's efforts to care for him, because he did.

As helpless as an infant while he was wrapped up like a broken mummy, Dean didn't know what he would have done if he had been hurt and Dad was too far away, or too busy, or too something, to help Dean with everything from getting dressed to taking a piss.

Dad never gave him one word of reproach over his injuries. Not a single comment or harsh look to convey his displeasure over the necessity of having to babysit Dean during a long month of convalescence. Even though Dean knew that his father must have felt that his firstborn's carelessness and weakness was keeping him from a much higher calling for his time.

On a subconscious level, Dean knew that it wasn't strictly his fault that he had been hurt, but the larger part of him, the part that always endlessly shouldered the weight of the welfare and happiness of his family, still felt a strip of pride taken from him for his lack of attention and professionalism on the job.

Regardless of his father's non-existent chastisement for it.

And really, it was the silence that was the most disconcerting. Dad was never one to hide his anger and frustration.

Although, if there was anything that truly surprised him about the whole situation surrounding his accident, recovery and overall drama, it was that his father stuck around long enough in the first place.

Outwardly, Dean has always given John the benefit of the doubt. For his own sake, as well as the other people in their lives who have not always been kind when it came to their opinions on how the Winchester brothers were being raised. Dean could usually do a pretty decent job of at least convincing himself that his father acted in what he believed to be his family's best interests.

Of course, nothing in these past few weeks made any sense, so it probably should not have shocked Dean as much as it did. The idea that somehow his father had chosen to put Dean's needs above all others, when history had taught him that he should have been expected to man up and deal with the hits of life as they came at him.

Play through the pain because life doesn't stop for anyone, Boy.

If he had been pressed to name a potential caretaker before his accident in July, he would have chosen...Sam...to be the one who would stick by him, without hesitation.

Which, apparently, just goes to show you how much Dean actually knows about his family after all. Making him wonder if all the good points of John Winchester that Dean had always taken such pains to detail to others were actually the real deal, and not just the fervent defensive fallback position of a loyal and dedicated son.

With Sam's abandonment of the Winchester ship, having Dean's faith so well and truly shaken by one of the things he had always considered a constant unnerved him in a way that no ghost or other supernatural unknown quantity ever had.

Suddenly, everything he ever thought he knew was now subject to reevaluation.

What was black was now white. What was wrong was now right.

And the little brother that Dean had always thought he could count on had fucked off to the land of milk and honey, thousands of miles away and not giving a single rat's ass about the gaping hole he had punched through Dean's chest without remorse or hesitation.

His mind distracted and troubled, Dean wasn't necessarily strolling around his neighborhood, but he wasn't rushing himself either.

Besides the dull pain in his leg and shoulder as he moved around, was the general overall winded nature of his breathing that was a kick in the crotch reminder of how fragile his physical state truly was. It was remarkable, really, just how out of shape you could get while spending time on your ass, doing nothing but questioning the direction of your life.

After a month of waiting for him to come home, Dean was simply done with his little brother.

There was only so much hope you could hold out for. Only so much benefit of the doubt you could realistically afford to give someone. Dean had stubbornly clung on to the increasingly desperate notion that he couldn't have misjudged his little brother so badly.

To accept that Sam had always been planning on leaving was a sharp stab of pain enforcing just how wrong Dean had been about their relationship.

Eventually, we all need to come to the conclusion that sometimes the people in our lives that we thought had our back, simply didn't.

It had been so ridiculously easy for Sam to walk out that door. He hadn't even needed to take a night to think about it. After Dad had gone storming out, Dean's little brother had gone upstairs and gathered his things and returned to the living room so quickly that he could have already been packed for all Dean knew.

Questions whirled around in Dean's mind like a tsunami.

How long had Sam been keeping that secret from him?

Before Dean's accident?

Before graduation?

Before his big fight with Dad?

Since his trip there in February?

Since last summer when he asked about living with Jim Murphy?

How long had he been playing Dean for a fool?

How many times had he flat out lied to Dean about his plans and intentions for the future?

It was that last question that hurt most of all. That Dean simply had no idea of how little Sam had valued their brotherhood. That his little brother had been playing the long game behind Dean's back the entire time. All the while, Dean had been acting the fool, faithfully working and planning to make a life for them all, here in this little quiet neighborhood.

Away from all the darkness that usually plagued them.

If that wasn't enough to make Dean feel like a prized sucker, he didn't know what was.

Once Dean was back on his feet and able to take care of all his needs on his own again, Dad had come straight out and told him that he needed to be gone for a little while. That there was something he needed to do, and did Dean want to come with him?

They didn't mention it in so many words, but Dean knew where John was heading. Sam might have callously left his family in his rear view, but that didn't mean that Dad had forgotten that he had two sons to be looked after.

Dean knew that his father would strike out for California, and do whatever he felt he could to at least satisfy his own mind that his youngest was as safe as it was in John's powers to make him.

Once upon a time, Dean would have been leading that charge under other circumstances. Riding hell bent for leather to make sure that his kid brother was okay and cared for.

Now Dean simply didn't have it in him.

It's not that he had stopped loving his brother. That was never going to happen, no matter how much Sam tore his heart into hamburger.

Dean just couldn't take any more rejection from the kid at the moment. He wasn't going to be the pathetic person that forced himself into Sam's new life, when it was glaringly obvious to anyone that his little brother wanted nothing more to do with his family.

Dad could go ahead and storm in, charging like a bull and pushing his will on everyone around him, like usual, but that wasn't the kind of person Dean was. As far as he was concerned, after Sam grew up a little and realized the mistakes he made, he was welcome back in Sioux Falls, but the kid was going to have to make the first move.

Mr. Peterson, their octogenarian neighbor from three houses down, was running a push mower over his postage stamp sized yard as Dean walked by. Stubbornly giving his lawn one of the last mows of the season and filling the air in the immediate space with the pungent herbal scent of fresh cut grass.

Dean had learned to love that aroma during their time in Sioux Falls. It smelled of calm and lazy days and home.

Although they had never really spoken to each other, each man waved to the other, in the way that neighbors do in sweet little residential areas like this one. Where children grew up playing together, and everyone came to group barbecues like the one that Dean had missed for Labor Day weekend last Sunday, even though an invitation had appeared in his mailbox.

Still feeling too raw to interact with the relative strangers who had needed almost an entire year to warm up to the concept of quiet, low key brothers that never caused a fuss.

He didn't stop now to idly chat either. Not that he ever did, and nor was it expected.

The people that lived in the houses around them had always been distantly polite to the Winchesters. The way folks are about the unknown quantities near their homes, keeping an eye out for any signs of brewing trouble that would interfere with their Stepford happy lives. But since the brothers had never given anyone reason to be uncomfortable by their presence, eventually cautious stares had turned to civil smiles and casual waves. Then to vocal greetings and community invitations.

It was all so respectable.

Sam had always struggled for normalcy, so Dean had worked to provide it. But, in the end, it simply hadn't been enough apparently for the fickle little brother who pioneered the concept of always wanting more.

The empty bedroom down the hall from Dean's being proof of that.

Feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden, like there were dozens of eyes peeking out from the tastefully hung drapes in every pretty little house surrounding him, Dean quickened his pace to hurry his return back to his own home. Not wanting to enmesh himself in any more potential social interactions at the moment. It only taking five more minutes of long strides to have him safely in the comfort zone of their driveway.

The Impala sitting steady and proud in her normal space. Sleek, shiny and reassuring. Patiently waiting for Dean to finally climb back behind the wheel and take her out where she belonged.

Where he belonged.

The open road.

On the hunt.

Where Dean's talents and care could truly make a difference, instead of in this house, mocking him with its emptiness, where he had been fooling himself for almost a year.

Next to her sat Dad's pickup. A few tons of Detroit steel, reassuring him that his father would be back after his trip west. At least, that's what Dean suspected when Dad told him that he was borrowing one of Bobby's road ready beaters for the long drive out.

If the Sierra, with its hidden and formidable arsenal, was left behind in Sioux Falls, it was a sure sign that John would be back for it. Convincing a shaken and insecure son that he wasn't being abandoned by his father as well as his brother.

It might have helped. Dean didn't think too much about the inference these days. The glaring absence of the Camaro being more of what he subconsciously concentrated on as he loped up to the porch.

Bobby had been by a week ago to tow Cherry back to the salvage yard.

At Dean's request.

Soon Dean would be gone. Likely for weeks at a time, and he didn't want anyone getting the opportunity to mess with her in his absence. She would be safer at Bobby's until Sam came back home to reclaim ownership of her.

Dean wasn't going to pretend that it hadn't just about finished the job of killing him off when his little brother handed the keys over without a word. To act like this labor of love from his big brother meant less than nothing to him. Just another piece rent from Dean's soul that had been freely given and blithely thrown back in his face.

Because he wanted to give his little brother the benefit of the doubt, Dean was going to chose to believe that Sam had a less hurtful reason to discard a gift that Dean had taken such care to provide. That it hadn't been just another cold rebuff of everything their lives together had stood for and was no longer wanted.

It was probably naive to see it that way, but when you are already holding onto the ledge of sanity by your rapidly slipping fingertips, you made excuses and false promises to yourself to ensure that you didn't fall completely off and tumble helplessly into the abyss.

The house was empty and quiet when he returned. Of course it was, since there was no one there anymore to make a sound. Not that Sam had ever been a loud kid just by himself. Nose usually more likely stuck in a book, and even when he had music playing, it would be filtered through the headphones of Dean's ancient Walkman.

Still, just having the overall presence of another person gave the house life, as well as the subliminal feeling that conversation could be had if it was sought out. With Dad gone now, and Dean being the only one in residence at the moment, the emptiness was palpable. So when he made his way inside, more out of need to cut through the silence than interest, he clicked on the television, chose a channel at random and turned the volume up.

High.

The stiffness in his shoulder was beginning to make an unwelcome return, so he dry swallowed two ibuprofen tablets. He had big bottles of the good stuff of course, but they made him feel like his brain was nothing more than a clump of cotton most of the time. Increasingly needing his head to start clearing, they had already found their way into the first aid kit in the Impala days ago.

Lord knew that they would come in handy after whatever really nasty hunt he had coming up in his future, and he knew there would eventually be one, that would require the edge to be taken off by prescription meds.

He had spent a couple of days tinkering for Bobby at the salvage yard, doing small jobs over the last week. After his accident, the routine repair work had tapered off when people learned that he was out of commission for a while, although there were still more than a few willing to wait for him to have a block of time available. There were three cars that were perfect candidates for his next rebuilds, but at the moment he didn't have the physical upper body strength to do some of the tasks required.

Although another month or so of reconditioning would have him golden, and he was looking forward to using his hands to salvage beauty again after so much destruction in his life.

Dad hadn't called in yet today, so Dean still had no instructions or directions to occupy his mind and body in the way that they would routinely default. Without another purpose to fulfill him at the moment, his inner hunter was getting increasingly restless during his wait for his father to give him orders for the next job. Even though he knew that John was less than convinced that his firstborn was entirely ready to be back out in the field.

The two of them had engaged in a rather heated debate about that very topic just before Dad took off for California. Dean was convinced that his father was just being overly protective, and he knew that if he didn't get out of this house in the very near future, his overall mental health would be at risk.

Once Dean had made his objections to joining his father on his trip out to Sam's new home, he stated his intention to pack up and head back out on the road on his own. It was a bold statement to make, because even full bodied and healthy Dean had never been allowed to hunt alone. Not at all unsurprisingly, Dad had not taken that idea well. Going so far as to order Dean to stay put until he returned, and fully expecting his order to be obeyed without question.

At twenty-two, Dean should have taken more umbrage with the mandate than he did. But he knew, just as surely as John did, that he wouldn't take on a job without his father's consent and input. Too many years of trained obedience and hardwired adherence to his father's judgment were hard to swallow back when a large part of Dean's makeup was already in shambles.

Considering everything he had just been through, Dean already knew that Dad wasn't going to allow his firstborn to be very far from his side in the immediate future. Once upon a time, that idea might have been met with a rolling of the eyes and a smirk over the unnecessary over-protectiveness of his father.

Now it just made Dean feel like a fragile, broken baby bird, and that wasn't an image of himself that he wanted anyone to have.

He had spent his entire life working and fighting and punching. Pushing and shoving and stomping and killing.

He was a warrior, Goddamn it! Not a damsel in distress, and Fuck Dad for treating him like one.

Fuck Sam too.

For not doing his job and almost getting himself killed.

For not being able to shut his mouth for once and stop fighting with their father.

For being the one to force Dean's guard down and making him into something to be pitied and laughed at.

For walking away and treating their brotherhood like it was nothing.

Fuck you, Sam. You selfish and inconsiderate little asshole.

Happy to take, take, take and then take some more, without even caring who you hurt in the process.

Just. Fuck. You.

Standing in the middle of his very empty house, looking into the mirror hanging next to the staircase and seeing a virtual stranger staring back at him, Dean felt the walls start to close in and his breath come in desperate choking gasps as the panic attack set in. Knowing as surely as he knew his own name in that moment that if he didn't get out, he was going to suffocate.

He just simply couldn't be there one moment longer, in a place that used to be filled with happiness and laughter and love and now just mocked him with its crushing silence and still air.

Forcing himself to regulate his erratic breathing, mind made up, he climbed the stairs as fast as his aching leg would let him. He ignored the closed door of Sam's bedroom, the one he hadn't opened since the day his little brother walked away, and headed into his own pristine room. Pulling his go bag from the closet, he grabbed his large duffel as well and started loading it with additional clothes.

With a slight air of disgust, he shucked his too loose and too comfortable civilian clothes. Tossing them in his hamper, when really they were destined for the trash heap on his return at some point in the distant future. Fabric reminders of a time when he wasn't able to keep his collective shit together long enough to stand on his own two feet.

He donned a tight black tee that stretched across bulging chest muscles not yet adversely affected by his recent injury. Throwing a dark gray flannel over it before he pulled on his favorite, soft faded jeans and feeling the familiarity drape over him like a warm blanket.

The ones with organic rips in the knees from too much use and too little money to replace them, as opposed to the strategically distressed kind that privileged little snots paid ridiculous money to pretend they were bad asses instead of the pampered pussies they were.

The kind that Sam would probably buy someday, after too many years of soft college living and obstinately forgetting exactly where he came from.

A quick stop in the bathroom had him rubbing a disgruntled hand over the weeks of growth on his face. Too preoccupied and lethargic to be bothered shaving it off while he wallowed in his own misery. Against his will, Dad had dragged him off to the barber for a haircut last week. So he could have looked worse than he did at the moment, but he still looked far removed from the handsome young man he had always prided himself in being.

A sink full of soapy hot water had the mirror heavily steamed up by the time his razor was almost completely dulled by the heavy task of shaving the bristly camouflage away. There was no denying the slight gauntness of his cheeks or a faint sickly pallor to his skin. A result of his significantly decreased appetite and increased apathy. Still, he felt more like himself than he had in weeks, and the uptick in personal comfort gave renewed life to his shocking green eyes as he wiped his face clean of stray blobs of cream.

Working with ingrained efficiency, he packed his toiletry bag with all the necessities he would need for the immediate future. Having a home base over the past year had given rise to a new indulgent preference in specific personal items as opposed to making due with the generic offerings of temporary housing, resulting in a more crowded pack than he usually carried from motel to motel.

Another sign of his forced domesticity that now stood as harsh reminder that he was forgetting his roots.

Regardless, it still didn't take long to rearrange everything. Years of living on the road made packing up into a science and it was only a handful of minutes before he was heading back down the stairs.

Moving now with real purpose, he thew his bags on the couch and strode into the kitchen to tidy up in there. Having spent the last few days living on take out delivery, he tossed everything perishable from inside the fridge into the trash, closed up the bag and dragged it outside for garbage collection. Knowing that it would be a while before he would be back.

From the bookshelf in the living room, he grabbed the hollowed out book that held his emergency cash. He had a decent amount of money in his checking account. The one that was in his real name and was tied to the real bank card that he kept tucked in a separate slot of his wallet, away from his phony cards.

The Cougar rebuild he had finished before the disaster hunt had yielded an unprecedented share of almost eight thousand dollars for him. The buyer was a hard core collector with money to burn, and both he and Bobby were thrilled with the end result, but neither of them had been as pleased as Dean had been with his portion of the proceeds.

He had been planning on taking Sammy on a graduation trip, anywhere the kid wanted to go, with some of the money before everything had gone to shit.

Now he was saving that money to upkeep the house for a while. Back out on the road, he could start up the scams and the hustling to make his way once again. Thinking about that had him realizing that he couldn't remember the last time he was even in a bar. Probably on their way to DC months ago, and wasn't that just a sad sorry state of affairs.

Even more sad was trying to recall the last time he had enjoyed the pleasure of a woman, and just the idea of that stirred some interest behind the tight zipper of his jeans.

There was close to two grand in emergency cash, and he grabbed half that and stuffed it in his wallet for seed money. Kicking off his running shoes, he grabbed his boots out of the hall closet and laced them up, his feet filling out the familiar curves of the leather like old friends. Just the feel of them, strong and sturdy, had him subtly relaxing.

More confident now in his own skin, he finished closing up shop in the house, the silent walls bouncing back the sounds of his heavy footfalls as he gave everything a final check before hefting his bags on his good shoulder and locking up behind him.

Pulling the Impala's keys from his pants pocket, he opened the trunk and dropped his bags on the false bottom, already feeling better about his decision. By the time he slipped into the familiar curves of the front seat, hugging him like he was born to be her driver, his hands lovingly caressing the steering wheel, he could feel that familiar spark of life beginning to sizzle its way through his veins. He turned the ignition on for the first time in two months, the rumble of her powerful engine sending vibrations through his weakened limbs and giving them strength.

Feeling more alive than he had in a long time, Dean cranked up the radio, the loud, pulsing bass line of Smoke on the Water piercing the subtle peace of suburbia. He guided his baby carefully out of the driveway with smooth precision and sat for a quick moment in the middle of the street. With one last glance at his house, a mile wide smile breaking out across his beautiful face, he stomped on the gas pedal and roared away.

Finally, the fragile, broken bird had taken flight again, and he was free.

/

John had never missed his truck more than he had during the last few days driving cross country and back in the piece of shit 1995 Toyota Corolla that Singer had lent him. Gun metal gray and thoroughly generic, it was the perfect vehicle if he wanted to keep a low profile, which was the whole point on this particular journey.

Once he had made his peace with Sammy heading off to Stanford, John made it his business to learn all the particulars of the school and the requirements that needed to be fulfilled for his youngest's first semester there. Ash was keeping tabs on what was happening on his end, suitably impressing John more every day with his computer skills. He's even learned to tolerate the kid's snarky attitude and overall bizarre personal habits out of appreciation for all the help he was giving in keeping Sammy safe.

Initially, John was planning on heading straight to Palo Alto and seeing with his own eyes that his kid arrived safely and in one piece, hence the need for the covert transportation. It was the only one in the yard that was currently driveable and was legitimately registered to Bobby's secondary business address in Nebraska instead of South Dakota.

John had some fairly unfavorable opinions about his baby boy at the moment, but no one would ever accuse Sam of being stupid. Thoroughly well trained by John himself, Sam would spot the Sierra a mile away without blinking, and even the appearance of a South Dakota license plate would give rise to suspicion at his new home in California.

All things considered, John had decided to skip the potential grand theft auto of boosting a local car in favor of driving one of Bobby's shit boxes instead.

What he hadn't counted on was the phone call from Ash telling him that Sam's meal plan hadn't been paid for yet, and asking if he wanted Ash to whammy it into reality with a few key strokes. Of course the easy answer to give would have been a quick, unequivocal Yes, but that hadn't been what John answered.

With all of the laws he routinely bent and broke, and all of the hustling and scamming that he regularly engaged in, something snapped inside John as he reached down deep into himself and tapped the conscience of the good man he used to be.

The one that would have made sure that he personally took care of whatever his little boy needed at college without relying on computer hacking to accomplish it.

Sam had given them the impression that he had a full ride, and John expected that to mean that it included everything. What was the point of a school telling a poor kid that everything was taken care of, when this most basic of needs was not?

Ash did explain, eventually, in a follow up call, that money actually was allocated for the expense of the meal plan, but hadn't arrived yet in Sam's student account, and John was worried about any potential delay in his kid being able to eat in the interim, seeing how his boy would be arriving at the school in just a few days if he more or less stuck to the travel schedule that they were all expecting he would.

Dean had told John about setting up a bank account for Sam, so he hadn't been too stressed about his youngest's ability to feed himself while he was holed up in Des Moines. In fact, Rufus had reported in that he had seen the youngest Winchester make a few trips to the local grocery store over the weeks and also observed Sam working out occasionally. So at least John knew his boy eating enough to expend calories on exercise.

But John also knew that money only went so far, and Sam was always so bullishly insubordinate in regards to his disdain of the kind of hustling that normally paid the family's expenses. With his stubbornly pain in the ass strict moral code, it was more than likely that the kid was running on financial fumes already.

It was with that fear and the pressing need to provide for his child that had John swinging the Corolla eastward instead of westward.

Stretching the limits of the Toyota's miniscule engine, it took him over sixteen hours to get to his lock up at Black Rock in New York. With a barely suppressed grimace he cleared the trip wire at the entrance and ambled his way through the main section, steadfastly ignoring the rust colored stains of his own blood smeared over the devil's trap on the ground from his days being tortured here just a few months ago.

At some point, he would make it back to clean up the mess a little better, but time was already growing short as it was and he had another stop to make before he could roll into Palo Alto and settle Sam's affairs.

Pushed up against the wall was an old dusty casket that contained the remains of a particularly nasty serial killer that had been executed over twenty years ago at what just happened to be an opportune time on a cosmic level. The skeletal remains of a human who carried that type of evil inside of them naturally were prized for the value in spell work if the astrological conditions were just right.

John had been lucky enough to stumble upon the unmarked grave site before another hunter could extricate the bones. So far, John had kept the casket sealed, and originally planned to continue doing so until he found out for sure whether or not he could use some of it for a ritual in his own quest.

Today, he would be breaking it open for the first time.

There was a voodoo priestess outside of Las Vegas that he knew from chatter in the community would pay handsomely for a metacarpal bone of the right hand. Something that John wouldn't have considered under ordinary circumstances, but was willing to entertain now for the cash if he could get assurances as to what she was using it for.

He wasn't necessarily too worried. The priestess was a long time acquaintance of Missouri's and he couldn't picture the normally straight arrow psychic being involved with someone that would do real harm.

He didn't think anymore about the questionable motives behind the buyer as he quickly worked. He had already let Sammy down in a lot of ways over the years. Too many to count actually, but John would be damned if he let his kid struggle unnecessarily after already depriving him of his home and his brother. The least the guilty father could do was make sure that his son had some financial resources backing him up so that he wasn't forced to make foolish or dangerous choices to keep himself afloat.

Back out on the road less than thirty minutes later, he retraced his route west, traveling at a hurried, but not illegally speeding pace before getting a call from Turner outside of Chicago telling him that Sam had just boarded a bus in Des Moines. Swearing under his breath John pressed down harder on the accelerator of the tin box Toyota, because the clock had just started ticking.

/

Sam was more than road weary by the time he disembarked from the commuter train he picked up in San Francisco that brought him within walking distance of his new campus. Three long, hot and sweaty days and four mind numbing and drudging route changes after he stepped on in Des Moines. Traveling cross country in an endless series of crowded, stuffy and odorous tubes on wheels.

His head ached from watching the passing miles get eaten up outside his various windows, to the point where he couldn't even focus on reading his dog eared novel by the time he finally boarded his last bus that took him from Reno to San Francisco. He would have thought, after all of those years on the road with his father and brother held hostage in the backseat of the Impala, he would have been prepared to be a better traveler.

Maybe it was because no matter how much he had fought it and railed against the injustices of his life, the Impala had always felt like home. Her throaty growl as comforting as any lullaby and her soft leather seats cradling him perfectly as he grew from a toddler into a gangling six feet plus teenager.

So many nights had found him sleepy and curled up under a blanket, eventually turning into a long limb sprawl across the back seat as his legs lengthened impossibly. His father's deep warm rumbling voice soothing the rough edges of Sam's conscious mind as he tumbled into slumber.

Dean's soft humming accompanying the Impala's tape deck playing Someday Soon. The song Dad would put in sometimes on a long night time drive trying to coax his boys into closing their eyes and resting. Doing what he could to give his sons a little connection to their deceased mother and her favorite pieces of music.

There hadn't been any of that familiarity or warmth on the impersonal buses or from the strangers surrounding him as he made his way towards the new life he had chosen for himself. Nothing but an ever changing sea of unrecognizable faces, coming and going in regular intervals from station to station and city to city.

The sun was shining a stereotypical California gold as he stepped onto the platform. Too cheery and too radiant in his mind. A grossly cartoonish picture of happiness and hope compared to the dark clouded tumult of emotions spinning in his brain as he tried to put on his best optimistic face for the sake of polite outward appearances.

When really he was tired and weary and incredibly lonely, uncaring about the pleasantly mild weather and lively student vibe.

An afternoon spent in the library in Des Moines had given him time to thoroughly map out the necessary directions to get where he was going to need to go in the next couple of days. Tomorrow all incoming students would be descending on Stanford's campus like an overly privileged, designer clothes wearing invading horde. With only certain hours dedicated to dorm registration, Sam was already envisioning the massive lines and chaos, and not looking forward to any of it.

If he had wanted to push a later afternoon registration, he could have arrived by bus tomorrow and spared himself the fifty-five dollars, plus tax, that his stay at the motel tonight was going to cost him. A veritable fortune at the moment, when his cash reserves were scrutinized with second, third and fourth thoughts assessing the importance, and carefully doled out with the frugality born of years of scrimping and tight finances.

Had he been coming straight from his home in Sioux Falls, he might have made the fiduciary choice to just roll into town and go straight to the dorm. But weeks of bathing in the unsatisfying chill of cold showers and washing his clothes by hand to dry outside draped over tree branches, let alone the days closed up in cramped quarters on buses with minimal options for washing up, had him making the decision that both he and his wardrobe would benefit from some hot water and liberal amounts of soap.

You only get to make one first impression in this life, and Sam didn't want his new dorm mates' first impression of him being the kid with the questionable personal hygiene.

The decidedly budget motel he stayed at in February was not even a mile away from the transit center where the commuter train left him. An easy for walk for just about anyone, let alone a tough, physically fit Winchester. After so many hours cooped up on public transit, Sam couldn't think of anything more attractive right now than the opportunity to stretch his neglected and stiff legs a little, so he just hefted his bags on his shoulder and struck out on foot instead of waiting for a local bus to take him up the line a little closer.

The transit center is very conveniently located near an entrance to the campus. A plus, he's sure, for any future travel plans now that he's once again a pedestrian. His beloved Camaro would certainly belong to someone else by now, and the less Sam thinks about the car that means just as much to him as the Impala means to Dean, the better. Cherry is just another casualty of Sam's rebellion, and like Dad always told him.

You made your bed, and now you gotta lie down in it, Son.

As he makes his way to the main road, he spares a minute to look across the busy intersection to give his future home a brief, half smile before heading onward, looking forward to beginning the new life that has cost him everything.

He has no other choice right now but to hope that it turns out to be worth it, because the price he paid had been dear and painful, and Sam needs to make this new life worth it because he simply doesn't have anything else left. Life was a poker game, and Sam was all in right now. He either succeeds at Stanford or he really will lose everything, and he's pretty sure that would finish the job of breaking him permanently.

The sight of palm trees lining the streets distracts him from his perpetual brooding. It's not that he hasn't seen them before in his many travels cross country, but they seem foreign to him at the moment. You would never find one on the side of the road in South Dakota, and that's where Sam considers home now. Even though he painfully knows deep down that he is no longer welcome there, it doesn't change the fact that it's where he felt safe and normal for the first time in his life, and it's a feeling of security that he desperately wants to regain.

Succeeding at Stanford and forging a new path for himself is going to give him that chance as long as he buckles down and works his ass off. While he's hoping that his life isn't all work and study, he's determined and focused with a laser intensity on excelling at his studies. Prepared to wait four, or even seven years to have fun again.

After his future is secured, there will be time to enjoy life then.

Sam is at the front desk of the motel less than fifteen minutes later. He already has a reservation since he called earlier in the week to make sure there was room, and a lifetime of checking in and out of motels makes the process brief and perfunctory.

Even the posh Stanford area has low budget motels and lazy, disinterested desk clerks, and Sam hardly pays attention to the half hearted customer service he's barely given. Not even batting an eye when the lackluster and glassy eyed twenty something dude that Sam is pretty sure is stoned on whatever cheap shit passes for skunk weed around here just flips him a single key on a chipped tag and vaguely points to the general area left of where Sam is standing.

Sam's not necessarily in the mood for idle chit chat anyway, because the thought of having to be even remotely social with one more stranger before he can get cleaned up after the long trip makes his head hurt. Without being offered directions, he finds his room easily enough on his own since it's just a couple of doors down from the one he stayed in a few months ago. The first thing he does after locking the door behind him is to take the world's longest hot shower and he almost starts to feel like a person again.

Ignoring the hunger pangs that have become an every day part of life for him, he spends the rest of his afternoon doing laundry in the motel's surprisingly clean laundry area. Carefully pulling his shirts out of the dryer one at a time while they're still warm and not yet hopelessly wrinkled to avoid having to iron them. If there's one chore Sam hates, it's ironing clothes, and he's pretty sure that the barely half star motel wouldn't have one to loan him in any case.

Dean had always been the one to make sure that Sam's uniforms were nicely pressed for school, and for the hundredth time that day he really misses his brother and the million different ways Dean had cared for him.

Thinking of his brother, Sam picks his phone out of his front pocket again, and automatically brings up speed dial number one. His thumb hovers over the send button while a war rages inside of him as he tries to convince himself that there's a tiny chance that Dean might actually pick up and not just flat out ignore him, no matter how much he deserves it.

He wants to reach out to his big brother, even if it's just to let someone know where he is right now, and that he arrived in California safely. If that means he has to take the blistering tirade that his brother would be well within his rights to deliver, he should make himself man up and have the stones to do it.

Only...what could he say?

Hey, Dean.

I'm alright. I'm nervous...and a little afraid. I've never had to start school without you helping me before, and it feels wrong.

How are you doing? How's your shoulder? Your leg? You know the doctor said you need let everything heal completely before you do anything strenuous again. Please listen to him and put yourself first for once.

I know. I should have been there. I wanted to be. I would have been. Just like you always took care of me.

I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. That I let you down so badly.

How's Dad? Does he ever mention me? Does he hate me?

Do you hate me?

I'm gonna keep myself safe. I promise I'll remember everything you taught me.

I didn't want to leave you, but you know I had to go.

You always knew what was going on in my head. Sometimes before I did.

I'm sorry. So very sorry.

I miss you, big brother. God. So much.

I love you.

Sam wants to call and say these things. Dean deserves to hear them and a lot more besides. But there is the other part of Sam that's pretty sure his brother wants nothing more to do with him, and like it has since the day he left their house in Sioux Falls, it's that part of him that wins the argument inside his mind and stays his fingers from pressing the button, returning the phone to his pocket unused.

Again.

Sam willingly spent the money to pay for another month of phone service while he was in Des Moines, but it was really so that his brother could contact him, not the other way around.

They say that time heals all wounds, and Sam really needs that to be true right now. He clings to the hope that fences can be mended once there's been a cooling down period. He'll wait quietly and patiently until the day comes when his brother decides that maybe he loves Sam more than he's angry with him, and maybe then they can work on repairing the brotherhood that Sam tore into shreds with his bare hands.

Dean's never been able to stay mad at Sam for long. It's the big brother factory default setting that has worked in Sam's favor since they were kids and Dean put up with all of Sam's crap, even when Sam was being a little dick.

Like the time Dad had agreed to buy each of them one of those cheap dime store balsa wood airplanes to keep them entertained in the Impala during a long drive. Sam was only four and didn't realize how flimsy they were and broke his almost immediately in his enthusiasm to have a new toy. When he had cried inconsolably and given his big brother the puppy eyes begging to play with his, Dean handed it over without hesitation.

Of course it was a mistake, because Sam was young and childishly careless and soon enough he had accidentally snapped that one in half as well, not understanding why it wasn't holding up to the vigorous motions he was putting it through. Only eight years old himself, Dean's anger had flared for exactly five seconds before he chose to comfort his distressed little sibling over the more expected reaction of yelling at him.

Even then Sam was leaving destruction and chaos in his wake, but Dean, although upset, would always find a way to forgive a little brother who was just curious and wanted to explore new things. Knowing that Sam never really meant to hurt Dean or break his literal and metaphorical toys.

Cable television was a luxury he hadn't been able to indulge in during the past month of relatively primitive living, so he switches it on when he's back in his room. Not that he watched a lot of TV shows in the first place. That had always been more of Dean's thing than his. His brother's love of fantasy female characters and soap opera-esque drama just another one of the endearing silly habits that he thought he kept secret but should have known better when it came to his little brother's observations.

Occasionally the two of then did hunker down in the living room together for some mindless entertainment. Dean had always hated the quiet, but too many years growing up in tight quarters with questionably functioning televisions blaring away at all hours had curbed any enthusiasm Sam might have developed for it regularly. It was hard to study when you had to try and think over canned laugh tracks, let alone Dean's almost child-like raucous giggles accompanying it.

It was just something that they could occasionally do together that didn't involve beating up on each other or killing things, and that was why Sam would consent and join his brother on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn to share while they fought over which cheesy over the top flick they saw.

The now rather urgent growling of his stomach reminded him that it had been a while since his last meal. Days on the road and the inescapable stench of mingled body odors and diesel exhaust had the financially beneficial side effect of making him queasy for the last few hundred miles of his journey, but now that he was clean and settled, his appetite made a roaring comeback.

He still had two cans of beef stew in his bag that he had packed just for his stay at the motel. Already having consumed on the buses the thin sandwiches and four last apples he budgeted for during the journey, he waited until he knew he had access to cooking facilities before having the canned food that would be more palatable warmed than just eaten straight.

There hadn't been much he could leave behind for the next person at the cabin, needing every little bit he purchased for his own existence, but when he left he was determined that someday he would go back and stock it full in repayment for his residence there.

His room had a tiny kitchenette with a sauce pan and a hotplate that he remembered from his previous stay, so he had taken the last two cans of stew with him even though it wasn't appetizing after a month of existing on similar items. Steadfastly ignoring the reality that in Palo Alto, he was in convenient distance to a long list of restaurants with delivery choices.

Although attractive as a culinary option after weeks of cheap basic staples, getting take out was prohibitively expensive right now, and as he resolutely choked down the salty and over processed meat chunks, he had to keep reminding himself that it was only for one more day.

There was one last can left to serve as his breakfast in the morning and it would be the last meal he ate out of a can for as long as he could help it. Once Sam had access to the campus dining hall, he swore to himself that it would be months before he touched anything evenly remotely close to the rations he had been surviving on for the last five weeks.

It would definitely be a long time before he could look another peanut butter sandwich in the face again.

Which only led to another reminder of all the meals Dean had cooked for them, and Sam let out a frustrated grunt, forcibly reprimanding himself for continuing to wallow in the past.

With nothing to watch on the tube, and too mentally drained to read or surf online, he decided to head back out and hit the shopping district a few miles down the road. He was going to need bedding for his dorm room, and while it would mean that he would have to tote it all along with him during registration tomorrow, it would be easier than waiting until later.

He quickly checked online for the local bus route and schedule and found that there were several straight shots to where he needed to go and he had a few hours before service shut down. There was a bus stop down the block from the motel that would take him past a Target, so he grabbed his wallet and the room key and made his way there, sprinting to make the bus that was already pulling up.

Transit was easy in a college town, and he wasn't the only student doing some last minute shopping. The whole store was obscenely noisy and jam packed with other excited and hopeful students and their overly helpful and pushy helicopter parents. Navigating overfilled shopping carts and bickering with each other over furnishing choices as they made their way around the big box store.

Sam quietly slipped through the aisles, skillfully dodging a particularly chipper and slow moving family until he found the bedding department, and took only a few minutes to pick out the cheapest bed-in-a-bag set he could find.

He physically winced after he realized that he was going to have to drop fifty bucks on a plain blue and white comforter and sheet set, along with another ten for a semi-decent pillow if he wanted to get any sleep without giving himself neck spasms. Another fifteen on towels as well as close to twenty on personal care items that he was rapidly running low on after a month in Des Moines on his own.

As the cashier rang up his purchases, he grudgingly handed over his bank card, mentally calculating the pitifully small amount remaining in his account. The bus ticket west had been steeper than he originally anticipated and the cost of maintaining himself for over a month really took a chunk out of his savings. With his resources scraping the bottom of the barrel already, he decided to send another email inquiry to the financial aid office about the status of the only disbursement check he would receive.

It was the last installment in a series of grants, stipends and loans that were making up the bulk of his college expenses. Tuition was already paid for the semester, as was his room. Those big ticket items were deducted first before everything else. He already knew that this last check wasn't going to be much. It was earmarked to pay for his meal plan and theoretically enough to cover books and his mandatory student activity fees, while Sam would get the tiny remainder.

Knowing money would be very tight, he had already opted out of the standard default meal plan in favor of the most basic choice which would give him a little more in cash from the check proceeds to keep in reserve. The basic plan would provide him breakfast and dinner every day, and Sam could make due by stuffing himself in the dining hall and sneaking out snacks to compensate for missing lunch.

Half the time he was so deep in his studies he only stopped long enough to grab fruit or something else small for a meal anyway.

A habit that thoroughly annoyed Dean because he had always monitored Sam's food intact like it was a profession. Sam's metabolism was blindingly fast and he lost weight ridiculously easily. Dean didn't like his skinny brother not eating enough and was constantly on his case about consuming several meals a day, especially during one of Sam's frequent growth spurts.

Tired now, he sat wearily on the bench at the bus stop and waited for the next bus that would take him back to the area his motel was in. It was only a few miles in distance, but it was getting late and he didn't feel like walking it. After spending a small fortune in the store for laughingly low thread count linens, what was another dollar anyway?

Well, a dollar was a load of laundry.

Which quickly reminded him that he forgot to buy the detergent he was now out of after this afternoon's washing and he groaned involuntarily. He didn't move from his seat. Too wrung out to face the store mob again and too unwilling to part with more cash until he had his check firmly in hand.

Looking down at the bags sitting on the ground between his feet, he sighed deeply over the meager contents that represented months of careful saving and sacrifice. Not that he wasn't used to making do with little, their family never really having had much anyway, he forced himself to steel his resolve and not crumble to pieces right there on the bench.

It was just the beginning of a long four years and he knew that if he was going to survive it all on his own, he couldn't afford to start off weak and feeling sorry for himself.

Waiting alone in the dark, he pulled out his phone again and wondered, not for the first time, where his brother was and what he was doing.

Please, God. Let Dean be okay.

/

The wood door practically split the frame when the urgency of Dean's insistent kiss slammed her body back against it. Somehow it was enough motion to force it open on its own, allowing them an unencumbered semi-stumbling entrance in the dimly lit motel room that had seen better days.

Leaning precariously against the wall, tripping and fumbling as they desperately tore at each other's clothing, Dean barely noticed the sharp edge of the dresser repeatedly wedging its way into his hip as he helped tug down her panties while simultaneously lifting her legs to wrap around his waist.

That was going to leave one hell of a bruise tomorrow, but he couldn't find it in himself to care at the moment.

He held her pressed up against the wall, not even being able to wait to walk the ten feet over to the queen sized bed behind him. Like a tiger that had finally been released from its cage after years of captivity, he pounced. Every bit the predator as he growled with desire, nipping the soft patches of skin on her neck before exuberantly making his way down to her unencumbered breasts.

She moaned in appreciation of his attention to detail and the sound of her pleasure went straight to his groin, sending electric sparks of excitement and need through his limbs.

With his desire mounting way too fast, he had to mentally step back and force himself to pump the brakes a little on his own satisfaction. Dean Winchester was a man who prided himself on ensuring the deep and prolonged pleasure of his sexual partners, and just because he'd been sitting on the sidelines for a while, it didn't mean that he was just going to give this game a walk on performance.

With surprisingly minimal effort, no doubt fueled by the long dry months of pent up frustration, he hoisted her up high enough to get her thighs resting on his shoulders instead, grimacing slightly from the pressure on his still mending collarbone, but plowing forward just the same.

Staring into her eyes blown wide with lust, he gave her a quick dirty look of pure and unadulterated sin, then winked and disappeared under the folds of her skirt.

Not to brag or anything, but he really does have a truly gifted tongue.

Enough that he was only halfway through pleasuring her with the alphabet game before she was screaming his name repeatedly. Arms flailing about helplessly because there was nothing in her immediate reach to grab onto other than his fabric covered head and she happened to like him right where he was at the moment. Rocking her own head back repeatedly against the door, she moaned loud enough for the obviously celibate and cranky people in the neighboring room to bang irritably and complain.

They should really just listen and pay attention, Dean thought as he continued his ministrations unfazed. Certainly they could learn a trick or two, and maybe they could be getting laid as well.

She didn't actually make it to the end of the game either.

Dean was working it like a starving man that had been wandering lost in a desert for months and who had just come across a Golden Corral buffet oasis. By the time he got to W, she was not only screaming his name in climax, but God! and Jesus! Christ! too as the pointy heels of her stilettos dug painfully into his back.

It wasn't the first time that one of his partners had felt a sudden onrush of religion and spiritual exultation at key moments during their time together.

Dean still didn't know what those other guys had to do with it since he was the one doing all the work here.

He didn't give her a lot of time to recover, desperate for his own first release. Quickly maneuvering them over to the bed in a rushed, half waddle with his pants down around his ankles. Ready to go for a second round they crashed collectively to the mattress, and he had a passing momentary thought of being impressed that the cheap pressed wood bed frame bore the energetic impact without splintering.

By the time their evening together was over, no piece of furniture had been spared their porno worthy acrobatics. Long after Dean put the motel and the girl in his rear view, the chambermaids would be trying to air out the overwhelming collective scent of Love's Baby Soft perfume, edible hot cinnamon body oil, Old Spice, tequila and sex.

They'd probably need to throw that one pillow out too.

Thoroughly sated and content after a few more days of the same in a few more bars and motels along the route, Dean drove in the general direction of Blue Earth a man reborn, with a new lease on life and two thoroughly empty Val-U pack condom boxes left behind in trash bins.

Feeling more alive than he had in...well...forever it seemed.

It was the first time in a long time that he had felt like himself again, and while it would have been easy for Dean to blame Sammy for his self imposed domestication and resulting celibacy, he wasn't going to be that unfair. It had been Dean's choice to leave life on the road in an effort to keep his kid brother close. Determined to settle for a life more ordinary that left a large part of him unfulfilled if it made Sammy happy.

But it wasn't who he was.

He liked having the house just fine, and he would be going back soon, because it did feel like home now.

But there was also another part of him.

An insatiable wild thing inside him that demanded attention and regular feeding.

Whether it was actually food, a stiff drink, a successful hunt or just a plain old good fuck.

A part of him that he had allowed his willingness to sacrifice for his brother to unflinchingly suppress.

Riding high on the waves of some fabulous nights out, he was sure that it wasn't a mistake he was going to make again.

/

Years from now, Sam will eventually learn about God, Michael, Lucifer and the importance of the Winchester brothers on a truly cosmic scale.

Of being put smack dab in the middle of so many global shit storms that he and Dean will, at some point, stop counting the number of times that they are called upon to give their all to the greater good, simply because of who they were born and raised to be.

Unfortunately, standing in his new dorm room at Stanford, he doesn't yet possess the understanding of his status in an unknowing and unconcerned world. All he does know is that his roommate and their two closest neighbors leave him feeling woefully too small and inadequate to compete in their current significantly more lofty spheres of existence.

Sam is the first one of the four young men to reach the check in desk of his dorm in FroSoCo, the cutesy nickname of Stanford's Freshman Sophomore College. A program within a program for select freshmen and sophomores with a housing complex in the far corner of the campus that is part of Sterling Quad.

By some miracle of the draw, one that he still doesn't comprehend exactly how it happened, he's been assigned to Adams, one of FroSoCo's two houses, and blessed with one of the covetous two room doubles. Essentially almost affording him a single room without having to worry about covering the exorbitant extra cost of having one.

Upon his acceptance, he hadn't really cared what his new living accommodations were going to be like, and he certainly hadn't had the forethought to apply for the enhanced residential program he suddenly found himself accepted into. Although he had enjoyed the last year in the comfort of a nice home with a bedroom to himself, he still had many years of living rough in motel rooms and furnished slum apartments.

All things considered, he had to imagine that Stanford's worst dorm room would still be miles ahead of a lot of the places the Winchesters had called home over the years.

So his concern for housing at Stanford had been at the far bottom of the list of things to be concerned about, especially compared to nuclear level fallout from his departure from his family.

During his month of solitude in Des Moines, he had been able to glean a little more information online about the various housing options at the university. FroSoCo was a little removed from the main part of the campus, which would mean that he would be walking more to get around, but he didn't mind. Physical fitness was second nature to him after years of his father's mandatory hard conditioning.

In fact, Sam was relatively pleased with the overall consensus that the students in his new dorm tended to congregate mostly among themselves, and were affectionately considered the nerds among an entire campus of hard core academics. Still fairly socially awkward around strangers, the idea of living in a smaller community with students likely to be similar to his own personality was very appealing.

He had no delusions that he would, at some point, get around to experiencing all of the usual college hijinks that every other student engaged in, but he wasn't about to let himself forget that he was here to study and make something of himself. That he had intentionally torpedoed his relationship with his father and brother for the chance of something better, and he wasn't about to flush it all down the proverbial toilet by partying.

The entire campus was buzzing with activity from the moment he stepped foot on the grounds. Sam had made sure that he arrived particularly early, and was standing right in front of the entrance to his quad the minute he could check into his new room, wanting to get settled as soon as possible.

With his duffel bags and backpack slung across his shoulders and his shopping bags from his trip to Target gripped tightly in his hand, desperately trying to stand tall and not give away how positively scared he was, he was almost the first in line for his housing packet.

The perky blonde with a wild tumble of curls sitting at the registration table was just on this side of being a little too friendly, and maybe Sam would have given a moment's thought to her obvious attraction to him if he wasn't so tightly wound.

Too many painful glimpses of incoming freshmen being herded around by their proud parents. Most of them looking a little bewildered at their new surroundings, but at the same time rolling their eyes over enthused attention from weepy mothers and road weary fathers who were struggling with their impending separation from their academically gifted offspring.

Sam was equal measures jealous of, and thoroughly annoyed by, these extraordinarily fortunate kids who didn't seem to realize how lucky they were that they had parents who cared enough to be there for them today. He allowed himself a few moments of hurt that Dad and Dean weren't here with him, but then he ruthlessly pushed it down again into that bottomless pit of a hiding place inside of him that seemed genetically engineered in a Winchester to help swallow the pain, and drew upon his well of anger and resentment to fill up the empty spaces in between.

Once again reminding himself that he was doing the normal thing, and it was his father's and brother's problem if they couldn't accept that and support him.

Giving the overly solicitous registration co-ed a perfunctory thanks, he racked his shoulders back and strode forward in search of his room, determined that his momentary lapse into weakness would be the last one he allowed himself today.

Of course, that wasn't realistic or at all likely to happen.

It wasn't hard to find his new residence. Adams House was just a few yards away from the check-in. In keeping with the school's Mission Style architecture, Adams was a four story building that looked just big enough to have a good mix of students without being too crowded. Sam walked through a latticed archway into a pleasant courtyard that was central to the complex and studded around the perimeter with nice wooden park benches, easily finding the right door for the entrance closest to his room.

Although, from a studying point of view, he would have preferred a room on an upper floor, away from the noise of any potential foot traffic, he grudgingly admitted that being assigned to a first floor room was better from a safety standpoint.

Immediately hating himself for quickly defaulting back to a hunter's mindset when thinking about where he would lay his head at night.

The two room doubles were basically single rooms that had a connecting door to each other. So while Sam technically had a roommate, they weren't actually going to share the same space.

Unfortunately, there was only one door out to the hallway for both rooms to use, and it appeared that Sam got the honor of being the one who was going to be stuck getting woken up in the middle of the night if his more remotely located roommate was the kind of guy that didn't understand basic concepts like quiet study and uninterrupted sleep.

Immediately chastising himself that most financial aid dependent students got corralled into triples and quads like cattle, he was going to shut his mental cake hole and not bitch about the theoretical inconsideration from someone that was probably paying a small fortune to share the same freaking door with him.

As expected, the room itself is sparse, containing only a bed, desk, chair and dresser. There is a small closet that's more than adequate to house his neatly rolled mound of recently laundered clothing that included a few hangers which was another thing he forgot to buy, so that was nice.

Looking at the naked bed, he immediately drops his shopping bags on top of it. The first order of business will be making up the blessedly extra-long mattress that offered him a few precious inches for his mile long legs. A little detail that had thrilled him when he read the specifics of his room assignment.

When you're pushing six-four, every spare millimeter is a bonus.

Really he should launder his new bedding before using it, hence the need for the detergent that he doesn't possess. It's going to be rough enough on his skin as it is with the laughingly low thread count. Deciding that he would have to settle for looking neat and tidy for the arrival of his new roommate, he quickly makes the bed up and vows to wash it all as soon as his check is safely deposited.

It doesn't take him long to get the bed shipshape, and the tidy sharp corners drilled into him by his father come without consciously thinking about it. Sam repeatedly reminds himself that he has a lifetime of weird quirks and habits to break if he truly wants to separate himself from the way he was raised.

With almost no personal possessions, it only takes him twenty odd minutes to put his things away in the dresser and closet. His laptop finds an obvious home on the desk, and the last things he removes from his duffel before shoving it at the back of his tiny closet are the framed photos that he took from his room in Sioux Falls. In preparation for them, he has kept the top of his dresser cleared, as pride of place, where he can set them up so that they are the first things he sees in the morning.

Although it's painful now to look at the faces of the people he loves, knowing that he will most likely never see any of them again and leaving him with nothing but bittersweet memories, he can't part with any of the pictures.

Young Mom and Dad, taken from Dad's journal by Dean and copied for Sam to have his very own memento of his parents. A group shot of his friends inhaling Dean's signature ten layer lasagna during one of the study sessions in the Winchester's kitchen. Sam and Alex at the prom, smiling wide and carefree in front of the cheesy backdrop at the school gym.

Sam and Dad at Christmas standing in front of the Camaro. Arms around each other's shoulders and looking happy and relaxed together for once. A sharp pain hits Sam in the gut, remembering what a wonderful week it had been. How he had finally been shown a completely different side to the man that had raised him as a soldier.

Christmas had been a perfect, wonderful day, and one of the first things Sam had realized after he got on the bus to Des Moines was remembering that he had forgotten to take Mom's precious picture from its usual place on Cherry's instrument panel.

That had hurt more than he could take at the time, and he fervently hopes that Dean thought to remove it before selling her.

The last one is hard.

Too hard.

Dean and Sam at Sam's graduation. Taken by Alex at Dean's insistence that he have a photo to commemorate the day with his geeky valedictorian kid brother.

Sam reverently holds the dark cherry wood frame in his hands for just a minute and wills back the tears that want to spill out as he absently traces the carved scroll around the edges that says Brothers. Just before they left on that horrible last hunt where Sam's entire life went to shit, Dean had approached him one night after dinner, all unusually quiet and apprehensive for some reason, and presented it to him.

His big brother not always being someone comfortable with words, Sam knew it was Dean's way of expressing his affection for him without having to get bogged down in overly dramatic sentiment.

Dean is the person that Sam knows better than anyone in the world. Knows every facial tick and tell from a lifetime of living two feet away from each other. The big brother in this photo is bursting with love and pride as he wraps an affectionate arm around Sam. With a formidable presence so steady and sure that the height difference isn't even really that noticeable.

That's the killer, right there.

The unmistakable knowledge that Dean actually was proud of Sam for what he had accomplished. That if things were handled differently with more thought and tact, even if Dad was too angry to be here today, Dean would have been.

It's Sam's fault that he's alone right now, surrounded by an inescapable glut of shiny, happy families that he's not a part of.

Even through the two dimensional aspect of a photo, it would be clear to anyone that Dean was the strong and sturdy big brother, hugging his giant of a younger sibling, and Sam is rocked back off his feet from the oppressive wave of loss he feels. He drops to sit on the end of his military precision made bed and clutches the frame to his chest, breath hitching and desperate to regain his composure before his roommate walks in and finds him in the middle of a torrential rain of emotion.

He swipes a traitorous tear from the corner of his right eye, and when he is able to stand back up, he determinedly places the photo so that it is hidden behind the others. It's a cruel disservice to his brother to be relegated to an unseen position on the dresser, but Sam knows that if he is met with Dean's face every morning, he's never going to be able to make himself stay in California.

The desire to tuck tail and run back to his brother, wherever he is, no matter what he's doing, is too strong right now, and Sam doesn't trust himself that he will be able to fight it for long if he lets himself think too much.

While he is still getting his emotions under control there is a sudden racket in the hallway making its way down towards his end of the floor. There's clearly an argument of some sort going on, although Sam can't rightly determine the topic since the participants are speaking in a rapid fire Spanish that goes way above his minimal ninth grade level of comprehension.

In any case, he's a private person himself, so he doesn't feel a particular need to investigate. After all, this is California, and it would be strange if a few of his new dorm mates weren't fluent Spanish speakers.

As he sits awkwardly on his bed, debating the merits of pouring over the course catalog again before submitting his mandatory study list tomorrow, the cacophony has grown much louder until it eventually lands right in front of him. Sam is not the kind of kid that sticks his nose into the business of others, so when he realizes that his across the hall neighbor is moving in, he slips off the bed and takes a seat at the desk, flipping open his laptop and sorting through the welcome packet trying to figure out how to connect to the university's internet.

His door has been left open, simply because he didn't think to close it with his roommate still to arrive, and with the exception of his laptop there really isn't anything of monetary value to take from him if he needs to dart down the hall to use the restroom. He has few possessions, and although some of them might mean the world to him, he knows they are worth nothing to others.

A slave to his lifetime of training, he does have the curved, ornately scrolled silver Suan Ywe Gou blade, Dad's idea of a seventeenth birthday gift, that is buried at the bottom of his duffel, but it's so well hidden that it will never be found unless you're actually looking for it. It's pretty enough to be considered a collector's item to someone who doesn't know what it's truly capable of.

The days of being the school freak with the personal arsenal are over for him.

Behind him, across the hall, he can hear sounds now of bickering and laughing, and when he risks a furtive glance over his shoulder he catches glimpses of the family settling in. First seeing two young girls that couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen. With shiny black hair pulled back in corkscrew curl ponytails and mocha colored skin, it's immediately obvious that they are identical twins and will someday be incredible beauties.

They are occasionally engaging in whining debates with their equally beautiful mother as they lug boxes into the inner room of the two room double parallel to Sam's, and he suppresses a smirk, remembering how he had battled with own father at that age.

At every age actually.

The smirk disappears as quickly as it had come.

Their mother is a stunning woman. From brief snatches out of the corner of his eye Sam estimates her to be roughly the same age as his dad, and unlike her darker skinned daughters, she is more Latina in her looks. He doesn't want to keep staring at her and give his new neighbor the impression that he's creeping on the guy's mom, but there is something disturbingly familiar about her. From her voice to her looks, and the fact that Sam's almost photographic memory can't place the resemblance is starting to annoy him.

Sam finally gets introduced to his fellow student when a ridiculously good looking guy his own age emerges from the inner room, quieting the twins with an obviously practiced sharp look as he kisses his mom's cheek and then boldly walks directly into Sam's room without an invitation. Standing half a foot shorter than Sam, he's dressed far too nicely for move in day, and as his eyes sweep around the fairly empty room with almost no personality to it, he looks genuinely horrified.

"This is the saddest dorm room on campus," he states matter-of-fact as he flops down on Sam's cheap comforter. "You need a decorator, a couple of drinks and a haircut, sweetie."

Sam's inner hermit is taken aback for a moment by the stranger's bluntness, but then he sees a sparkle of humor in the other boy's dark eyes and it makes him chuckle. Standing, he raises to his full height, watching in amusement as his new neighbor's eyes go wide as he sizes him up, and leans over to offer his hand in greeting.

"Sam Winchester. Hopeless designer and part time caveman impersonator."

The other boy cocks an eyebrow and then bursts into laughter, taking Sam's hand as he stands up.

"Luis Roberts. Bisexual, biracial and by God gorgeous."

Sam likes him immediately.

Luis loves to talk about himself, so it takes all of ten minutes to get his life's story. Raised in Beverly Hills, he's the oldest child of divorced parents. His father is a high powered entertainment lawyer and not terribly high on the list of his son's favorite people. There is an obvious distaste on Luis' face just speaking about the man in general terms, and Sam is somewhat comforted that he's not the only one with paternal issues.

In contrast, Luis clearly adores his mother who has come over twice to meet Sam and affectionately chastise her son for procrastinating and socializing when he should be helping her and his sisters get him settled. With an arm slung around her petite shoulders, Luis proudly informs Sam that she is an actress on a popular Mexican telenovela. That's when Sam realizes where he recognizes her from, because her show is one of Dean's guilty pleasures that he watches when he thinks Sam is studying and not paying attention.

He's excited for the half second it takes for him to remember that he can't actually call his brother and brag about meeting her.

Luis scolds and teases his little sisters mercilessly, switching back and forth in increasingly loud bursts of English and Spanish, but it's also clear that he absolutely dotes on them and they, him. Watching their loving and carefree interaction is almost too much for Sam's raw emotions to endure and he has to press his fingernails into the palms of his hands, practically drawing blood, to keep from tearing up in front of his new dorm mate.

Soon after, Luis' roommate arrives, and Luis himself bounds over to make introductions. Zach Warren and his parents are friendly, but politely quiet and understated. A sharp contrast to the Robertses, although the two mothers seem to hit it off immediately.

When Sam is introduced to them, it is glaringly apparent that the Warrens are exceptionally well-to-do also. Zach and his father are dressed casually, but Sam can recognize the brands easily enough to know just how much their clothes alone cost. He's momentarily hyper-aware of his plain tee and faded jeans, and he reflexively folds his arms across his chest in an apparent bid to try to hide his poorly thought out wardrobe choice for the day.

They are also a bilingual family, as Mrs. Warren is French by birth and Zach tells Sam that his parents spend half the year living in Paris where the European headquarters of the family's pharmaceutical company is based.

Mrs. Warren is tall and lithe. She has a lilting accent that is polished and a sophisticated air about her that is decidedly Parisian. Of course Sam is asked about his own family, and when he shyly explains that his mother has passed away, Mrs. Warren wraps a sympathetic arm around him in a gesture that oddly touches him and yet discomforts him as well.

Sam is the tactile member of the Winchester family, for as much as any of them can be considered as such. He's always been the first one to hug and cuddle his brother and father growing up, much to their long suffering amusement. When Zach's mother makes the harmless gesture, Sam is embarrassed to find himself flinching involuntarily just the same, because he doesn't actually like physical contact from anyone he doesn't inherently know and trust one hundred percent.

He blushes, because he knows she was only trying to be kind, but he's also relieved when she gets the subtle hint and moves away gracefully.

There's been no mother figure in his life and Sam's senses are on overload, both by her soft half embrace and the scent of her decidedly expensive perfume, and for a moment he feels like a trapped animal and just wants to dive back into the safety of his own private space because this day isn't getting any easier.

Zach speaks English to his father and French to his mother, and Sam is feeling far out of his element in the presence of families that are so vastly different from his own. The current atmosphere only heightens Sam's insecurities and self awareness that he is positively rustic in comparison with these two new boys that seem to have nothing in common with a kid that was raised poor and practically homeless most of his life.

When Sam mentions that he has an older brother, Zach tells him about his little sister Becky who isn't with them today. Like Zach was last year at this time, Rebecca is in Switzerland at Le Rosey. What Sam will later learn is the preeminent boarding school in Europe. The Warrens also have a house in St. Louis, where the American headquarters of the family business is based, and that is really where Zach considers home.

When asked, Sam tells them that he's originally from Kansas, although he graduated from a respectable private school in South Dakota, and inwardly thanks his brother for the ability to not be completely embarrassed about the humble circumstances of his past.

The Robertses and the Warrens decide to have an introductory late lunch together and they invite Sam to join them. He knows that the right thing would be to go, but he's getting close to the end of his socializing tether already, the love and comfort of happy families around him starting to choke him with their blatant displays of affection and painful good intentions.

Politely begging off, he uses the excuse of wanting to wait for his own roommate to arrive to explain his reluctance to go and luckily they accept it easily enough.

They all head out together in a chipper gaggle of languages and accents and expensive clothes, leaving Sam with the impression that there is a mini United Nations delegation wandering the clipped manicured lawns of FroSoCo. With their departure, the pressure in his chest starts to ease off just a little and he realizes in horror that he had come very close to having a full-on panic attack in front of his new dorm mates and their families.

For all of Sam's potential brashness and forceful personality when the situation requires it, he actually prefers life as an introvert, and as much as he has been lonely for the past few weeks, living on his own with nothing but the wildlife surrounding the cabin to keep him company, the collective enthusiasm of Luis and Zach et al had been too much overload on his still raw and broken heart.

Feeling nervous and insecure again, he rubs a hand gingerly over the bulge in his right front pocket where his cell phone is hidden, fingers trembling like a junkie trying to fight off a twitching desire for a quick fix. Knowing that just the sound of Dean's voice would be enough to calm him down right now, and he desperately wants to hit that speed dial one and have his big brother talk him round and assure him that he's okay and that he can do this.

There's never been another time in Sam's life when he didn't have his goofy, overprotective sibling to turn to when things got to be too much to handle. Most of the time Sam hadn't even needed to say anything at all. One look at his face, and Dean would instantly know that his kid brother was metaphorically deep in his turtle shell and shutting the world out.

And Dean had never failed to know exactly how to rectify the situation.

Whether Sam needed a shoulder to cry on. Or get taken to a movie to blot away whatever had gotten him worked up. Whether Dean needed to kick the ass of some punk kid that was stupid enough to mess with his little brother, or play the snarky fool to cheer Sam up.

Even if it was just to get his petulant baby sibling to roll his eyes and whine out the manufactured and well practiced Deeeaaannn, c'mon that never failed to stop Sam from wallowing in whatever misery he had been in.

Watching Luis and Zach with their families has built up a rising tide of need in Sam to hear Dean's voice. To be reminded that he too was once beloved and cherished. He sees in the way Luis dotes on his little sisters and the way that Zach had spoken with warm affection about his own little sister, everything that he always saw in Dean with him as they grew up.

And the abjectly frightened and insecure little brother inside of him wants that back.

Right. Now.

Mind made up, he slips his hand in his pocket and withdraws his phone. Scrolls to the speed dials and is about to press the send button for number one when he hears someone step stealthily into his room.

Tyson Brady, all six feet two, two hundred and ten pounds and tumbling blond hair of him is a complex character and Sam's new roommate. Standing in the doorway like he owns the place and regarding Sam like he's a curious new puzzle to solve.

Everything about him screams privilege and success that only increases as Sam learns about him.

From his self made titan of tech father who seems to control half of Silicon Valley, to his San Francisco old money society family mother. Sent to the best schools and groomed to impeccable standards, Tyson is the physically impressive former quarterback of his posh private academy. He also graduated top of his class, speaks four languages fluently and is currently dating a model.

He's also completely miserable, but Sam won't realize that until much later in their friendship.

Startled by his presence in their doorway, Sam blinks, frowns as he puts the phone away reluctantly, and introduces himself. Tyson, or just Brady as he prefers to be called, isn't accompanied by a rush of loving parents and siblings as he moves in. Trailing meekly behind him are two men that clearly work for a moving company and an older man in a sharp suit that Brady introduces to Sam as the family chauffeur.

It's clear as the three other men ferry boxes and furniture into Brady's room that he's swimming in material wealth and is the physical embodiment of entitlement. Bringing with him so many things that it's soon clear that one room won't be enough to hold them all, and forces Brady to boldly ask Sam if some things can be put in his room instead. Sam doesn't mind, not wanting to get off to a bad start with the guy he's going to be living with for the next ten months.

It's fine, especially after it turns out that Brady is only asking for space for things that they can both use like the mini fridge, microwave and some bean bags that will be more comfortable to relax in than their desk chairs.

Brady's moving crew are fast and efficient and gone twenty minutes later. With the hubbub of the rooms dying down, Sam assumes that Brady is going to want to spend time getting settled so reaches once again for his phone only to be stopped this time by a pizza delivery guy laden down with three large pies standing at their door. Now thoroughly annoyed, because he's starting to lose his nerve about calling Dean, Sam glares inhospitably.

Brady is clearly waiting for him, walking past Sam briskly before throwing a wad of bills at the guy and shutting the door behind him. Turning around to Sam he smiles and, for a moment, reminds Sam of his brother's confident grin.

"Hungry?"

The two boys immediately bond over their pizza feast. At first, Sam is reluctant to dig in, even though every taste bud he owns is going into a frenzied overdrive just from the smell alone, and his hunger from the weeks of deprivation is suddenly a living thing as his stomach tries to leap out of his throat in search of something that doesn't come from a can or a box.

He's even more than willing for once to pounce on the slices laden heavily with the greasy pepperoni that Dean adores, but Sam usually bitches about.

Brady is forcibly insistent that the entirety of the order be devoured while they get acquainted, and chides Sam that it would be embarrassing if two such strapping guys as themselves can't manage to put away a few pizzas between them. Pride firmly intact, his willpower to keep thinking frugally wilting under the heady aroma of melted cheese, Sam offers to chip in for the cost but is immediately rejected, for which is he is silently thankful.

Dropping into one of the bean bags with an entire pizza box on his lap, Brady demands that Sam tell him his life story, and when Sam stutters and hesitates, obviously uncomfortable, Brady relents and tells Sam his instead.

Sam's never tasted anything as good as that pizza is right now, hot and gooey with just the right spices.

Although he suspects that it's more that weeks of a plain fare subsistence having primed his mouth for long missed flavors and textures.

He sits quietly and attentive, trying not to wolf down the food as Brady talks, determined to get a firm understanding of the other boy as is his pattern when meeting new people. Dean's always teased him about the way he observes others in an intense state of concentration instead of actually interacting with them.

He wonders why Brady is moved in by the hired help instead of his parents, and asks just that, only to have his new roommate laugh humorlessly as he explains to Sam that a first day of college isn't important enough on the grand scale of the Brady family for his success driven father to give up a day of meetings or his vapid, ice queen of a mother to give up her weekly spa appointment.

The way Brady talks about his parents leaves a chill in the air between them, and Sam feels a little pang of sympathy for the other boy.

Even though Sam has come on his own as well, he thinks that the disinterest of Brady's parents is somehow sadder than his own family's for reasons he can't define right now.

Brady is the youngest of his family, like Sam. He has an older brother Barclay the Second, or Clay as Brady corrects himself with a mocking and condescending note to his voice, who is in his last year at Wharton. Just talking about his older brother seems to make Brady physically ill, and Sam is surprised by the level of vehemence in Brady's demeanor.

He also has an older sister, Celia who is currently on a world tour with friends from Radcliffe and who, as far as Brady is concerned, can stay away permanently.

Sam can't imagine having the level of hostility towards a sibling that Brady seems to hold, and then it makes him wonder what Dean is saying about him these days. It's at that point that he rethinks his earlier decision about calling his brother, sure that hearing a similar level of vitriol in his big brother's voice directed at Sam would finish breaking him after the emotional roller coaster he's been on today.

They're halfway through the third pizza by the time Luis and Zach come back, and after that it's one long whirlwind of introductions and a long night of getting-to-know-you conversations between the four boys.

Of course they ask questions about Sam, and he is as truthful and vague as he can be. Telling them only that his father and brother are talented mechanics. That Dad is a former Marine and used to own a garage, but after losing Sam's mother, he took the boys on the road to do specialty jobs.

Sam doesn't elaborate what kind.

Likewise, Dean works with their father and restores classic cars when he has the time, and Sam shows the photo of himself and Dad with Cherry as an example of his work.

It's a massively whitewashed version of the truth, and Sam is relieved when they don't push for more specific details, because his family's unique past is no one's business and he won't be giving any more information anytime soon. Everyone is tired after a long day and it's not long before they split up to go their separate ways.

By the time Sam is ready to go to bed, he's exhausted, pleasantly full for the first time in over a month, and thoroughly homesick.

Brady insists on keeping their connecting door open, and Sam is pleased by the affability they have started to build between them so quickly, but also concerned, because his nightmare has been coming to him pretty steadily over the past few weeks, and with his past being dredged up and his emotions running high, he suspects tonight will be bad.

He makes a quick excuse that he snores like a freight train to encourage separating the rooms, but Brady isn't dissuaded. He assures Sam that not only does he wear headphones to bed, but he sleeps like the dead.

Sam climbs into his bed that night, overwhelmed and mentally drained, and while he's fairly pleased with his new neighbors, he's missing his brother even more than before.

/

It's just shy of midnight when John rolls into the dirt parking lot of Harvelle's Roadhouse.

A man used to being on the road and driving endless hours behind the wheel, he's just about at the end of his endurance tonight. The past few days have been rough on him, physically and emotionally, and as he rubs a hand through the scruff building up on his chin, he almost convinces himself to start the car back up and just keep heading north to Sioux Falls.

But he doesn't, because he has obligations to meet here now that there are people from the community keeping his youngest son safe.

Nothing much intimidates John, but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit how out of his element he had been in Stanford's Financial Aid office two days ago. Wildly out of place in his worn jeans and khaki over shirt as he stood in line in the tastefully appointed posh office while he waited to be seen by one of the assistant bursars.

But just because he felt uncomfortable being there, the deep, penetrating sorrow over his rift with his youngest tingeing every emotion he owned, didn't mean that he was any less the charming bastard he was used to being to get what he wanted on a job.

After an initial propensity towards outright dismissal, the woman behind the counter was flattered and cajoled enough to open Sam's financial records to his obviously concerned and well meaning father. It was technically a breach in protocol, since Sam was a legal adult, but the fact was, when it comes to colleges and expenses, it was usually the parents who shouldered the load anyway.

It didn't take long for John to get the lay of the land as to what was covered and what was still lacking. The assistant assured him that everything really was in order as far as Sam's expenses were concerned. As a matter of fact, the last funds they had been waiting on had just been electronically received earlier that day, and when all was said and done, Sam would still be getting a disbursement for just over two hundred dollars.

A meticulous man, his years of dedicated research and attention to detail surging to the forefront, John went over his boy's finances carefully to ensure that Sammy wouldn't be caught lacking and find himself in trouble. Frowning when he saw the description of the meal plan that he knew wasn't nearly enough to keep his lanky, still growing kid properly fed.

John might be a stubborn asshole sometimes. Hell, most of the time. There's plenty of people who would wholeheartedly share that tidbit of information with you, with or without the aid of a glass or four of Hunter's Helper. He's also made more than his share of mistakes over the years with his kids, and he himself is the first one that would admit to each and every one of them without hesitation.

But at the end of the day, he's always tried to do the best he could for them when he could.

Kicking his baby boy out of the house will certainly be the final punch in John's ticket downstairs one day, when things end bloody like he knows it will. It doesn't matter that Sammy was the one who decided to walk away, regardless of how much John and Dean needed him with them. All it matters is that John was supposed to be the boy's father first, and today, Sam's father is going to at least make sure that his kid gets a decent meal plan.

The now flirting assistant explains to John that Sam will get a disbursement of any amount left over after his remaining expenses are paid. John sees a way to give his kid some spending money, so he forks over twenty-two hundred dollars in cash to pay for the school's premium meal plan, plus another three hundred that will go directly into Sam's student account that can be used at the campus bookstore or any of the non-traditional dining hall food venues.

Sam will therefore receive a check including the twenty-two hundred the kid wasn't expecting and more besides, and his father is slightly more comfortable in knowing that his boy won't be completely destitute this semester. Sam's just as stubborn as old man is, and John knows that his boy would never agree to take anything from his father after their falling out.

At least this way, Sam will take the check from the school and have a little cushion to fall back on.

He goes back to his motel feeling a little less shitty about his lackluster parenting skills after that, but not so much that he eases up on the self flagellation of losing it with his son that day. It's too little, too late, but it's all he can do at the moment to be anything remotely resembling the loving father he desperately wants to be to Sam.

Taking out that evil son of a bitch that destroyed his family will be the best thing he can do for his kid, because John is determined that its death is the key to saving Sam from whatever fucked up fate life has in store for him.

And he will save Sam.

Or die trying.

Until then, John concedes that there are worse things than letting the boy have a little bit of happiness in his life being the college kid that John knows Sam has wanted to be since he was fourteen.

Sam might think his old man knows nothing about him, but he'd be wrong. John could tell you the exact day he saw the change in his adolescent son, and he's been trying to hold onto his kid with a tenuous grip that's been increasingly slipping inch by inch ever since.

Later, after checking out of his motel, John packs up the car and plans to blow town as soon as he sees Sam arrive safely before heading to Nebraska. As he putters in the parking lot checking the fluid levels under the hood, Caleb calls him to say that Sam just climbed aboard a commuter train in San Francisco and is headed to Palo Alto.

Now that Sam is on his way, suddenly John's first instinct is to get the hell out of Dodge before his boy catches a glimpse of him and they have another epic showdown right there in the streets of the quaint college town for everyone to see.

He assumes that Sam would be furious to know that his father had the nerve to even be in the area, and John can already hear the hurled accusations and insults being slung in his direction by his youngest who wouldn't hesitate to meticulously list, in alphabetical order, every fault and failing John has ever had as a father.

But the plain truth is that John is desperate to see his little boy again, even if it has to be from a distance. He's been told for weeks that Sammy is safe and doing okay, but it's one thing to be told and quite another to see it with his own eyes. It's probably a huge mistake, but he decides to be covertly hidden somewhere at the transit center, so that he's up close and personal just long enough to watch his boy get off that train.

John finds the most logical spot for his stakeout, his binoculars already sitting next to him, and he's keeping an eye on the steady stream of travelers milling about the area. Instinctively assuring himself that Sam isn't being followed by anyone.

Or anything.

The minutes pass slowly, and John gets the sensation of watching paint dry on a humid day when every stroke takes forever and nothing goes according to plan. It seems like an eternity before the train carrying his son pulls into the station, and by the time it comes to a complete stop, John is about to burst out of his skin.

His legendary patience drops far back into the distance when it comes to space getting in between him and his kids.

John watches with increased apprehension until he sees the familiar lanky body and mop of chestnut curls that belongs to his little boy descend onto the platform. This is one of the longest stretches that he's ever been separated from his child, and upon seeing Sam, alive and in apparent good health, John's heart leaps up into his throat in relief and he nearly chokes on the love he has for his son.

The desire to bolt from the confines of the hidden Corolla and throw his arms around his boy is almost overwhelming, and John literally has to grip the door handle with a feverish clench to keep him inside the car, it's flimsy plastic groaning its displeasure under his iron clad fingers. He watches with pride as Sam scans the immediate area for any signs of threats before hoisting his bags on his shoulder and walking towards the main road.

The smart thing now would be to discretely pull away and let Sam get on with his life. Robert had called early yesterday to give the update that the almost private dorm room arranged for Sam had been properly warded by Christian in his guise as campus security. The campus itself has been checked and checked again for anything out of the ordinary, and Ash has confirmed that there have been no noticeable demon omens in the general area.

John expects Sam to cross the intersection and head towards campus, but when the boy turns right and starts to make his way down the main drag, John finds himself gearing up for a mobile surveillance. His son doesn't go too far, just a little over a mile as his father follows behind, using every trick he knows not to get spotted by his kid who has been trained to notice such things.

An idea begins to dawn in John's mind, and he's quickly proven correct when he watches Sam cross the road and head towards the motel that John himself has just check out of.

Like father, like son.

John wasn't prepared for Sam to not go directly to his dorm room. A pertinent piece of information that he kicks himself for not considering. It's a mistake in planning that he would reprimand his sons for making, and the double standard of that doesn't go unnoticed by him. He wasn't about to let his boy spend a night unprotected either, so he changes his plans and makes the decision to settle in for the long haul.

He watches Sam emerge from the front office and navigate his way along the outdoor balcony of the second floor to find his room. Life's irony kicking John squarely in the teeth with the fact that it is literally next door to the one where he slept last night. Then watches the general perimeter a while longer until Sam exits his room and totes his duffel to the laundry room on the first level.

As the moments tick by, it's getting harder and harder to resist the temptation to just announce his presence and maybe call a truce long enough to take his son to dinner. Sam looks healthy and even a little tan, but John's pretty sure that the boy is carrying around a little less bulk these days, and it's a niggling observation that John's guilty mind is having a hard time coming to grips with.

When he sees Sam come out of the laundry room with a duffel full of presumably clean clothes, John debates a while longer until he makes the decision to end the game and talk to his boy, only to be thwarted when Sam comes back out just long enough to hop a bus before his father even has time to blink.

Fumbling with the keys so that he can pursue wherever Sam is heading, he covertly follows the bus until it lets Sam off in a shopping plaza.

The whole time Sam is in the store, John watches from a clear vantage point at the far end of the parking lot. He sees the steady stream of what is certainly other families getting their children prepared for their first semester and the urge to be with his son is creating an internal conflict of epic proportions inside his head. All he wants to do is head into the store, find his kid, hug the daylights out of him and buy him anything he wants.

But in the end, he doesn't do it.

Because John is a coward.

Petrified of being rejected by his boy, knowing that the pain would be too much to bear.

In all truthfulness, John had hoped that Sam would have tried to contact them while he sat cooling his heels in that cabin in Des Moines. That the long term separation from his family would have had his kid seeing things John's way and prompting him to seek refuge back with his father and brother where he belonged and could be safe.

Only thing is, Sam didn't do that.

Because he is most definitely John's son in every way. Blindly forging ahead and embracing every molecule of shared DNA that maps out the faults and poor temperament about himself that John has passed down to him.

Sam will never back away from a challenge. He will never retreat.

He will double down, even when clearly in the wrong, and piss off anyone around him that dares to disagree.

So John could barge into the store, but all it would accomplish is making a public spectacle of them both and get Sam's back up even further. Make the gap between them a little wider, and their eventual reconciliation a little harder.

That's why John doesn't move from the car.

That's why he trails Sam's return bus back to the motel and then spends that night cramped in the economy sized front seat of a sardine tin can of a car, keeping awake on gas station coffee and watching with an eagle eye so that his son can sleep in safety.

Why he settles for ghosting Sam's journey to campus the next day, his boy's tall frame laden down like a pack mule as he strides towards the safety of Stanford's recently warded grounds.

And why John eventually says goodbye to his son from a distance and doesn't try to fight the tears that come as he turns the car east towards Nebraska.

/

Sam wakes up for his first full day on campus groggy and tired not quite ready to face the day head on like he had been hoping originally.

By now he knows well enough that when his emotions are riding high, he's almost certainly going to wake up screaming in a pool of sweat and shaking like a leaf, and that's not exactly how he wants to start off his joint occupancy with Brady.

So instead, he kept himself in a constant state of half wakefulness for the duration of the night and vows that he will find time later in the day to catch a nap before he face plants along one of the campus sidewalks.

Brady is still sleeping the aforementioned promise of like the dead that Sam wasn't confident enough to bank on last night, so Sam quietly gathers his shower supplies and takes off down the hall where he indulges in a scalding hot fifteen minutes of endless water bliss. By the time he returns, Brady is bleary but awake, slowly prowling around his own room and muttering angrily about the need for their own coffee maker.

Sam heartily agrees because it's been ages since he could afford a cup.

There's half a pepperoni pizza left in the mini fridge and they split it for breakfast because there's a mandatory freshman welcome seminar in thirty minutes, and both of them need to head over to the ID Card Office and get their student IDs before they can use the dining hall. Sam had been overjoyed with relief upon receiving an email from the financial aid office informing him that his last disbursement had been authorized and there was a check waiting for him to collect.

On a practical level, he knew it would be there eventually, but it was much more comforting to have verification of the fact when he was desperately counting on the proceeds.

Joined by Zach and Luis, the four of them sit through the seminar, a sea of either overly peppy or equally bleary eyed fellow students surrounding them as the various speakers drone on and on. Still tired and bordering on cranky, his caffeine jones working overtime to remind him that coffee was nearby and back on the menu, Sam prays to every deity he can think of to just let this whole thing wrap up as quickly as possible.

The young men bolt, like the running of the bulls in Pamploma, to be among the first at the ID Card Office, and Sam's military style conditioning and long legs have him edging out the others for first place in line for their group.

He picks up his ID card and waits while the others do the same, teasing each other over which one of them has the better photo and which one looks like the biggest goof. Sam's hair is long, even for him, and it's unanimously agreed that he's inching close into Cousin It territory, and he makes a mental note to price what a trim will cost when he gets his check deposited.

When he takes a closer look at the emblems on his card, he's annoyed to see that he has a mark for the premium dining plan embossed on the front. He groans, because that's his spending money if he doesn't get this fixed immediately. Knowing from his welcome packet that, once he's used it at the dining hall, there's no getting a refund later.

He gripes good naturedly to his wealthy friends and cites the humble plight of the aid dependent student as he leaves them to head over to financial aid office to get things fixed.

It's when he gets to the bursar's window that he's shocked into silence by an unexpected turn of events when he's handed a check for significantly more than what he was expecting.

At first he thinks that it's probably just a mix up in his records that has mistakenly given him the significant upgrade in his dining account, plus the extra funds. He's polite and patient, forcing himself to quell the creeping fear inside his chest, because things sometimes happen and occasionally data gets entered incorrectly.

Not panicking yet, because he's fairly sure that it will all work out in the end if he just keeps calm and doesn't offend anyone with his growing wave of panic bubbling up inside of him that usually leads to a short fuse of temper and diarrhea of the mouth.

There's a steady hum of discussion going on behind the counter as not one, but three other clerks consult among themselves, clucking and leisurely checking their independent monitors to see if they can suss out where the discrepancy is.

Sam's right hand inches up towards his mouth and he barely registers that he's chewing nervously on his pinkie nail, his old habit roaring back with a vengeance, and then feels a sharp clench of misery because Dean isn't around to yank it out and scold him for it.

This goes one for almost ten minutes until a fourth person comes along to see what the whole confusion is about. She glances at the screens briefly, wrinkles her forehead in thought and then smiles. She speaks a few quiet words with the others, picks up the check that Sam had initially rejected as being incorrect and heads back over to his window.

"The check is correct," she tells him politely.

The full amount is his and so is the premium dining plan.

"You father paid for everything in cash two days ago," she says to his stunned face.

And then says it a second time, because he's pretty sure that he's somehow gone hysterically deaf and asks her to repeat it.

Sam is sure that this is all some kind of huge joke, because his father is the guy that kicked him out of the house for even wanting to be here. When she's insistent, he goes so far as to pull an older photo out of his wallet of the three Winchesters and asks her to check again.

She looks at the photo, smiles warmly and nods.

"Such a nice man, you father," she gushes, with the same googly-eyed expression on her face that Sam has seen far too often from others that John has worked his magic upon. The ones who don't know the control freak behind the pretty face.

Sam's too much in shock to move, and the line behind him is getting a little long, so she nicely, but firmly, comes around to the front to put a little more insistence in hastening his departure.

"He is so proud of you, dear," she insists, just short of physically pushing him along. "Tell him hello for me. Have a nice day, Samuel. Next!"

Outside, Sam stumbles a few feet until he finds a bench to flop down on, holding the check in his heads and trying to sort some kind of clarity in his mind to process what has just happened in there. The fat check stares him in the face, its print dark black and bold and definite, and he's remotely aware that he should be breathing the mother of all sighs of relief at the amount because it's the answer to just about every prayer he's had for weeks at this point.

When he manages to gather the first shreds of wits about him, he's overcome with a desperate need to call his father and…

What?

Call Dad and say what?

Thank you, Dad. I was so scared and you don't know what this means to me?

Thank you, Dad. Did you change your mind?

Am I forgiven?

Can I come home?

Or was it a case of…

Thanks, Dad. I appreciate the proceeds of whatever scam you ran to get it. Don't worry, I'll keep my promise to stay far away.

Or

Thanks, Dad. Got the cash. Now you don't have to feel guilty about tossing me out of the house. Have a nice life.

Then Sam remembered the comment the woman had made about his father paying it in person two days ago.

Dad had been here, in Palo Alto, the day Sam arrived. Tired and lonely, broken and desperately homesick, missing his family like an amputated limb, and his father hadn't bothered to see him.

Sam knew his father well enough to know that if his dad had wanted to see or talk to Sam, he would have found him without even breaking a sweat.

But he hadn't, and it was that painful realization that crushed Sam's battered soul into more dust as the tide of hurt pounded through his ears, making them ring from the rush of raging blood surging inside of him.

Just once, Dad could have shown him a little support, at a time when Sam was insecure and struggling. Wanting desperately to know that he wasn't literally alone in the world.

When just a few words of encouragement from his own father would have been enough to sustain him through the upcoming long and hard journey of finding a way to finish growing up all on his own.

Sam might be eighteen and technically an adult, but he's also still just a teenager who needs to know that his own dad gives a shit about him.

Dad didn't even stick around long enough to do that. He'd come all this way, thrown a little cash in Sam's direction and then, in true John Winchester fashion, took off again. Probably for another hunt or another bottle of Jack.

Then, all Sam felt as he sat on that bench, was fury.

/

American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am EST on Tuesday, September 11th.

In Canaan, Vermont, Rufus Turner is sorting through a mound of correspondence that piled up during his sojourn in Des Moines.

In Blue Earth, Minnesota, Dean is drinking his third strong cup of dark roast coffee in the quiet atmosphere of Pastor Jim's porch. Enjoying a rare moment of calm introspection after days of indulging in his favorite hobbies.

Jim Murphy is in his kitchen, reading an article in the sports section speculating that Michael Jordan was about to come out of retirement and rejoin the NBA.

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Bobby Singer is taking inventory of a new shipment of books he picked up from a connection in Boulder over the weekend.

In Lansing, Michigan, Robert Campbell is organizing a team to hunt a Leshii terrorizing a small farming community in Indiana.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, John Winchester is bunking down at Caleb's house, and the two men are deep in research tracking down a possible source for an ancient Kurdish knife thought to be able to kill demons.

Nearby at Harvelle's Roadhouse, Ellen Harvelle is having yet another argument with her daughter Jo about the latter's refusal to return to college and stubborn desire to become a hunter like her father.

In Palo Alto, California, Sam Winchester is getting dressed for his morning run and trying not to wake up his roommate by tripping over his own feet in the dark.

None of them have a clue of what just happened.

/

By the time the South Tower of the World Trader Center collapsed, Dean was already speeding his way across the state line into Wisconsin.

The journey from Blue Earth to New York City would take the average traveler around nineteen hours, give or take road conditions and traffic, and how many times one needed to stop at a rest area or to gas up.

Dean Winchester wasn't the average traveler.

All told, he would spend closer to sixteen, white knuckled at the Impala's wheel. Each report coming in on the radio just inspiring him to hit the gas pedal with a little more enthusiasm. Details were still sketchy at the time, and every new broadcast just seemed to bring more bad news than the ones previous, with no real idea of exactly what the circumstances behind the planes' motivations were.

All he knew was that it was a catastrophic event, with an unknown mass of violent deaths, and the supernatural blow back from a tragedy on that scale would wreak unimaginable havoc on a city already on its knees.

It had started like a regular day at Jim's rectory.

A few days on the road filled with beers, burgers, bars and busty beauties had Dean feeling almost comfortable in his skin again as he sped past Jolly Green the night before. Considering that it was only a two hour drive from Sioux Falls to Blue Earth, the fact that it took Dean almost five days to get there had nothing to do with a sudden inability to navigate a map, and everything to do with unabashed indulgence in some much needed hedonism.

Dad hadn't been particularly pleased to get Dean's call that he was taking off after specifically being told to stay put, and it was only after assurances were made repeatedly that his firstborn wasn't out looking for a solo hunt that the worried father eventually gave his blessing to what he hoped would be some of Dean's personal brand of R&R.

After a few more minutes of John's aggravated posturing and Dean's acceptance of the requisite dressing down for disobeying orders, they had agreed to meet in Blue Earth in a week's time.

John would make his way back to South Dakota after his errands in Palo Alto were completed. He informed Dean that he had a few other stops to make, and then he would exchange the beater for the Sierra before heading to the rectory. Planning on the two of them spending time working on some research he needed done using a few new demonology lore books that Jim had recently acquired as a way of getting Dean's feet wet back in the game.

Liberated and given his father's reluctant seal of approval, Dean had left a trail of empty plates, pissed off pool marks and loved up barmaids in his wake before arriving at Jim's two full days before John was expected.

It had been a while since his last visit to one of the places where he and Sam grew up over the years. Just pulling into the familiar driveway had been enough to trigger a cascade of mental pictures of the two of them engaging in a variety of activities on the church grounds.

Most glaring of all was the memory of the day he realized that Sam was preparing to leave the family.

An event that Dean had absolutely convinced himself that he had derailed, only to now return a failure in that aspect like so many others in his life. He sat in the car for a full five minutes processing the troubling reminder, full low self esteem mode activated, before heading up the stairs to the front door, his gait a little less enthusiastic than it had been in the previous days.

Of course Jim already had the whole story, and in true form he somehow managed to distract Dean with other topics, even as he made his willingness to listen and comfort subtly apparent. Dean had already had enough contemplation on the events surrounding his brother's departure during his near month of silence, and he wasn't up for the sharing and caring with their old family friend just yet, regardless of how pure Jim's intentions.

They made companionable small talk about a few possible jobs before Dean retreated to his usual room, grateful that Jim thought to take out the second bed that would be glaringly empty.

Exhausted from days on the road filled with energized pleasures, and not yet ready to confide in the kindly pastor, Dean went to sleep early and got a good night's rest for the first time in weeks. The familiar surroundings and the peace of the rectory calming his inner turmoil as his mind subconsciously registered a sense of warmth and safety.

Because of how much rest he has gotten the previous night, he's up just before dawn the next day, sitting on the front porch steps of the rectory and warding off the early autumn chill by huddling under a quilt that has been tossed on the back of Jim's couch for as long as Dean can remember. It's quirky repetitive blocks of varying shades of blues and yellows fading through the years and the stuffing getting flatter with each use, but still cozy.

He drinks the first of his several cups of morning coffee as he watches the sunrise on what promises to be a perfect sunny day.

Jim offers breakfast to him around seven, but Dean is quiet and contemplative when he refuses. Recognizing that the young man he is fond of is having a true peaceful moment, the clergyman doesn't press further, retreating back into the kitchen to leisurely eat his own eggs and read the morning paper.

Tuesday mornings are not particularly busy around the rectory, so Jim has time to indulge a little.

His housekeeper putters around him, listening to a morning talk show on the tiny television perched on the counter as she begins preparing the ingredients for the much loved lemon bars that will be served at lunch when Pastor Jim meets with the committee for this year's clothing drive.

Altogether, they are a nearly silent and content household for almost an hour until the first news reports start coming in from New York.

Dean has nearly paranormal gut instincts when it comes to trouble. All he needs to hear is that a plane has crashed into one of the Twin Towers and he's already striding into his guest bedroom to collect his things. Jim doesn't try to stop him, because as far as he knows, Dean's sixth sense has never steered them wrong before and there is such a look of determination and surety on the young man's face that the pastor wouldn't even dream of getting in the way.

He offers only an uncharacteristic embrace and sends Dean on his way with a quick blessing laid on him.

By the time Dean is climbing into the Impala, Jim calls out to him in despair and informs him that a second plane has struck the other tower, confirming his worst fears. Heart in his throat, Dean guns the engine and the Impala streaks like a bullet through the streets of Blue Earth as he tears towards the interstate.

Watching him leave, Jim returns inside the rectory where he will spend the rest of the day alternating between the task of making hundreds of phones calls and on his knees in prayer.

As Dean drives east, his radio is on at high volume and he feverishly scans through the stations hoping to glean updated information. Conflicting stories are broadcast one minute and then corrected the next. Then updated and corrected again. There are too many speculations being made and blatantly wild guesses being thrown around.

It doesn't matter to Dean at the moment exactly what happened. The hunting community's response will be the same regardless.

This will be Dean's first experience in responding to a large scale tragedy. He was living at Sonny's when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred in April of 1995, but many of the hunters that he and his father have worked with over the years were boots on the ground during the aftermath, including Caleb and Travis.

Caleb had later shared with Dean the horror stories of what he saw there, worse than most of the hunts the older boy had been on during his short time in The Life. Part of the large hunter crew that went undercover to carry out the rituals necessary to purify the smoldering remains of such large scale loss.

Dean is flying through Alden, Minnesota when he hears that the Pentagon was hit. There's more craziness and shell shocked reporting coming through that his mind barely processes as he pushes hard through the miles. Wild rumors that make his blood run cold and an overall feeling of mass hysteria on the roads as he sees one car after another pull over to the side.

The drivers wide eyed and intently focused on their car radios and cellphones.

Minutes after the collapse of the South Tower is announced, a further report comes in about a possible downed airliner in western Pennsylvania.

There's immediate speculation about exactly what brought it down, and Dean's interest switches into hyperdrive.

Owing to the immense population, New York City has its own full time hunting community. They are a fairly insular group, preferring to handle the day to day jobs themselves, but they also realize that outside help is occasionally required. Dean remembers his father working one job with them a long time ago, and it didn't have a particularly warm and fuzzy ending, but then again, John gets along with so few people anyway.

Right around the time that he is approaching Madison, after both towers have fallen, Jim calls him and tells him that he's being expected at the emergency base of operations when he arrives in New York.

Lower Manhattan is shut down in every direction, and will most likely remain so for the immediate future. While they are talking, the conversation turns to the plane that crashed south east of Pittsburgh, and since it's relatively on the way, Dean asks Jim if he should head there first instead. Jim says he will get back to him on that.

By this time, John has heard the news and he frantically calls Dean, worry oozing out of every pore from an erratic paternal need to reassure himself that his firstborn is alive and safe. An irrational fear, considering he knows that Dean wasn't anywhere near the tragedy, but scaring him just the same.

Hearing his son's voice answer the phone calms John's frenzied heartbeat and he releases a breath he didn't even know he was holding once he dialed.

John is just east of Lincoln now, currently speeding towards Sioux Falls to grab his truck and his arsenal. He immediately quashes the idea of Dean stopping in Shanksville, simply because the crash site will be flooded with teams of all the alphabet agencies and the Winchesters don't have the immediate resources to infiltrate what is surely a highly volatile situation.

He assures Dean that a more local team from the hunting community will respond there, and John will meet his son in New York as soon as he can. He also unnecessarily orders Dean to be extremely careful until they are reunited, the concern kicked up into stratospheric levels from the shock that they are all feeling, and exacerbated due to his helplessness in not having both of his kids within arms reach at the moment.

John prays that California is spared, because he can't be in two places at once and at the moment his boys are on opposite coasts. At least he knows that his baby is relatively safe on Stanford's warded campus, while his firstborn is heading into the eye of the storm.

Dean plows his way east, stopping only for coffee and the unavoidable piss, dodging traffic and using every trick in his repertoire to avoid getting pulled over. The roads are equal parts chaos and empty as he crosses one state line after the other. He gets several more calls during the trip, finally receiving directions to the hunter's base of operations in the Fulton-Ferry district in Brooklyn.

Because he knows that the faster route to his destination will be impassable, he heads slightly to the south. The highway now taking him into New Jersey, where he will eventually cross through Staten Island to Brooklyn. It's almost one a.m. Eastern Standard as he slugs a path through congested traffic across the Verrazano Narrows bridge.

While he inches his way across the crowded, lengthy suspension, he manages to snatch quick glimpses of the devastation in the distance. He hasn't been there often, because his father despises the place, but he's seen enough to recognize the obscenity of the absence of the towers in the skyline. Replaced now with an illuminated massive cloud of smoke that swirls high into the night sky.

Even late at night, New York City is always vibrant and bright, but Dean looks sadly at the tip of Manhattan Island, because while there are plenty of lit buildings surrounding the area, it's the ones shrouded in darkness that tell the story.

He arrives at the base of operations for the hunting community fifteen minutes later. Swinging the Impala towards the entrance leading to an underground parking facility, he gives his bonafides to the two men standing guard and is allowed to drive into the structure.

Once parked, he's met by another man, shorter than himself and stocky, deep baritone voice and heavy Brooklyn accent. Without wasting time with pleasantries, Dean's instructed to take what he needs and lock up, because the car will be here as long as he's around to work the job.

Dean doesn't particularly like the idea of benching Baby with a bunch of strangers, but desperate times, etc., and he's not really interested in causing flak for Pastor Jim who has vouched for him. He gets with the program, grabs the necessities and heads upstairs where a group of hardened but weary men and women are working feverishly at rows of long tables, assembling the ingredients for the rituals that will be performed over the next couple of days.

There's no telling yet how many have perished today. It doesn't really matter to Dean.

In his opinion, anytime there is even one death, it's one death too many. That's why he does the job he does.

After he's introduced around, another guy leads him over to the makeshift sleeping area, where dozens of cots are either made up or already occupied. The plan is for the group to leave in small batches at first light for the wreckage.

He's also shown to the shower room, where he gratefully strips down after his long journey, gradually easing the aches in his bum leg and shoulder under the hot pulsing jets of water. By the time he is cleaned up, he's more than ready to hit the rack for the next four hours before walking into Hell.

/

It hadn't really taken long for Sam to get settled in at Stanford.

After those first two crazy hectic days, he and the other boys were easily finding their way around. Arranging their class schedules and mapping out all the important common areas that are top of the list of every student's need to know priorities.

Without even hesitating, Sam had pushed for a heavy course load and was dolefully granted permission to make the attempt by his adviser. Taking seriously a warning that he voluntarily pull back if things got to be too hard before his grades started to suffer and affect his ability to continue at the school.

He had already sat through one full day of classes yesterday, beginning at 8 am with his Intro to International Relations section. A walking bundle of nerves, he first stepped into the lecture hall with a rattling feeling of unease and insecure apprehension. His overall sense of not really belonging anywhere at the moment not making his immersion into student life any easier.

But then his analytical and curious brain had kicked into gear, and by the time the lecture was over, his first day jitters seemed a ridiculous thing, leaving him to hoist his backpack on his shoulder with more confidence and a growing measure of excitement for his next class.

Sam had also implemented the start of his running regimen again, quickly finding a popular route in the Campus Drive Loop. An aptly named four mile path surrounding the campus itself that was a relatively flat, easy stretch that he could manage in the pre-dawn darkness when the world was still and quiet.

He would never admit it to anyone, but the early morning runs that his father had drilled into him since puberty actually went a long way in preparing him physically and mentally for the day. The paced and steady movements pumping adrenaline through his body, spiking endorphins and giving him an opportunity to clear his head and focus all the snippets of fears, worries, concerns and trepidation into manageable bite sized chunks.

As his feet hit the pavement in a familiar and measured rhythm, he channels all his pain and stress and rage, the expended energy flowing through his furiously pumping arms and burning in his lungs, giving release in an environment of his choosing.

One that he controlled, where he was his own man, no longer answering to anyone else, and he reveled in the strength he felt building in every tendon. Ever increasing his certainty that he could not only protect himself in a place where he had no one watching his back, but also ensured he no longer had to take orders from anyone.

After a lifetime of being John's son and Dean's little brother, Sam was determined to become his own man.

He runs and works out now because he chooses to do so. No longer under his father's thumb and subject to his mandates and unrealistic expectations. No longer caving to the requests of an overly obedient brother guilt tripping him into doing as he's told.

This morning he runs the Loop with little effort, giving half a thought to mapping out an extended trail for the future because he likes the conditioning but he doesn't feel challenged by a shorter length than he was used to in Sioux Falls. To compensate, when he is finished and approaching his dorm he drops to the ground in the courtyard of Sterling Quad and runs through a full cardio drill, relishing the fact that he has chosen to do it himself, and not because his father has demanded it.

It's liberating.

By the time he's finished, he's breathless but happily energized and the adrenaline surge from his workout is buzzing pleasantly through his veins. He's hot and sweaty and feeling really good, ready to hit a long hot shower when he notices that there are an unusually large number of lights on in the dorms.

Considering that it's not even 6:30 yet, and the sky is still an inky blue with just the faintest hints of the coming sunrise, to see that many students already awake and active is immediately disconcerting to him.

There's a thrum of activity inside when he heads back to his dorm. Too many people milling about in the hallway. Doors open and a general sense of anxiety and confusion as a crowd of barely awake students in rumpled sleeping clothes shoot increasingly fearful questions at each other and to the area around them at large.

Zach is rubbing his eyes as he stands in the threshold of his room looking dazed, and behind him Sam can see and hear Luis on the phone apparently talking to his mother and trying to calm her down.

"What's going on?" Sam asks Zach in a hushed tone.

Zach looks at him strangely, his eyes crinkled in apparent disbelief and shaking his head as if attempting to clear it of something interfering with his ability to think.

"We're under attack."

As the minutes pass, a large portion of the dorm's occupants gradually find their way to the lounge where they all lump together in front of the television screen which is streaming a live video feed of the smoking towers. They all watch in nervous apprehension while the screen splits into coverage of the reporters weighing in on the latest reports and speculation.

There's a collective gasp of horror when the South Tower collapses.

Stanford has a wide variety of students, and it's easy to tell which of them are from the East Coast by the heightened state of fear in their eyes. One of the girls that Sam has seen in passing is huddled on the sofa being bookended by friends, her hands shaking as she cries and repeatedly attempts to phone someone, only to get nothing but voicemail.

As time goes on, Sam hears the whispers that the girl's father is an investment banker working on one of the upper floors of the North Tower. He stares at the live feed in dread when it collapses, and the girl right along with it.

Everyone in the room seems to feel a need to reach out and connect with family and friends as the devastation unfolds in front of them. Sam's cell is burning a hole in the front pocket of the hoodie he wore during his morning run and he catches himself reaching for it several times, always pushing back the urge to dial and reassure himself with the sound of his brother's and father's voices.

He knows without being told that Dad and Dean will most likely already be on their way to New York. Neither one of his self sacrificing and pig headed stubborn family members will care that there are certainly a score of other hunters to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy who won't have to cross the country to get there.

Not that he can blame them.

There are already people in New York that Sam cares deeply for, and the urge to go to them, to protect and shelter and comfort them, has every hunter instinct inside of him screaming to be heard and obeyed.

It's only the inescapable fact that US airspace has been closed down that drives home the realization that he is on the other side of the country and unable to fly that keeps him firmly on California soil.

When he's not restraining himself from hitting speed dial one, he's feverishly attempting to reach Alex. Logically, he can't think of any reason why his kind of, sort of, ex girlfriend would be anywhere near the towers, both her classes and her dorm being several blocks north of the site.

It's just the primal need to connect with her that is making him climb the walls at the moment, and the frustration of failing to do so is heightening his discomfort and overall unease.

The news announces the wide disruption in phone service for the greater New York area, so Sam shouldn't be surprised when his calls go unanswered. Still he continues to try a while longer, even going so far as to call his friend Taylor, who after becoming closer friends with Alex after hours spent together around the Winchester's kitchen table, is her roommate at NYU.

Both girls' phones go straight to voicemail.

Eventually, his inability to contact his friends, and his insecurity in wondering if an attempt to reach out to his family will be rebuffed, Sam flees for the sanctuary of the Stanford Memorial Church in the center of the Main Quad of the campus.

There, he joins an already gathered large crowd and falls to his knees in prayer.

It's late afternoon by the time Sam finally leaves the church.

He doesn't even know how so many hours passed by without him realizing it. He had put his phone on vibrate upon entering as a matter of respect. It had buzzed a few times while he sat quietly, trying to makes sense of how the higher power he had always believed in so fervently has allowed this travesty to take place.

When he steps back out into the bright sunlight, he pulls his phone from his pocket and scrolls through the missed calls and messages. Brady and Zach wondering where he disappeared to, as well as two calls from Pastor Jim.

Nothing from either his father or brother.

He finds himself feeling surprised by that, although he readily admits that he probably shouldn't.

Because he has affection and respect for the family clergyman, he returns Jim's call as he walks back towards his dorm. Jim confirms his suspicions that his family are already on their way to New York to help out.

Sam isn't sure if he's more sad by their lack of contact, or more worried about their safety.

In the end he decides to be angry over their predictably macho desire to throw themselves headfirst into the fray.

All his classes for today were canceled, and tomorrow as well as the student body comes to grips with what has happened. Out here in California, the tragedy seems almost removed from a mental viewpoint, and Sam doesn't like this feeling of helplessness that is permeating through his whole body.

With nothing else to offer, he deviates from his course to the dorm and heads to the campus health center instead where he joins a long line of other students to donate blood.

At dinner time, it suddenly occurs to him that he hasn't eaten all day, and he goes to the dining hall with the other boys to choke down food that tastes like cardboard in their mouths. If not for the blinding headache he's sporting, Sam is pretty sure he wouldn't have even bothered.

Alex finally returns his several frantic phone calls just before 9:00pm Pacific time. The absolute devastation in her voice, normally so strong and stubborn and clear, makes him give real thought about hopping a cross country bus to get to her and hold her close, but she insists that she will be fine, and reminds him that he really can't afford to leave school so early in the semester.

He doesn't like it, but he knows she's right in the end. All told he would have to be gone a week or more, and it's time that he will never be able to make up without being perpetually behind all semester. Right now the professors might be lenient, but Sam can't risk getting off to a bad start when everything he has is riding on his success here.

They talk for more than an hour until Alex is falling asleep and barely able to keep up the conversation. He tells her that he loves her, one of the few times he's expressed it out loud, and she returns the sentiment before saying goodnight, leaving him lying in his bed and worrying about all of his loved ones.

He ignores Brady's surprised stare when he kneels by his bed and prays some more.

/

Dean is woken from a fitful sleep by a raucous voice bellowing around the sleeping area, just shy of six am on September 12th.

He and the other occupants of the cots stir to life fairly quickly, because it's deeply ingrained in all of them to hold themselves in a relatively steady state of alertness anyway. There's a mouth watering smell of coffee wafting through the air, and he stretches his stiff limbs for just a moment before getting to his feet and heading over to a long table set far against the wall that's covered in urns, styrofoam cups, bagels and donuts.

While the hunters collect themselves, there's a brief orientation barked at them. Scores of volunteers of every trade are coming into the city from all over to offer their assistance, and the plan is for the hunters to blend in with them. There's clothing and gear strewn about for them to put on, and Dean has a moment of curiosity as to how the group managed to gather so much in so little time.

As far as anyone will see, they are going in as construction workers and engineers to help with rescue and recovery. It's hoped that the large scale of response will assist them in infiltrating the area without too many questions being asked.

Dean doesn't speak to any of the others. It's not a necessarily chatty group. Bags of the materials for the purification are passed around and hidden in the deep pockets of the heavy gauge coveralls they pull on. He knows the rite. Can recite it from memory, his father's relentless instructions over the years bubbling to the surface like a mental gag reflex.

After choking down some caffeine and carbs, dozens of them pile into a series of cargo vans and work vehicles, navigating their way through the crowded streets heading to the Brooklyn Bridge. Entrance to lower Manhattan is still closed to everything but emergency traffic, but the lead truck of the hunters' convey has the right clearances to allow them all through.

Distance-wise, it's a brief trip, just a couple of miles, but with the extraordinary amount of confusion and chaos in every direction, it's a full thirty minutes before they arrive at their destination.

Dean doesn't get a good view of the wreckage until he's completely outside the cargo van he rode in. He grabs work gloves, safety goggles and a hard hat and then turns around to follow the others.

Nothing prepares him for the unimaginable devastation he sees.

Dean knows first hand how massive the towers had been when they stood tall and proud in the New York skyline.

He remembers with perfect clarity the way he and Sammy had walked with their father towards the downtown area during that fateful trip so many years ago and watched them loom in the distance, growing larger and more impressive with every step they took closer.

The little family had stood in the plaza surrounding the two giants, the boys craning their necks up up up into the air, astonished at the height and the seemingly ethereal way the tops ascended into the clouds.

Dad had been in a rare indulgent mood that day and he herded his boys into the massive lobby of the South Tower with the three story tall arched windows and gleaming balcony stretching around them. A veritable marvel of structural and mechanical engineering.

Sammy had been wide eyed with wonder as he gazed around them and a thrill of excitement flushed his cheeks pink when they boarded the high speed elevator for the quick ascent to the Observation Deck.

Dean wasn't fond of heights. Still wasn't actually, but it's a phobia that he tries hard to keep under wraps.

The elevator ride had been disorienting in the way the crowded car swayed slightly, small puffs of rushing air breezing through the interior and an overall squicky feeling of leaving your stomach on the ground floor, only to have it rapidly catch up to you with the small jump at the end of the journey. All of their ears popping from the rapid change in elevation.

They strolled around the interior of the observation deck, getting an impressive panoramic view of the city spread out beneath them. The shorter and shiny spires of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, a pair of steel and chrome little sisters competing for height. The other high rises dwarfed by comparison and the Hudson and East Rivers snaking their way towards the horizon, separating the island from New Jersey and the other boroughs.

Even the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, that had seemed so imposing when they sailed past it earlier in the day on the Staten Island Ferry, looked ridiculously tiny in scale.

After a while of wondered gazing, Dad had led them over to one of the metal benches built into place near the slim but tall windows.

Dean hadn't really wanted to be that close to the view, his fear of heights sending a dizzy wave of vertigo through him, but Sammy was animated and chatty and incredibly excited. So, for Sammy's sake, Dean reluctantly slid into the seat next to their father while the younger boy stood in rapt attention, leaning precariously on the pane of glass which was the only thing separating his baby brother from certain death.

The first several minutes they sat there, Dean's arms itched to reach out and drag Sam back to a safer distance but he refrained, knowing just how annoyed the kid would become from the overt coddling. Fortunately, Dad must have either suspected something or shared Dean's unease, because it wasn't too long before John snaked a protective arm around his younger son's tiny waist.

Whether it was for Sam's safety, Dean's nerves or Dad's own peace of mind, Dean never knew. All he did know was that the gesture mollified him enough that his heart stopped trying to leap out of his chest in protest. Sam threw his father the mother of all bitch faces and received a warning tap on the behind for his efforts, so he didn't dare squirm out of the hold.

Knowing better than to openly defy his dad when John was willing to allow them some regular fun for a change.

Now Dean stood in shocked silence looking at the veritable mountain of twisted steel in front of him and spreading out far and wide.

It was one thing to have a general concept of the destruction. It was something else completely to see it with your own eyes. He reminds himself that it's not just the two metal behemoths that fell yesterday, but a hotel and an another building almost half the size of the giants as well.

Dean has always been a man of action. Quickly jumping into the fray even when he has no clear clue of what might be on the other side of a door.

To put it mildly, right now he simply doesn't have any idea of how and where to begin such a monumental task.

Fortunately, the decision is made for him.

The group of hunters are paired up and split off into a grid pattern to do their work. It's a risky prospect from a safety viewpoint. The debris underneath their feet is unstable and still burning in places, causing jarring shifts as they gingerly make their ways forward, as well as slowly melting the bottom of their boots to varying degrees. They're also apprised of the large pockets of emptiness hiding beneath the beams they climb on and warned how easy it would be to fall into the void if they're not careful.

Ostensibly, they're all there as part of a rescue effort, but looking at the sheer calamity of it all doesn't promote any real hope of finding survivors. One man had been rescued, just minutes before Dean's arrival on site, and over the course of the morning one more woman will be pulled from the rubble as well, but she will be the last found alive.

That doesn't mean that the legitimate rescue workers are put off their task.

They line up in long lengths of a bucket brigade, meticulously sifted through piles of mingled materials in an attempt to find proof of life. Usually picking their target areas from tiny pieces of debris that clearly came from an office and possibly indicating a section where there might be hidden survivors.

They work by hand because the heavy machinery coming in slowly will cause too much instability and bring even more collapse in an already hostile environment. They use search and rescue dogs to catch the scents and subtle traces of victims that the humans might miss in their paths.

The work is detailed and painstaking, but no one complains or shirks. In fact, everyone is eager to pretzel their bodies into whatever contortions they have to assume to steadily dig and sort.

As the day progresses, Dean watches in humble disbelief and growing admiration as firefighters and officers of the NYPD and Port Authority dig tirelessly through the detritus. Most of the news reports he had heard on the radio as he sped his way east had repeatedly described the bravery and heroism of those men and women in rescue services who hadn't hesitated to sacrifice themselves in their efforts to get others to safety.

There are swarms of these same dedicated professionals going strong on The Pile. Some of them still there from the day before. Exhausted, battered and bleeding, but steadfast in their determination to hopefully find survivors of their brethren or, in worst case, a chance to honor their fallen in the most respectful manner possible.

They work for hours, only stopping occasionally to eat from one of the tents that have popped up to serve the tons of donated food and hot meals that stream in from all over. Not everyone can dig, but it seems that everyone wants to contribute somehow. The workers catch quick naps bundled up on makeshift cots and sleeping bags, wherever there is room away from the site.

They are never away from the work too long.

These professions are well known to often be family affairs, and it's not unusual right now to find a someone giving their all to work the bucket brigade line who had just lost a family member.

A father. Or a brother, maybe.

Dean works harder at the thought.

All told that first day, Dean works with the hunter group for a full ten hours straight before his shoulder starts screaming at him in agony, and as much as it kills him to be so weak, he knows he needs to stop before he tears his collarbone back up and potentially risks permanent damage.

He's held up better than he expected to, in any case. The fine layers of gray powder that cover every surface have started to clog his throat and lungs to the point that it burns to breath right now, even through the protective mask that he started to wear after the first hour of working on The Pile.

Used to the sting of fire and smoke, his eyes are nevertheless red and raw, tearing fairly consistently, and he's finally forced to admit that, at this point, he's more liability than asset.

Seeing first hand the chaos that is lower Manhattan, he understands why he was instructed to leave the Impala safely parked in the underground lot in Brooklyn, and because Jim has vouched for the community members in residence there, he's only slightly uncomfortable at not having his arsenal with him.

He knows that it's madness to think about bringing her into Manhattan, at least for the immediate future, and he's also been assured that there is no good place to park her that's close enough to the apartment he'll be hunkering down in, in Chinatown, to ease his worry over her well being.

The days' events have shaken him, instilling an unwelcome sense of vulnerability, and he feels practically naked without his gun at his back.

Of course he would be welcome to stay in the residence in Brooklyn, but after working side by side with some of the legitimate rescue workers over the course of the day he's chosen to remain in the area and keep working until his father arrives and possibly well after that. It's more convenient to stay in the closer apartment that is within walking distance of the disaster area.

The hunter community leader, Hawkins, sees him struggling and motions him over to where others are covertly preparing for the next round of purification rituals. Dean looks done in, and Hawkins has promised Jim Murphy that he'd keep an eye on the boy because he's been told about the injuries from the last hunt that almost took his young life. Dean's already impressed him with his stamina and determination.

Not that Hawkins expected anything less from John Winchester's kid. He might not particularly like the Winchester patriarch, but no real hunter questions the man's skills and dedication.

"Winchester!" he calls out, his heavy Brooklyn accent loud and harsh over the cascading waterfall of the tankers, the heavy whirring of machinery and continuous sharp bursts of sirens in the background. "Ya done for the day! Pack it up."

Reluctantly, Dean trudges over, another nearly faceless gray figure among a sea of fatigued and filthy responders who are relentlessly digging for all they're worth in the endless expanse of jagged metal beams. Hawkins hands him one of the care bags that has made its way over from the makeshift operations at the Javits Center, where volunteers are feverishly organizing a massive relief effort for the responders and displaced residents whose homes are inside the barricade.

He also pulls a key ring out of his pocket and tosses it to Dean as he shouts out the address.

"Don't come back until you've slept, kid. You look like shit."

Dean's too tired to argue, so he just nods his assent and takes off in the general direction of Chinatown. Lower Manhattan has no public transportation right now, so it's not like he really has a choice but to walk to where he's going. Not that he wouldn't anyway, since it's only a dozen or so blocks before he reaches his destination.

As he walks he can't shake the discomfort of seeing the normally vibrant city so unnaturally quiet. There are very few people, relatively speaking, walking the streets as he ambles his way along, and the ones that he does encounter have these vague identical glazed over looks on their faces, like they aren't sure where they are and how they came to be there in the first place.

It's wholly disconcerting to him, because he wants to say something or help them in someway but he isn't quite sure how.

No one speaks. Either to each other or to him.

What is also slowly breaking him is the sea of missing person fliers papered over every surface that he passes. The scope and magnitude of the loss is crushing.

It's a slow progression onward, and there's a hushed silence in the air that's almost reverential in its absence of the steady din of a metropolis.

Somehow similar in his mind to walking in the snow in the woods alone, with the muffled footsteps and the lack of ambient noise. An appropriate pairing to the almost universally neutral palette of his surroundings. The buildings and streets even blocks away still dark and covered in that same gray powdery substance that he's spent the day trying not to breathe in.

It's not until he's further up, nearing the bustle of Canal Street that motion starts to speed up and come back into colorful focus.

He finds the apartment, a third floor walk up over a noodle shop/karaoke bar, fairly effortlessly. Dad doesn't like New York City, and Dad is the one that steers their boat, so it's not as if Dean has spent much time here. But the layout of the city itself is simple enough for a caveman to find his way around. All grids with numbers and letters that don't take a lot of effort to decode.

The apartment isn't much. Just a small studio that has a double bed and pullout couch in the main room. He does understand enough about real estate to wonder exactly how the community affords such a place to have on hand.

Dean's already planning on taking the pullout, since his father will most likely be arriving sometime either late tonight or early tomorrow morning, and will bunk down with him here as long as they stay in the area. There's a tiny galley kitchen that's almost too narrow for him to navigate, and a bathroom with older fixtures that look basic but blessedly clean with some extra towels folded and ready to use on the counter.

He upends the care bag on the couch and inventories the contents. Soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb and a small first aid kit. Two bottles of water and moist towelettes. He rips open the first aid kit and is relieved to find a tube of eye drops inside. His own are still tearing up and throbbing and he hopes that he doesn't have any debris hiding in them anywhere.

Deciding to be thorough, he flushes his eyes out anyway before adding the drops, knowing that he will just have to do it again after his shower.

His duffel has already made it there, and he gives thanks to whichever one of the community members took the time to bring his things. He wasn't actually looking forward to walking around the apartment in the buff after washing out today's clothes in the sink and hoping they dry before morning.

He opens the duffel and makes the decision to swallow two of the good meds. He's not necessarily in too much pain at the moment, his personal threshold registering a four on the scale, even though he grudgingly admits that his four is more like a normal person's eight. It's more that he doesn't want to be a wuss about his previous injuries, because he's in awe of the work being done at The Pile, and he's not about to let a little discomfort prohibit him from joining in again tomorrow.

The shower is adequate, and he stands under the spray for a good deal longer than he most likely needed to, letting the streams sluice down his body and wash away the streaks of dust that seem to be coating his full expanse of skin in tiny gray rivulets.

Out of the shower, he dons a clean tee and boxers and then sets to work trying to scrub the day's grime from the outerwear he will need for tomorrow. It's not an easy job, and when things are about as good as they are likely to get, his hands are caked in dark crud all the way up to his elbows.

He showers again.

It's probably a sacrilege in the face of such a tragedy, but he's caught his mind straying to obsessively stress about his little brother most of the day. Logically, Dean knows that the kid is thousands of miles away and safe. Nothing has happened anywhere in California, the destruction limiting itself to the East Coast, but it doesn't change the fact that he runs on an autopilot of Sammy-worry.

His big brother inner voice has been blaring in his ear from the moment he set foot on site. It's second nature to him to want to hit speed dial one and assure himself that Sammy is safe and sound. He might have even gone through with it at some point during the day if the cell service in the area wasn't still all shot to shit.

Maybe there's a sign in that somehow.

Realistically, he's going to have to settle right now for the assurances that his father gave him during their last phone call when he told Dean that Sam is fine. Dad had let slip that he actually saw his little brother a few days ago arriving at his fancy pants school in perfect health, and whoever is keeping tabs on the kid in California confirmed his well being as recently as yesterday morning after the chaos struck.

Out of curiosity, he grabs his cell and checks for bars, laughing humorlessly to himself when he sees that he does have the ability call out, as well as seven voice mail messages left for him over the course of the afternoon. He's not surprised that he hadn't heard the phone ring over the steady din of excavation work that surrounded him.

Checking the Caller ID, he sees calls from Dad, Pastor Jim, Bobby and Caleb. Nothing at all from Sammy. After all these weeks it shouldn't hurt as much as it does.

Then again, he hadn't called Sam either, so he guesses that they are both guilty of neglect.

He brings up speed dial one, contemplates the ramifications of pressing that button, and then chickens out at the last minute, reasoning with himself that his father is surely keeping on top of the situation, and would contact Dean with any troubling information.

While he wallows in exhaustion and uncertainty, it occurs to him that in his haste to get here and be of help, he's forgotten an important detail about Winchester family connections to New York City.

Filled once more with purpose and duty, and suddenly ravenously hungry, he has a crazy spur of the moment idea, and then dials.

Thirty minutes later he is strolling uptown, making his way up the Bowery as a mirthful smile crosses his face. It's not long before he finds himself standing in front of CBGB and a mixed stream of memories washes over him. It's not a completely fond part of his childhood considering all of the resulting ramifications that came later, but now that enough time has passed he can reminisce without too much sadness.

It had been a fun time after all, until the room started spinning and Dad scared the shit out of everyone there, and later it even brought him to Sonny when his teenage petulance evolved into petty theft.

It's open tonight, but quiet. Like the rest of the city the atmosphere surrounding it is muted and low key. He's not planning on going in, just simply casting a half smirk before continuing his journey. Another few blocks up and over and he's standing in front of Brittany Hall on E. 10th Street.

A pretty but imposing brick structure, tall and slim like so much of the city's architecture, it's one of the residences for NYU freshmen. It's also the current residence of Sammy's girl Alex and their friend Taylor.

Dean may have to accept the fact that his little brother severed the ties between them with lead pipe cruelty, but that doesn't mean that Dean is going to wash away all evidence of the year spent in Sioux Falls. It wasn't just Sam that liked the gaggle of kids that regularly congregated around their kitchen table. Dean had developed an affinity for them all as well.

Taylor is the sweet young girl whose father made sure that Sammy doesn't have a juvenile record because of his little foray into public intoxication, and it goes without saying that Alex became almost like a little sister to Dean during the months that she and his brother were practically inseparable.

After such shock and devastation, Dean's not going to be in the same city with the girls and not check on their well being. It's just who he is.

And if Sammy doesn't like it? Too fucking bad.

All it took was one phone call to Alex's mother to get her NYU address. Dean is fond of Chris and Grace Logan, as they are also of him, and since Sam wasn't allowed to spend time at their house without a way for Dean to reach him in an emergency, he still has their home number stored in his contact list.

Grace didn't even try to pretend to not be tearfully grateful that someone she knew and trusted was going to check on her little girl in person. Alex is an only child, and the long distance separation was bad enough before the tragedy. Dean promised that he would do his best to cheer them up.

The girls were expecting him, so he has no trouble getting inside. Not that he would have been kept out under any circumstances, but the absence of needing to either break his way or charm his way into the dorm was a nice change of pace from the usual way things went in his life. By the time he makes it up to their room, they already have their door open and are waiting. All distressed postures and red, weepy eyes.

He sighs deeply, his heart heavy for them, as he opens his arms wide and draws them close. They cling to him like a buoy in a rocky storm and he puts every ounce of big brotherly comfort he has inside of him into hugging them tightly against his chest.

The girls introduce him to a couple of the friends they had made in the dorm, and even in a time of great sorrow, the new girls enjoy being the recipients of both his handsome smiles and flirty wit. If nothing else, Dean knows that these kids need a little respite from the tragedy, if only for a few hours.

He insists that they go out for a walk, uptown away from the destruction. Deciding that they need a first hand reminder that the world is still turning and life is going on. With such a good looking escort, the idea immediately pleases them and there's just a few minutes of changing clothes and reapplying makeup before the little group is on their way.

Alex points out The Strand bookstore, and Dean swallows hard and forcibly turns his thoughts away from the little brother that would have happily moved into the place if life had been different.

There's a large crowd gathered in Union Square Park attending a sort of candlelight vigil. Against his better judgment, Dean allows the girls to steer them in that direction. At first, the reverent feeling of collective loss and the coming together of community is a good thing to encounter, but then there are too many groups engaged in painful and sharp and increasingly vocal arguments over the issues surrounding the attack, and it puts Dean on the defense.

Although he understands from a clinical perspective that it's a way for some to deal with their pain and grief, Dean unilaterally decides that it's not yet the time or place for either himself or the girls with him. Emotions are too raw and the conflict is escalating, and he can see a couple of the girls draw in closer to him in fear.

He gently pulls them all away and they continue their walk, leaving the arguments and tension behind them.

He holds out his arms in a very gentleman like fashion, and Alex and Taylor each take one and snuggle close, ignoring the slightly envious looks of the others. Dean isn't looking to give any wrong ideas to young girls he doesn't know. While he's happy to play the flirt in an effort to cheer them up and distract them, it's not why he's here tonight.

Still hungry, he directs them into a little pizzeria near the Flatiron Building and buys them all dinner, ordering an obscene amount of food and insisting that he loves to see a girl with a good appetite. They ask a million questions about him and about Sam, clearly intrigued by the handsome brothers with the unusual home life.

A master of the redirect, he deflects, instead asking about them and how they came to decide on NYU, and they never even realize that he answers nothing to satisfy their curiosity.

They walk further upwards, the Empire State Building looming in the distance, and although they are all thinking it, no one remarks out loud how it is once again the tallest building in the city. They do comment on the overnight appearance of the American flag everywhere. The city seems drenched in them, and there's suddenly a heavy preponderance of patriotism that is uncharacteristic of an urban setting that's usually so international.

The further uptown they go, the more life around them seems to be going on like nothing has happened. It's at once comforting and yet still disconcerting. Almost as if they are transported to a different city that hasn't just experienced an incalculable loss.

By the time they swing over to the area around Penn Station, they have walked several blocks since dinner and they're hungry again, so Dean guides them into Lindy's and orders them all large wedges of the famous cheesecake and fancy coffees. It's not pie, but Dean grudgingly admits that it doesn't suck either.

Sitting next to him, he feels Alex shivering with what he recognizes as remnants of shock and trauma. She won't look him in the eye, but she does slip her fingers into his hand under the table. He discretely allows it and gives her an affectionate squeeze.

She and Sam are not together anymore in the strictest sense, but neither she nor Dean would ever dream about the hand holding being anything other than a sibling-esque gesture of comfort, and he's happy to act as a big brother and offer her solace if she needs it.

Dean escorts them all back to the dorm late in the evening, and as he walks back to his temporary apartment, he comes to the realization that, while he had originally gone to check in on the girls, he had needed the familiarity and companionship just as much as they did.

If not more.

Trudging up the three flights of stairs, bone weary and sore, he's more than exhausted when he finally unlocks the apartment door, but even in his tired state he's still alert enough to immediately realize that he's not alone. Swearing under his breath for the lack of his Colt in his waistband, he unsheathes his knife from around his ankle and yells out a warning.

"Hey!"

From the shadows of the dimly lit room, John emerges, looking wrung out and road weary. He strides across the short distance between them and pulls his son in his arms, and they both feel some of the day's tension bleed off as they take comfort in the presence of the other.

Even as they mutually ache for their third.

/

Sam gets a late night phone call from Alex the second day after the tragedy.

Of course he's happy to hear from her, especially considering how wrecked she had been the night before. She's not necessarily her usual bubbly self, but she doesn't seem to be on the constant verge of tears either.

It clears his conscience about not going to her for just a brief second until she explains the reason for the uptick in her demeanor.

Deep down, somehow Sam knew that his brother would do something like this. The same big brother that always seemed to know just what Sam needed during times of emotional crises would, of course, not hesitate to console and care for people that he had grown fond of if given the chance.

A natural born caretaker, Dean is always going to err on the side of placing himself in the role of protector first and foremost.

Alex is grateful and feeling a little better after their evening excursion. Since Sam has not worked up the nerve to share the painful and incredibly personal news that he is estranged from his family with her, she incorrectly assumes that he was the one to ask his brother to check on her and Taylor.

To his shame, he doesn't actually admit to it, but he doesn't correct her either. Too embarrassed to air the family's dirty laundry with the girl who still means so much to him that he often wonders if he should have found a way to study on the East Coast instead.

When they hang up, he stews in his bed and vacillates between being angry with himself for not being the one to take care of her during this trying time, and upset with his brother for inserting himself into an aspect of Sam's life when Dean won't contact him.

If he feels hurt and jealous that Dean is slipping easily into the role of big brother for someone other than Sam, he doesn't let himself admit it.

The anger is easier to maintain.

/

John knows that he's never been more proud of his firstborn than he is at the moment.

It's been almost a week since he arrived in New York, and although he knows that Dean is hurting something fierce, his boy is relentless in his desire to put in crushing hours of hard labor at The Pile.

The purification rituals have been done several times over as of today. Of course, with the size and scope of the tragedy, they will need to be repeated frequently as time goes on. At this point, it's not only for the victims, but for the welfare of those that strive to recover them and bring them peace.

Dean has long stopped doing the job with the rest of the hunting community. After days of sneaking around and handling the mystical parts of the operation, the oldest Winchester son is now straight up working recovery and excavating with the rest of the civilians.

The work is hard and tedious, and at times devastating when they find pockets of spaces and make discoveries that no one ever wants to have to make. The smoke has finally died down, but there is a pervasive smell of burned plastic surrounding them that not even the more professional grade air filter masks that they are all wearing these days can protect them from.

John watches with a growing mix of melancholy and approval as Dean easily integrates himself among the ranks of rescue workers. Sharing the burden of the search, exchanging stories and extending camaraderie to people that were strangers just a few days earlier.

He sees his son working side by side among representatives of a dozen different firehouses, and you would never know from a distance that he doesn't belong with them. As John watches, he allows himself a painful moment of regret for a life that his boy was never given the chance to live.

I'm going to be a fireman someday, Dad! They're heroes.

Dean may never be a fireman. He may never have a life outside the hunt either.

As more than adequate proof has been shown to them all lately, our tomorrows are not guaranteed.

John's never wanted this life for his kids, he also never lets himself lose sight of what it is costing his family to continue their crusade.

It comes at the loss of childhood dreams that are never realized.

It comes at the expense of one son's love, and the constant risk of another son's life in the line of duty on a hunt.

Even at his young age, Dean has already saved more lives than anyone will ever know.

John may not know much about about a lot of things, but there is one thing he knows absolutely.

His boy is a hero too.