By the time Dean gets back to the bunker, his arms weighed down with four bags full of groceries, Charlie and Sam are staring at a rapidly flickering computer screen.
"Any luck?"
Sam, watching over Charlies shoulder as she types, glances up at Dean's voice, but Charlie doesn't look away from the screen.
"Just... got started," she says, distracted, "but it shouldn't be too hard to get into their server. Half an hour, tops."
Stepping down from the staircase, Dean walks over and dumps the bags on the table, rifling through them until he finds the bottle of juice he'd picked up for Sam. The label says something about added vitamins and immunity boosters, and though he knows it's probably all snake oil and Sam's sickness isn't exactly your run of the mill flu, anyway, he figures it can't hurt.
He holds the bottle out to Sam, shaking it to get his attention.
"Drink up, Patient Zero," he says, and leans down to look at Charlie's screen.
He counts himself lucky that Charlie knows what she's doing.
Her fingers move too fast for him to even know what's going on, but there's a lot of clicking and a lot of letters and numbers flashing up in the black window, so he assumes it's impressive work.
"Awesome," he says, and sees the corner of her mouth stretch up to the side.
"I am the master commander," she replies.
Dean snorts out a laugh.
"You're an idiot."
Sam's busy wrinkling his nose at the smell of the juice, and rather than stick around to watch him gagging on the supposedly healthy blend of beets, oranges and wheatgrass, Dean takes the rest of the bags into the kitchen.
He's still busy putting things away when he hears Sam walk to the doorway, and he braces himself for the incoming discussion that the phone call was supposed to stop from happening.
"Dean?"
"How're you feeling, Sammy?"
"Same, pretty much."
Dean can feel him waiting, eyes boring into the back of his head, and he avoids turning around for as long as is reasonably possible. When Sam clears his throat behind him, he's forced to cave, and he carefully arranges his face into the most casual expression he can manage.
"What's up?" he says, arms crossed.
"I, uh..." Sam fidgets a little, scratching at his palm, the nervous habit hard to quit, "don't be pissed, but I read some of the books."
Dean feels his neck growing hot, and clenches his jaw, willing himself not to show embarrassment.
"Okay," he says, and impresses himself with how even he keeps his voice, "and?"
"And, I uh... remember when I..." he shakes his head, "of course you do. The day I killed Lilith, you called me from the Angel's green room."
Dean nods.
"I remember."
"Yeah. Well, I never got that message."
Sam swallows, looking around the kitchen, and Dean uncrosses his arms.
"So, I guess I just... wanted to say thanks. It's pretty overdue, but I thought... I don't know. Just thanks."
Dean smiles, looking down.
"Yeah, no problem Sammy."
Sam taps on the door frame and turns to leave, and Dean resumes putting food in the fridge.
"Oh," Sam says, pausing, "I almost forgot. There's a Doctor Sexy convention next month. In case you still wanted to ask him where he got his sexy boots."
The orange narrowly misses his head.