Still not to be taken seriously, but since a lot of people wanted me to continue it, it's obviously not as crazy as I thought. The first chapter is still sort of stands alone since the second part just didn't leave me with the same sense of satisfaction. I've got an idea for a third chapter, too, and some vague ideas for continuing it after that. Thanks for the reviews, because I wouldn't have even bothered if you hadn't. :)

It was hours later that Sam and Bobby pulled up to the bar. Bobby's busted blue Ford looked out of place on anything but a backroad. It got them where they needed to be, though. Dean hadn't gone far, but it took them a while to catch up with him.

It would have been much sooner, but the directions Dean had left when he finally answered his phone were difficult to go by. The first time Sam called, his brother's phone had rung four, maybe five times before it had obviously been shut off. He tried a few more times after that, but with even less luck. Finally, just when he was about to given up hope—and a little after he'd started having nightmare daydreams involving the specter of Dean's arrest—he managed to get through.

From the slur in his voice, Sam didn't have to guess the condition his brother would be in when they found him. Less certain would be his frame of mind. The bar was exactly the type Sam would have expected Dean to find regardless of the character of the town they settled in. Small and haphazardly located, its seeming irrelevance made for a fairly good camouflage, Sam thought. And a great place to hide without having to admit to being hidden. So while Bobby volunteered to stay outside and search the lot for the Impala, Sam went in hoping to find Dean at least semi-conscious, and he dared pray, willing to talk.

It was close to being nightfall, but not so close apparently that the bartender felt the need to up the lights. As such, the bar was dim inside with just a bit of light filtering in through high, grimy windows. Low lighting was something Sam was more than used to, however, and his eyes adjusted quickly enough to spot Dean at a back table. The older Winchester seemed to be nursing a beer, but the small skyline of brown glass on the table in front of him showed it was just one of many.

Dean wasn't the only person he noticed, though. A woman stood nearby watching his brother. She was dark, with at least some African blood it seemed, though it was hard to gauge. Perhaps in her early thirties, though definitely not much younger and fairly tall, but built sturdily so that her movements indicated an almost peculiar weight. Sam thought she reminded him of somebody, but didn't have time to attempt putting name to face or face to memory. Leaving her apparent vigil, she walked toward the door. She must have noticed his watching Dean, because she stopped to speak with Sam as she passed.

"You that brother he's been waiting on? 'Cause if you are, it ain't a moment too soon." She shrugged herself into a dark coat, glancing up at Sam with a pointed look. "You take care of him, now. Poor idiot's had way too many to drive."

It was a measure of how drunk his brother was that he didn't seem to notice Sam's approach. Or maybe he didn't care. He weighed it for only a moment, but wasn't sure—given the choice—which answer he really would have preferred.

"Dean?"

Dean finished his beer, pulling the next toward him before looking up, up...and up some more into Sam's worried face. He tilted back a little in the booth as his sleepy gaze traveled upward, his expression for a moment seeming almost guilty. He opened his mouth as though about to say something, but paused and appeared to think better of it. Instead he opened the bottle, taking a drink before looking down at the table.

"Hey, Sammy."

Sam slid into the other side of the booth. "Dean, you scared the hell out of us. What were you thinking taking off like that?"

Dean frowned, worrying a chip in the surface of the table with his thumbnail. "I dunno. Don't think I want to know, either. That's what the beer's for."

Sam sat for a quiet moment looking at his brother, expression caught between paradigms of irritation and concern. "It was just stupid speculation, Dean. We weren't serious."

"Serious enough to stop talking when I came in the room, wasn't it?" He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. "I mean, it sounds like a joke, but you two sure as hell didn't discuss it like one."

Looking at him, Sam could almost feel something pushing at his brother's inner walls trying to get free. He was reminded of the one time on the roadside when it did. But unlike then it was squashed back down abruptly, disappearing behind a smile. And if you'd missed the moment, there was no way you'd guess the glint in his eye could have ever possibly been a tearful one.

"God Sammy, what do you want me to say?"

"You don't have to say anything." Sam said, looking into his brother's face. Dean managed to return the contact, though Sam saw the uncertainty there. "It's not the first case that's messed with our heads, and not the first time one of us has done or said something stupid because of it."

"It's not all that stupid, you know. Bobby had a point about ghosts and shifters. Most of what we fight were people once. That kid who drowned in Wisconsin, Angela Mason... Mom! They never asked to be what they were, Sam. And neither did you." His voice fell from the height it had crept to. His smile didn't falter, but he looked away "Only, if Bobby's right, I can't say the same. The wendigo, the woman in white, the shtriga—they screwed themselves."

"Dean..."

"Sam." His voice was even quieter now, almost a whisper. Sam leaned forward to hear him better, and he glanced over Sam's shoulder at the rest of the bar, jerking his head. Sam followed his stare to a group of men gathered around the bar's shabby billiard table. "Those jerks playing pool in the corner? I could get a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty dollars out of them if I approached the game right."

"That girl at the bar?" He turned his attention to a young redhead perched upon a barstool. For a beat his eyes matched his smile, regained a hint of their usual warmth. "She's obviously waiting for someone, but with a smile and a few words I bet I could make her forget."

He looked at the bartender.

"Off the top of my head, I can think of, I dunno... A half dozen stories I could tell that might get me a free drink? And if I'm real careful, Sammy, they wouldn't even know they were being played."

"Dean, Dad raised us as cons because the job needed it. I'm not too bad a hand at it myself."

"Yeah, but do you think you'd ever do it just 'cause you could?"

Sam had to admit to himself that he wouldn't, but acknowledging this to Dean wouldn't help any. He'd like to be able to say that Dean wouldn't either, but it wasn't something he could say and honestly be sure of. And since he couldn't say this, he kept his silence.

"The worst part is what I hide from you. I hide a lot. I hide thoughts about Dad, and worrying about you, and... And I shove it all behind this mask... you know, sometimes it would be so easy to just let that mask become me." He leaned forward, shoulders hunched and looking almost defeated. More than any other detail, it struck Sam as wrong. "Only, now I think I'm finally starting to get what that would really mean."

"I'm scared, Sam. It sounds so stupid, but I am. I'm scared to death that maybe Bobby's right."