It took Dean some unknown amount of time to come back to his senses, and he realized that Sam still hadn't quite joined him there. His younger brother was lying on the floor, looking blissful and almost like he was passed out. Dean managed to clean the both of them up, and find their clothes near the exit, lying neatly in a box. He shook his head, absentmindedly, at the strange pattern this demon seemed to adhere to.

Dean silently slipped on his clothes and made his way to the window, pulling back the curtain and taking a look out into the darkness, trying to suppress the freak-out that was trying to claw its way out of him. Under a nearby street light, he noticed a familiar car.

"Dean?" Sam's groggy voice sounded, causing him to turn away from the window.

"Hey, Sasquatch," he replied, picking up the other pile of clothes, and tossing it over to Sam. "Get dressed. Looks like the witch-bitch hasn't left yet. We might not have to do a whole lot of chasing, after all."

Sam slightly raised his brows, surprised at the news, and went straight to work slipping his clothes on. Dean slipped on his coat, not taking his eyes off of his brother, appraising him. "You okay, Sam?" he asked.

Sam paused, momentarily, to look up at him. "Yeah. You ready?" he asked as he slipped into his shoes.

"Been ready, bitch. Let's blow this pop stand."

"Yeah yeah, jerk." A mutually shared smirk painted both faces, before they headed for the door.

If not for all the stuff they'd had to do to not die, this would've been the easiest hunt, to date. The demon had indeed assumed she'd outsmarted the Winchesters, and had all the time in the world to dawdle. Her back was turned on them, when Dean approached and sunk Ruby's knife into her back.

They drove her body to a field, to salt and burn, and they stayed in the silence until it was done, and the sun was just starting to make itself known, but only by a soft orange glow, lighting up the sky on the horizon. When Dean turned to look at Sam, he realized the younger hunter was asleep on his feet, just about.

"Come on, Sam," he motioned with his head toward the car. "Let's get outta here. You can sleep on the road."

"Where we heading?" Sam asked, as he followed him.

"West of here," Dean replied, opening the driver side door. "Far away as we can get, before I need to stop and sleep." The lack of questioning or argument, as they piled into the front seat, showed Dean just how exhausted Sam was.

Five hours. Three hundred sixty-two miles, is how far they got, before Dean pulled off in the middle of a particularly long stretch of road that didn't show signs of civilization anywhere in the close future. Sam barely stirred as the tires hit gravel and the car came to a stop. Dean turned off the car and looked over at his brother as he calmly shifted to get comfortable.

"This isn't gonna hurt us," Sam's voice played back in his mind, and he watched the younger man settle back against the seat. Yet he felt worried, anyway. They hadn't talked about it at all. And though that was kind of the way Dean preferred things most of the time, this just...wasn't the same. It wasn't even so much that they hadn't talking about it, but that they hadn't really talked about anything that wasn't pertaining to a hunt or travel.

Truth be told, it was driving Dean nuts. He wasn't exactly sure why, either. But it was a strange feeling, and he didn't like it at all. He wasn't angry at Sam, he thought, as he mulled the situation over in his head. There wasn't something that necessarily needed to be discussed. Not if they were going by the plan they'd set forth in that building.

Still, he felt restless; like there was something he was supposed to do, but he wasn't sure what that was. Frankly, all the thoughts were giving him a headache. So he forced them to stop, and readjusted himself to half-lay against his door and close his eyes.

It was another couple of hours, before Sam woke up to the sound of a semi-truck zooming past them at what had to be twenty miles over the speed limit. It had created a strong enough breeze to rock the car a bit. So Dean had stirred awake, as well.

"Time is it?" Dean slurred, eyes not quite opening.

Sam fished out his cell to look at the clock. "About noon," he answered. "How long have we been stopped?"

"Couple hours. I need a few more," Dean grunted, pushing up from the seat and crawling over into the back like a wounded panther. "You drive."

"To where?"

"To lunch, Sam. 'M hungry," he told him, as he curled up in the back seat in a position that should probably be uncomfortable, but somehow made him look adorable...and no, Sam definitely did not just think that.

_.~._

It was another hour before Sam even found a place to turn off. With Dean still softly snoring in the back seat, which only really happened when he was in such an odd position, he decided to stop and find a motel and book them a room, before figuring out where to eat.

He drove past a couple of them, as the lots seemed pretty full. But ended up stopping at one just as equally packed as the rest of them, as it was the last place in town, and there was no way they were driving anymore for at least a day.

Sam locked his brother in the car, and headed in to the front desk. A balding man with glasses sat in front of a computer screen, clicking away. "You're sorta lucky, ya know," the man told him. "Last room left in town, that isn't literally a storage closet with a cot."

"What's going on that every place is booked?" Sam questioned.

"Oh big big convention in town," he told him. "Ghost hunters or something of that nature."

"Face ghosters, dear," an elderly woman around the man's age said, as she cornered into the room.

"Oh oh yeah...Face... uh. Well, that doesn't seem right..."

"Ghostfacers?" Sam's brows rose.

"Yeah! That's it!" the man smiled. "Silly bunch of nonsense, if you ask me. But these young folks sure do seem to like the entertainment aspect of it." Sam smirked, shaking his head.

"It's not nonsense, Harold," the woman retorted. "You know, just as well as everyone else in this town, why they decided to do their little event here."

"Yes, dear," Harold resigned, taking Sam's credit card. "Oh uh, the room's only got one king in it. That won't be a problem, will it?"

Just a momentary flash of panic hit Sam, before calming. "It'll be fine," he told him. "It's just my brother and me; not like we haven't shared a bed in the past, once or twice."

Harold let out an amused chuckle, as he swiped the card through the machine, "My older brother, Michael, and I used to go camping out in state park here, until the incident. One-man tent, he bought... Told me I could sleep in it with him, or outside with the bears. He was a stinker, my brother," he shook his head, but had a fond smile on his face. "But he was a good brother," he nodded.

Sam let himself absorb the man's shared memory for a moment, not to mention the fact that this was probably the first time there was open opportunity for the 'gay-couple implications', and there was absolutely no doubt in the "we're brothers" response. Ironic.

"Incident?" Sam questioned.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, the reason those Ghoster faces are in town," Harold said as he handed Sam his card back. "Well, story goes, there was a girl, our age at the time...which at the time was fourteen, you see. Name was Sally O'hanson. Went up there and got herself killed. Now, police said it was an accident; that she'd been attacked my some wild animal. But there was rumor that her step-daddy did it."

"That was just a rumor, Harold," the woman said.

"Well, rumor or not, Sally's step-daddy was the sheriff, at the time. Strange family, that was. Far as I can remember, anyway. But it was a long time ago..."

"Why did this bring the...convention here?" Sam asked.

"Well there's a legend," Harold continued. "Every year, on the anniversary of her death, some dumb kids go up into the woods to camp, and see if they can't find her ghost. And well... let's just say, there's always one casualty...always one person that doesn't come back out of there alive."

"Interesting," Sam said. "Well, thanks for the story, sir."

"Not a problem, Mr. Gerowitz," he replied. "Thanks for listening, and not just walkin' away, like most younger folks." Sam gave a small smile. "Here's your key. Check out is eleven tomorrow. If you need an extra night, let me know, so I don't book over you!"

Sam quickly made his way to the car, letting himself in the back seat to wake up Dean, and sat down in the small space left back there. "Dean..." he shook him by the shoulder. "Dean, wake up."

"'m...what?"

"You're never gonna believe this..."

(to be continued...)