Author's Note: Been a long time for this story—can you believe I'm working on it again? I was reading back through this piece and it hit me that I have a realllllyyyy whinnnyyyy emo Sam on my hands here LOL. But if you're still with me you'll remember this is a S1 fic. Sam's just lost Jess to the bloody demon fire, he's back with Dean and he's not happy about it, he has all those daddy issues—the kid is falling apart. So take his hysteria with that in mind. He was much younger than he is now. Please, read and remember that reviews actually make me write faster.

Chapter Six

"Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow." T.S. Eliot

Sam had once read that the art of reading was learning what to skip and what to pay attention to. He'd found this particular art useful while growing up, as he never knew when it would be time to pack up and head out or when his father would find another freak and break out the weapons. Time to study was a tricky feat, and growing up, reading for pleasure (Sam's most voracious and sanity-anchoring vice) was fast and loose or not at all.

At Stanford, his focus was on texts and textbooks to begin with, but as he relaxed into a steady schedule of school and work he found there was actually time for enjoying a good book, uninterrupted.

With access to an unlimited amount of free reading material and no worries about whether he'd be in town long enough to return it, Sam began to read more voraciously than ever before. He tried everything that crossed his path and he read like a starved man eating; unparticular and insatiable.

It wasn't long (at a dozen volumes a week in his spare time) that his taste became a little more refined, that he slowed down and he began to pick and choose. Gone was his childhood interest in dragon slaying, hero-filled brain candy. It took a lot more than that now to allow him to escape the way his mind could wander when he read, wandered from the page to his own haunted existence.

He'd decided to avoid true crime, mysteries, horror and fantasy and historical fiction or non-fiction involving war. Anything with even a slight tang of the supernatural or bloody to-the-death fighting was out. He'd tried a ton of it in his first six months at Stanford and as he read it made him nauseous and at night he woke up sweating and shaking.

Occasionally he'd find himself interested in a biography or some poetry, but what drew him in most were stories about normal people, with normal problems, living normal lives. He was fascinated by how lives were lived and the ways in which individuals and families struggled through misery and found happiness, all without the lurking, dark, influence of the supernatural. This sort of novel was a window into a world he had never lived in—even in his happy days with Jess.

But those days had been closer to anything else he'd ever seen and had given him a sense at least of what it would have been like. After Jessica had asked him to live with her he'd let the fortress-like battlements around his wishing heart start to crumble, and within six months he'd given himself over to as much home-style bliss as she'd give him.

Jess wasn't as interested in reading as Sam was; she preferred a night out to a night in. Sam was content to follow her from party to concert the first months of their relationship, but when he moved in Sam subtly began to change their routine and it wasn't long before they were sitting on the couch or in bed, each with a book as many evenings as they were making the rounds to gatherings and watering holes.

Sam would make popcorn or Jess would make cookies and they'd settle in together, feet or elbows touching, to be together while losing themselves in stories. Her taste was singular and the exact opposite of Sam's and almost always included vampires. One night she had insisted on reading him "the best part" of her current paperback and Sam had required great strength not to laugh at the mainstream scary/sexy blood-sucker myths the book fed into.

With a deep sigh he tossed the novel he'd just finished toward the end of the bed and stretched his arms. Placing them behind his head he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, thinking about the characters and the problems they'd been faced with.

This particular book was not his favorite kind; it had ended with everything tied up neatly. No one died, the runaway came back, and they all rode off merrily into the sunset. This aversion to happy endings was a recent development. Jess' murder had turned him from a fairy-tale-ending man into a restless, up-in-the-air, left-twisting-in-the-wind type. He was unsettled, and that was all that ever felt right anymore at the end of a story.

He glanced at the faux-baroque gold plastic clock above the television. Ten minutes to ten o'clock. Sam's eyes wandered the room, surveying the remains of dinner's pizza on the table, the stack of books on the dresser, Dean's duffle perched on the end of his still-made bed.

In his chest stirred the familiar rasp of longing that he felt whenever he was alone for long enough to realize it. Part of him wished for the millionth time that he was more like Dean.

Not so much the completely dysfunctional parts, but the devil-may-care, courageous and wild aspects of his brother's personality were things that Sam had always envied. It was those . . . talents . . . that seemed to allow Dean hunt blood and horror and yet escape from it with his soul intact.

For Sam, there was never really an escape, even when he tried Dean's tactics of drink and debauchery. It didn't make it easier and in fact it made things harder. He hadn't ever understood why it helped Dean and the thought occurred to him that maybe it didn't. There were defensive mechanisms and there were coping mechanisms and the two were not necessarily the same thing.

Swinging his legs off the bed he pulled the stack of books on the bedside table toward him and half-heartedly sorted through them. There were two he thought he could stand, but he wasn't excited about either of them, really.

It had been awhile since he'd gone out with Dean, he realized. Dean being Hell-bent on infuriating him into silence was beginning to be a post-hunt habit, he mused. It was like his brother was taunting him on purpose—making Sam angry to put distance between him. And it always ended with Dean and going out. Alone.

Usually it was something stupid that started it . . . Sam sighed and lay back on the bed, closing his eyes. Dean knew what buttons to push when he wanted Sam to give him space. Why Dean didn't ever just ask, Sam didn't know. He would have done it if Dean had just said Hey, Sam, I'd like to have an evening to myself, it'd be fine with him. He hadn't considered before that it might really be a manipulation on Dean's part—more than just to annoy him. A ploy to actually get him out of the way.

Why? Sam frowned and dropped the book in his hand back onto the bed. There was always the protection angle—Dean's mother-hen routine was as old as Sam was—but that didn't make a lot of sense considering there were plenty of other instances where Dean was encouraging Sam to be . . . reckless with his extra-curricular activities. And Dean wasn't the least bit shy or embarrassed by his own rakish behavior so it wasn't out of a sense of decorum either.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced Sam was that Dean was somehow, for some reason, pulling a con on him with the handsome devil persona. But why? Sam stood up and began to pace the few feet of dingy carpet that passed for open space in the motel room. In his mind, he wandered through the past; their childhoods and teen years, pulling memories out like snapshots.

He supposed it had begun when Dean was in junior high—maybe fourteen or fifteen. Their father had been leaving them for longer and longer stretches and had made it clear Sam was not to be left alone. This made little sense, considering John had left Dean alone for a day or two at a time when Dean was half Sam's age, but it was the way it was. When their dad finally did come back from hunting, Dean would sneak out at night or just not come home after school. John would catch his elder son sneaking back in and then there was Hell for Dean to pay.

Those fights had stopped eventually, as Dean got older and John had battling with his younger son to worry about, but Dean never backed down when his father asked where he'd been. Watching through the crack in the bedroom door or peeking over the sofa he was supposed to be sleeping on, Sam had listened as Dean regaled his dad with stories of the girls he'd been with, the alcohol he'd drunk and the vandalism he'd perpetrated.

Cold fury swirled off of John Winchester and the two had come almost to blows repeatedly. Shoving and growling and the occasional backhand were common during these exchanges. John had not been brought to physical violence towards his sons often, but Dean—Dean could push buttons as well as Sam could when it came to their father. And with the powerlessness Sam and Dean had both felt, there was something satisfying in pushing their father to his own limit.

It couldn't have lasted more than a year or two, before Sam's rebellion against the life of the hunt kicked in, and John's concern over Dean's behavior faded away in the face of Sam's stubborn longing for normalcy. Sam hadn't thought about it in forever, but many times he'd wondered whether Dean had really done everything he told their dad he'd done or if it was just Dean's way of goading their father—his way of pushing back against the stresses of being the full-time caretaker of his younger brother and the constant state of instability in their home life.

And while some things had changed (Sam didn't need help tying his own shoes now), he supposed that for Dean, most things had stayed the same. He was still on the road, still no stable support system, still dealing with the agenda of a distant, revenge-driven father. Any dreams Dean had in his childhood—and there had been dreams, Sam knew that—had been buried years ago. So where did that leave his brother's coping mechanisms? Probably still stuck in eighth grade.

Sam sprawled across the faded, threadbare coverlet of his bed and rolled over on his back to stare and the stains patterning the ceiling. In his mind's eye he could see Dean's departure tonight, and a dozen other nights. Dean's bravado, his obnoxiousness, his needling of Sam. Sam's response—angry, hurt, disgusted. Dean leaves. Sam stays. Now, clear as daylight Sam could see the pattern and he could see that it was deliberate.

No one could accuse Sam Winchester of not being nosy—of not wanting to know everything about everything. Knowledge was power and if there was one thing Sam felt like he lacked in the current incarnation of this relationship with his brother, it was power. He was the one person Dean hadn't pushed away . . . until Stanford, until Jess, until Sam had returned. Now the wall of protection Dean had built which was usually only a couple feet high between the two brothers, was something Sam could barely see over the top of. Well. That doesn't work me.

"He's not in this alone anymore," Sam whispered to the empty room. "He doesn't have to be."

Sam stood up and pulled on his jacket, slipping the room keys into his pocket and his pistol into the back of his waistband. He grabbed a flashlight out of his duffle for good measure and then he flipped out the overhead light and locked the door behind him.