"So ... coffee?" Dean asked, handing Sam a steaming mug of sweet, creamy beverage. It had been a week since the old man's visit, and things between him and his brother were … were just … not right. Sam was distant. Sad. He still smiled at Dean in all the right places, but things had changed between them, and Sam wouldn't allow him to make things right.

"Thanks." Sam smiled vacantly, taking the mug and turning his attention immediately back to the dusty book that sat open in his lap.

"Sam …"

"What, Dean." Sam asked without looking up.

"Can we … can we just … you know … talk about it?"

Sam stood up instantly, heading for the door. "No need to talk about anything. Care if I take the car to town? Need to visit the library."

Dean shook his head, "No, go ahead. I could …" Dean hesitated, unsure. "I could … um … come with ... if you want? Might go faster with two heads researchin' instead of one."

Sam shuffled his feet, looking everywhere but at Dean. "Maybe next time. I … uh … I just … you know."

Dean backpedaled. "Oh. Yeah, sure, Sammy. Whatever you want. You need help, let me know, okay?"

"Yep." Sam grabbed his keychain off the peg next to the door and slipped outside. A moment later, Dean heard the Impala roar to life and creep down the driveway. He moved to the window and watched his brother drive away.

"He still bein' all emo?" Bobby asked from the kitchen doorway, tea towel in hand.

Dean sighed. "I fucked up, Bobby. I shouldn't have lied to him. Shoulda' just come clean from the start."

Bobby moved closer, placing a comforting hand on Dean's shoulder. "Too late for hindsight, Dean. Sam'll come around. Just give him some time."

"He thinks I betrayed him, and he's right. I did."

"Dean …"

"I was ready to kill him, Bobby. I was. You heard me. I was huntin' him. I was huntin' my brother. Sam never woulda' done that to me."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do. Sammy's too soft-hearted. He'd just try to drag me home, even if he had to cuff me to do it." Dean sank down onto the rustic couch where Sam had been sleeping the last week. "I ruined things between us. He'll never trust me again."

He looked up at the older hunter with tears in his eyes. "What have I done, Bobby?"

Bobby shook his head. These two would be the death of him someday, he just knew it. "Just give him time and space, Dean - time and space. That's all you can do."

Dean leaned back, then sat back up, frowning. He reached behind him and came up with Sam's phone, buried and forgotten between the cushions. "Hunh. He must really be pissed at me. Kid never forgets his phone." He glanced at it briefly, noting the saved message that blinked at him accusingly from his own number. He met Bobby's eyes and grinned.

"Dean. Don't."

"What? Just a little blackmail material. Kid's been saving a message from me for …" Dean brought up the message and looked at the date. "Over a year! Damn! I'm flattered." he snickered as he hit play and put the phone on speaker.

"Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam, a vampire. You're not you anymore, and there's no going back …"

Bobby sucked in a shocked breath as the phone fell from Dean's lifeless fingers.

"Damn, Dean! Just tell the kid how you really feel about him!"

Dean's shocked eyes met Bobby's. "Bobby! I'd never! That wasn't … I never left that message! I mean, that was my voice, but I never …"

"That sure sounded like you, Dean."

Dean stared, his face bloodless. "All this time … Sam's thought … he thought I'd given up on him."

"If you didn't leave it … then who did?"

Dean checked the date again, and tried to think back. That was the night after Sam had left him broken and bleeding in that hotel. The night after he'd come home to Bobby and spouted off about how he was done with Sam. It had been Bobby who'd talked sense into him - enough so that he'd called Sam the next night and apologized.

"Ruby."

"But how?"

"I don't know, but somehow she altered the message. Bobby, I called him that night. I apologized. Remember? That was the night after Sam and I'd had that big fight and you had to give me verbal slapdown to get me to see how pigheaded I was bein'? I called him and it went to voicemail. I apologized and it cut me off. I'd never …" He stared at Bobby, chilled clean through, "Bobby, I'd never say something like that to Sam. No matter how mad I was. I could never hurt him like that."

####

Sam looked around the tiny apartment and grimaced. It was small - just a studio - and in the rough part of town, but it would do. He smiled at the landlady and took the clipboard, signing the one-year lease. He handed over $1,200, and suddenly, he was a tenant. He moved to the small window that looked out over Sioux Falls and the pawn shop that he'd visited just this morning. The ring he'd bought for Jess had fetched him two grand, more than enough for a do-over, and Sam was glad he'd held onto it for as long as he had. The remaining $800 would get him through his first month until he found a job, and then in a year - he could move on - far away from this town and far away from … from any ties he had left to it. He'd paid the kid at the garage $100 to drive the Impala back out to the salvage yard. He had no intention of ever setting foot there again. His phone, his clothes - he didn't need nor want them. All he needed was a fresh start and some distance from his brother to get his life back in order. Someday, he'd be able to pay them back - Dean and Bobby - for saving his life - even though Sam was convinced, now more than ever, that it didn't warrant saving. He pulled out the photo of Lillie and smoothed the wrinkles out. Dean had balled it up immediately and tossed it in the kitchen trashcan, but Sam had retrieved it before he took the trash out. He carried it with him now - everywhere. He made himself look at the photo just like he'd made himself listen to Dean's frigid voice on the phone over and over again.

It was a sort of penance - a reminder that the life he had was far better than the one he deserved. Sam stuck the photo on the fridge, held in place by a single alphabet magnet left behind by the former tenant.

Sam glanced around him. The place came unfurnished, with just a stove and a fridge to keep him company. But that's all he'd need in the beginning. He sighed, and headed down the two flights of stairs. He'd need cleaning supplies and groceries.

First things first.

###

Dean was waiting on the porch, holding his brother's phone and determined to make things right with Sam, when the Impala roared up. He headed down the steps and stopped, stunned. He frowned when some … some teenager … stepped out of his baby.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean asked, looking inside for Sam.

"Uh, the guy … he paid me $100 to bring the car back. Said someone would give me a ride back to town?" The kid handed Dean the keys that still held Sam's spare key for Bobby's front door.

Dean's eyes went wide. "Where is he?"

"Uh, bus stop, I think."

Dean's eyes pinned the kid. "Where was he headed?"

"I … uh … I don't know?"

Dean swore.

"Uh, I gotta get back. My mom's holding dinner."

###

Sam hovered over the lettuce. Romaine or iceberg - that was the question. He had just picked up the romaine when he heard the rumble of the Impala shudder past the store. He ducked back behind an endcap until it passed and tried not to think about how, just a week ago, he'd wanted nothing more than to be with his brother and how now he needed so desperately to have some space from him.

Dean hated him, was disgusted by him.

Dean had always been all about helping people like Lillie's grandfather.

Sam ... Sam was just a monster.

Finding out how Dean really felt about him - that was probably the worst moment of Sam's life. Dean had given up on him, really and truly given up, had accepted a contract to kill him even.

And then he'd lied about it.

Sam felt so foolish, so lied to, so talked down to, so betrayed. He once again felt like the stupid, clueless little brother. Dean hadn't made him feel that way in years - had rarely ever made him feel that way - in fact. Dean had always made Sam feel cherished, even as kids. He'd made sure Sam was accepted by his own friends and that he knew how much Dean liked having him trail around after his big, older brother.

But those days ... those days were over.

Sam swiped at his face, tossing the stupid lettuce into the cart and heading for the beer freezer he'd passed on the way in. He liked this store already.

###

Dean dropped the kid at his house then beat it to the bus station, hoping to find Sam before he caught the last bus out of town, but he was too late. The last bus of the night had pulled out 20 minutes earlier, headed for Kennebec. If Sam was on it, he was heading west.

Stanford maybe.

Sam probably still had friends there, though it'd been years since he'd been back. But when Dean asked around, flashing that picture he still carried of Sam from a few years back, no one recognized him.

And Dean knew a red herring when he saw one. He grinned.

"Good try, Sammy, you sly dog. But you're still in town, you little bitch." Dean sat in his car, thinking.

Beer.

It was the Winchester cure-all after all. Good for hurt bodies and hurt feelings, and Sam had had plenty of both lately. Dean pulled out his phone and searched up every bar in the vicinity of where the kid said he'd run into Sam. He found three.