Disclaimer is in chapter 3. :)

Weaver, Chapter 4

Well, Vegas hadn't been a total bust, Dean thought as he looked at the city's lights shrinking in the side mirror. He might not have enjoyed himself as much as a guy in Sin City really ought to have, but he had won them more money on their second attempt at a day off. He shouldn't have mentioned the girl who looked like Jess, though. That had been a huge miscalculation on his part, but something felt even stranger about that than just the resemblance. He just didn't know what. Dean looked over at Sam, whose eyes were steadfastly on the road and hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, like proper driving technique was the only thing in the world that mattered. At least the Jess look-alike was a tangible reason for Sam acting like a freakshow.

"You should get some rest, Dean. This could get pretty ugly," Sam said. Dean was embarrassed when he wasn't able to stop a jerk of surprise at the soft intrusion of Sam's voice in the silent car. "I know you didn't sleep much last night."

He was embarrassed again, this time because he was losing his touch. He hadn't slept not because he was out doing guy things in Vegas (clearly a sore point with him), but because he was hovering over Sam, making sure his brother kept breathing. Sam had a point though, he thought with a yawn, and he told himself that his touch was fine; it was just that Sam was re-honing his own skills. He slouched down until he could comfortably rest his head against the back of the seat. With Sam driving, he could actually stretch his legs out most of the way as well.

"Yeah," Dean said. "But it never gets too ugly for me to handle."

Dean gave his brother a sideways glance. Sam still looked like ass, but one rare night's good sleep had visibly improved the shadows under his eyes. He knew it didn't have anything to do with him playing guard, but he was glad he'd done it anyway. He closed his eyes, not really intending to sleep. Years of fighting at his dad's side had taught him how to get by on very little actual sleep when he had to, and caffeine. Sam would probably catch up to him on that, the same way his fighting skills improved the more he practiced them. Dean also had to admit that he wasn't convinced Sam was okay just because he'd slept through the night, making sleep for himself unlikely anytime soon. So sue him, he was a big brother.

"Right, you're a regular superman," Sam said quietly.

He turned his head away and smiled. So maybe Sam wasn't okay. He was getting there. Dean relaxed all his muscles, including his brain, and just faded into that place where he could still hear and was aware of his surroundings. Sam would call it meditation or some crap like that. Dean didn't care if it had a name, he just knew it worked for him and it meant he could sometimes be the hovering ninny he was without Sam knowing about it.

It was the lack of engine noise that pulled him back to full consciousness. Dean cracked his eyes open. Squinting to block out the bright sunshine, he looked around. Sam wasn't behind the wheel, though his jacket was draped across the seat. For one second, Dean felt that intrinsic sense of panic, the one he had experienced since childhood, had even in a muted way through the anger, when Sam was…separated from him and their dad. The feeling dissipated when he realized the car was parked next to a gas pump. He sat up, his back and neck stiff from too long in one position. Sam was probably in the station.

He had to use the can, then he'd find his brother inside, maybe pick up some snacks. Dean peered at the old, dusty building, the ancient gas pumps that didn't let a guy pay with a fake credit card and nixed the snacks. This looked like the kind of place where even the packaged and preserved for eternity snack food was stale. God, he hoped this rat hole wasn't their final destination. He slid out of the car and only noticed then how friggin' hot it was.

"I hate the desert," he muttered.

He didn't see Sam in the station, and knew his brother hadn't gone to the bathroom. The attendant, a fat, middle-aged dude with no hair and some nasty sweat stains down the front of his shirt and at the pits, gave him a dirty look when he asked where to find the restroom. Words weren't spoken, just a gesture with a meaty thumb and then the guy handed him a key that had a gigantic piece of wood as key chain. The words "piss off" were carved into it. Hilarious. Dean wasn't that picky, but he just knew the bathroom was going to be unpleasant. He looked around outside again, noted several other small buildings across the highway.

Turned out he was right about the bathroom. Lardo the Hardworking Gas Station Attendant had probably never thought once about cleaning it. Dean peed fast and got the hell out. Sam was still nowhere to be seen outside, or inside. He slapped the key on the counter.

"I don't suppose you saw where the guy who filled up on pump…well, that one," Dean said, pointing to the Impala, "went, did you?"

"I'm not paid to keep track of people once they've paid," Lardo said. "And bathrooms are for paying customers only."

Dean glared. Lardo blinked.

"My brother paid."

"Your 'brother' didn't use the toilet."

"Oh, for…" Dean barely refrained from telling the guy where he could go. Instead, he picked up a pack of gum and tossed it on the counter. He fished around for his wallet and pulled a dollar out of it. "There. Happy?"

"Ecstatic. Thank you for stopping at the Gas And Go. Have a nice day."

Jerkwad. Dean grabbed his gum and left. No sign of Sam. Damn if that panicky feeling wasn't coming back stronger than ever. Or maybe he was just hungry, for more than stale snacks. He scratched his stomach. One of the buildings across the highway looked like it could be a roadside diner. There was one car parked in front of it, and it seemed as likely a place as any for Sam to have gone. Dean loped across the highway. He pretended the thought of Sam doubled over in pain from one of his freaky visions somewhere hadn't occurred to him.

Up closer, the diner looked as old and dusty as the gas station. The sign proclaiming Big Betty's "the best eats this side of Las Vegas!" was barely readable even as he stood right next to it. Dean supposed advertisement wasn't necessary when a place was the only restaurant for miles. He pushed open the door, instantly assailed with the smell of bacon grease and burnt coffee. He noticed right away that the interior was clean, and that Sam was nowhere in sight. He walked up to the counter, looking for anyone.

"Hello?" he said. "Anyone here?"

"Keep your pants on, I'll be right out," a deep voice called from the back. A few seconds later a guy about seven feet across stalked through the swinging door separating the diner from the kitchen. "What can I do you for?"

Whoa, Betty looked like someone not to mess with. Along with the broad shoulders, the diner's proprietor had bulging biceps and pecs, enough hair to knit a blanket (thankfully tied back in a ponytail) and his T-shirt stretched tightly pretty much everywhere. Betty was the anti-Betty.

"Noth…" The bacon grease actually smelled good. "I don't know yet. I was, uh, I'm looking for my brother."

"The guy who looks like an oversized twelve-year-old?"

"Yeah, that's Sam," Dean said, but thought his brother would not appreciate the accurate description at all. "We stopped for gas over there."

"He's in the head as far as I know."

Aw, he should have thought of that. Dean wished Sam had taken the time to drive over here; he could have avoided the whole Lardo interaction and the bathroom from hell. He nodded at Big Betty and took a seat at the counter. The bacon smell was really enhancing his hunger.

"What do you got that's good?"

"It's all good," Betty told him. "Your brother ordered two plates, so I'm assuming one is yours. Coffee?"

"Plan on making fresh?"

"So no coffee. It'll be a few and I'm on my own until the lunch crowd. Entertain yourself."

Talkative bunch they had out here in the middle of freaking nowhere. Betty stomped back to the kitchen while Dean tried to imagine what constituted a rush. He glanced at the clock on the wall, which was thick with dust, the Plexiglas cover yellowed. Eleven o'clock. Betty's reinforcements better get here soon or they'd miss lunch. More to the point, what the hell was taking Sam so long? Dean stood and wandered through the restaurant until he found the bathroom signs. He didn't know if he was afraid or awed by the eclectic mix of daisy wallpaper with skulls, eagles and daggers in all the accessories Betty had decorated the diner with.

He pushed open the door of the bathroom. Sam stood by one of the two sinks, his sleeves rolled up. Dean narrowed his eyes at the way his brother didn't even notice a new presence in the room, and how the fluorescent lighting accentuated the dark under eye circles Dean had thought were fading.

"Hey," he said. He gave Sam a very little bit of credit for not flinching too noticeably. Anyone other than himself wouldn't have even seen the stiffening of shoulders or momentary pause in action. "Thanks for leaving me in the car, dude."

"Dean," Sam said, turning to him with all traces of surprise wiped from his face. "I was going to come get you when the food was ready. I swear."

"Hope you ordered something I like."

"Please." Sam grabbed a handful of paper towels, rubbing his face and arms dry. "Like there's anything here you wouldn't like. No such thing as a healthy menu at Big Betty's."

"Live by the grease. Where the hell are we?"

"The middle of nowhere. Only have an hour and a half to drive, but we were almost out of gas." That meant Dean had dozed for about two, three hours. Damn, he hadn't meant to do that. "I was hungry anyway, so I stopped."

"Yeah, I could eat."

"You could always eat."

"I'm a growing boy."

Sam moved toward him. Dean let him pass, and swore it looked as though his brother was moving stiffly, like they'd already gone through a rough hunt. Not for the first time, he wondered if Sam had told him the whole truth about the time he spent with Max. When it came down to it, all he really knew was that Sam had ended up locked in a closet and had got out again in time to prevent Max from blowing a hole in his head. Sam probably had hidden bruises.

"When we hit Winnemucca we should have time to canvass the town, make sure we're really dealing with some kind of Black Dog," Sam said. "The news reports say the attacks only happen at night, and it's not like Black Dogs to exhibit this level of violence."

It occurred to him that this was the most Sam had said to him for almost 24 hours, and even if it was all job talk, Dean found himself grateful. It meant Sam was ready enough to move on, and ready enough to hunt despite his tiredness. Dean decided he'd drive the remainder of the trip, if he had to wrestle the keys away from Sam. He followed his brother back to into the restaurant, which now contained five truckers and two waitresses.

"Huh. Betty wasn't kidding," Dean said. They hadn't been in the bathroom more than two minutes.

"Stretch, Muscles. Your order's up," Betty's booming voice called out.

Sam turned to him and mouthed "Muscles?" and gave him a tiny smile. Dean quirked an eyebrow and mouthed "Stretch?" in return, though that beat oversized twelve-year-old by a mile. Sam rolled his eyes and strolled to the counter and two plates of food.

"Dude, give me the keys. I want to move the car before I eat," Dean said, slapping Sam's shoulder. "I don't trust Lardo over there to not tow it or something worse."

"I can go." Sam looked sheepish. "The food got done faster than I thought."

"Nah, it's okay." This was the perfect chance to grab driving rights without making it look like he wanted Sam to rest. Sam handed him the keys. "Don't eat my fries."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Traffic had picked up on the highway, and it took him longer to get the car moved than he had anticipated. Dean had to drive half a mile up the road before he found a spot to turn around. By the time he finally got back to Betty's, he figured his food would be cold and Sam would be done eating.

"That was a pain in the ass," he groused when he finally made his way to the counter. Betty's had picked up another handful of customers. "There's actually traffic out there now."

Sam didn't respond. Dean leaned closer. His brother didn't even blink, just stared straight ahead with his BLT sans B raised halfway to his open mouth. That nameless where'sSam feeling struck again, even though Sam was sitting right beside him. He reached out and shook Sam slightly.

"Dude," Dean said, brusquely to mask his mounting concern. An irrational thought that Sam wasn't even breathing set in. "Sammy? Hey."

Sam coughed, and then blinked several times. The look on his face, the total blankness, actually, freaked Dean out, and it lasted for a ten count before Sam turned to look at him. It felt alarmingly familiar to him, and if Sam clutched at his head in excruciating pain Dean wouldn't be surprised. He wouldn't be happy, either, but at least he'd know what the hell was going on.

"Hey, you're back. That was fast," Sam said.

Oh, this was not good. Dean didn't know how to address the issue, mostly because he had no freaking clue what the issue actually was. If Sam had sat there letting the mayo ooze out of his sandwich the whole time Dean was moving the car, then that was a problem. He glanced at the sandwich in question. It looked as though Sam had taken maybe two bites out of it. The truth might be the best route.

"I was gone at least ten minutes."

Sam looked at him with a helpless, confused expression. "That's not possible. You just left."

"Ten minutes ago. Check your sandwich." Dean could see the lettuce and tomato were limp, the toast soggy. "I think you've been holding that thing for a while, dude. What the hell's going on with you?"

"I don't know." Sam looked away from him. "I just started thinking and spaced out, I guess."

Dean was almost inclined to believe that explanation. Sam did have a tendency to live in his head lately…always, more than he personally thought healthy. Sam took a bite of the sandwich, then made a slight grimace and set it down.

"Thinking about what?" Dean said. He made himself eat his now-unappetizing burger, both because he needed the energy and he needed Sam not to know this was bothering him. "Must have been pretty important."

"Nothing, really."

"Right."

"No, my mind just wandered. It happens."

It happened sometimes, yeah, but it didn't give Dean confidence to know they were going into a tough fight with Sam tired and distracted to the point of slipping into lengthy trances. He was pretty sure whatever was going on in Sam's head, it wasn't about lollipops and candy canes.

"I need to know you're ready for this," Dean said, aware he was issuing pretty much the same concern Sam had made about him at the start of the road trip. "We can take another day before we do anything."

"And let someone else get hurt, or even killed?"

Dean figured they'd need several hours of research time, so they wouldn't get any hunting in until the next night. He could only hope Sam got himself into some kind of shape by then.

"It won't do anyone any good if we get hurt by this thing."

He swore he saw a brief flicker of fear in Sam's eyes. There was more to it. Recognition. Understanding. Sam looked haunted, as though he'd already witnessed someone else dying. Dean knew that couldn't be possible, because if that were the case, Sam should have already leapt into action and told him all about it. Dean regretted ever giving Sam a hard time about his visions. He shoved the rest of the burger into his mouth hurriedly, barely bothering to chew and swallow as he prodded Sam out of the diner and into the car. He didn't like Sam being vague, but really didn't want to start another discussion about it. Once they took care of this problem, they'd deal with whatever personal crap they had to.

A/N: That's it for tonight. I need a break. Whew. I'll post more chapters tomorrow...