Many many thanks to SPNMum, Krikanalo, My Daydream World, Heartless BytchhakaHelenBach1, and rozz07 for your reviews. I totally and thoroughly appreciate the support!
Thanks a million times to my co-conspirator and all-around SPN cheerleader Agelade for sustaining me in this. And if you guys haven't checked her out yet, she's writing this pretty sweet Season 9 over there. Definitely worth a gander.
-Caladrius
Summary: John Winchester leaves no choices for his boys, and shit gets real.
Chapter 7: "How Many More Times"
Then:
Dean's shoulders dropped and he uncurled from his defensive half crouch, gun at his side. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then the front door rattled with keys and John Winchester was back with the mother of all the shittiest timings in the world.
Fuck. Oh just…just fuck.
Now:
If the combined acceleration of the two boys' hearts could have been measured on the Richter scale, then half of California would have fallen into the ocean at that point. Dean went ramrod straight and Sam froze. His heart pounded in the back of his throat like a choking, hot, pulsing thing.
John stood at the doorway for a second, and Sam was absolutely certain that he could, like a dog, smell the fear in the room. Calmly he shut the door behind him and pocketed his keys. Their father didn't look like he had slept in a couple of days, but then, he always looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days.
"Son." This was to Dean.
"Yes, sir?"
"Why do you have a gun in your hand?"
He might have been inquiring about the time. Had anyone else been in the room, they would have just considered it the most casual of conversation starters.
Dean hesitated. It wasn't good to hesitate when John Winchester asked you a direct question, and the silence was filled with Sam's mental yells. Don't tell him. Please don't tell him. For God's sake, just lie, Dean. You lie so well to everyone else. Please don't...please!
When Dean turned to look at him, Sam thought maybe it was possible that such things as psychic powers existed. Maybe there was something to the bond of brothers after all. With every tiny little ounce of willpower his expression begged him.
"Son?"
The second Dean looked down at the floor Sam knew.
"Sir, I was checking something out."
Damn you, Dean.
"And that something was the closet?"
"Yes, sir. I thought...there might be something in it. Something supernatural."
Too little too late.
"You thought this because?"
Dean swallowed, and it really seemed that for a second he tried to fight it. But no, when it came to Dad, that was all there was to it. Can't just, for this one time, deflect it away. He could have said that he was simply cleaning his gun. He could have said...a million things. Dean could get away with anything with anyone else.
When Dean glanced back to him, almost apologetic, Sam made sure that his expression was one hundred ways of saying, "you fucking traitor," and by the resigned look in his brother's eyes, he knew it had been communicated. And that was it then. Dean took a deep breath.
"Sam said something has been watching him for three nights from the closet. He hasn't been sleeping, so I was just checking it out."
At this, John Winchester looked up at the closet, but his thoughts were inscrutable. As usual. He walked across the room, around the beds, and Dean made way for his father as he approached to inspect the opening. Sam didn't back away from the door. He stared up at the imposing wall as if by doing so he could will himself to be brave; this man terrified and confused him and made him...irrationally angry. John looked down at Sam, and Sam held his ground. Stubbornly.
"Is this true, son?"
Sam pursed his lips together. Pleading the 5th. Daring wild horses to drag it from him. But John simply waited, and Sam was losing his nerve. Why did every conversation with his father have to feel like a Mexican standoff? Why had he made it that way?
"Answer the question, Sam."
John's voice had a quiet, compelling quality. A quality that made his youngest son want to throw his fists against his chest and just beat at him and beat at him until he stopped all of this. And it was unfair to hate Dean for giving in to it; their father was impossible. At least now. At least while he was nine and couldn't drive or get a job, or find shelter on his own. As long as this dark looming mountain of a man held his brother captive too.
"Yes..."
Too mumbled.
"What was that?"
"I said, yes. Sir." The little soldier. Yes, they were all just being prepped for the front lines of John Winchester's private 'Nam.
John's face became a hard, unreadable line. As soon as he stepped away Sam could breathe again. That was, until his father went to the bedside stand and opened it. He came back with a small 9 millimeter, a weapon that Sam had some marginal familiarity with...and hated. Hated the way it felt, the way it looked, the reality of what it could do. It wasn't as deadly as his brother's .45, but it could kill, and that was enough. John held it towards his youngest son, butt first. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam thought he saw Dean balk.
He couldn't make himself touch it.
"What...what am I supposed to do with that?" Sam asked as flippantly as he could, but he already knew the answer. Moreover, when he looked up at his father, he knew that John knew that Sam knew that he knew the answer. And that was worse.
"You've seen the boogeyman, son. This is not a joke; it's as real as you or me. You've seen it, which means you are a target, and that means unless something changes its mind, or it's dead, it will come after you. They are fast and have mobility and agility on their side, but worse, they know how to look inside you. But keep calm and keep steady because they have a weakness, and they are susceptible to conventional weapons at the right time. You'll know when. Take the gun-you've fired it before. Keep it under the blanket. When you see it tonight you have to face it down first. Aim for the eyes. Don't look away."
Sam shook his head. He shook it and shook it. He felt light and airy and woozy.
"Dad, Sam hasn't slept for three nights..."
"Stand down, Dean."
Both brothers jumped, and Sam thought he might pass out right there. John's voice had only raised two decibels but it felt as if the roof was about to collapse and bury him and his brother.
Oh fuck, no.
"Sam, take the gun. This creature is tiring you out, son, and it thinks it has you completely cornered. But you're strong, you've got good instincts, and you'll know when to pull the trigger." John pushed the gun closer.
Fuck you and your instincts...hell no. Not like this. There was just no way. Couldn't the unspeakable horrors of the night be his imagination? Couldn't his father have said that everything would be okay? That they would deal with this with some warm milk and bedtime story? That something wasn't going to "come after" him? That he was just afraid of the dark and that was all?
No. Because that was someone else's life. He was a Winchester, and Winchester's hunt because the fucking boogeyman was real. Welcome to the family, Sam. Aren't you happy? Aren't you proud?
Sam was so tired and now he felt sick to his stomach. From his periphery, Dean stood up straight and stepped to Sam's side cautiously, as if their father was a dangerous viper.
"Dad, seriously, I can handle this. I'll shoot the sonofabitch mys-"
"No, Dean. It won't work that way. It can't be you."
"But...but...Dad."
This amount of persistence against their father's commandments was unheard of for Dean. Had Sam not been ready to throw up, he might have been impressed. Once again, his older brother was there to take his burden. Sam struggled inwardly with two voices-one that rejected the idea that he had to be babied through everything, and a second that reminded him that the things his father and brother killed were killers themselves. Sam didn't want to die, and Dean was...Dean was good at this. He'd take care of it, do the dirty work, and then Sam wouldn't have to worry anymore.
But their father made the decision for him.
"Dean, I forbid you to interfere. Sam has to do it. Trust me when I say this-it rests on Sam. Take the gun, son." John's face hadn't changed, but there was an undercurrent to his tone that said his sons were walking the thinnest, finest line imaginable over a deep morass of violence. One step. Just one step...
If I take that gun, then I'll be a killer too.
"Dad...I can't." Sam's palms were sweaty. He felt sweaty. He feared that morass. He wanted to run...run outside. Go. But where was he going to go? The gun and his father both blocked his exit.
"You can, and now you have to. It'll prey on your fears until you end it or it ends you. It's time, Sam. Take the gun. Follow my instructions. Once it's over, it will be over."
No, Dad, once it's over, it will have just begun...
"Sammy, don't worry. I won't..."
But Dean didn't get to finish his sentence. John turned and pushed him. It looked like a little shove, but Dean practically flew six feet onto Sam's cot. The action rolled him over and landed him on the other side like he had been a rag doll. The power of it, the sound of it, the reality of it brought Sam awake and turned his fear and hesitation into a slow-boiling anger.
"I said I forbid it, Dean. Is something wrong with your hearing?" The question was calm. No different from the tone of the first question he had asked that night.
"No...sir..." Dean's voice came from the floor. Defeated. Despite the fact that he couldn't have been too hurt, landing onto the cot, the rage in Sam's chest was beating down doors and preparing to storm the castle of his consciousness. A cold, tranquil fury seized him and he quickly took the gun from his father's hand.
"Keep it under the covers and aim for its eye. I got it." Sam checked it. It was loaded. He fingered the safety. For one almost overwhelming moment, he wondered what would happen if he put the gun to John's chest. There was a whole model of scenarios in his mind for that one, too, and all of them ended in horrific ways. Almost as horrific as desperately wanting his father's approval and never getting it.
Heavy silence reigned for the two hours before John left again, unless one counted the TV, and even after his father's final instructions, and warnings, the silence continued. The TV continued. Sam felt a wave of industry sweep over him despite the heaviness of his lids. Because going to bed meant going to bed with a gun tonight. It meant staring down an actual boogeyman and putting a bullet into its shiny little eye...
He sat down at the table and slowly, painfully, pulled the history book forward. Behind him he could feel Dean's eyes on his back, but Dean was in a nebulous place with Sam at the moment, again, and Sam had no strength to figure anything out. Better to immerse himself in Reconstructionist South, in the angst of a people who were all completely dead...except the ones who weren't. Not even a 4th grade history text was safe from doubt and suspicion anymore.
Sam gripped his pencil. He stared at a sentence he wasn't reading. His thoughts had two things tumbling end over end: the gun now under his pillow, and the image of Dean hurtling across his cot. And, of course, his father's voice telling him, "it's time."
It's time...
Sam shook his head a little. That was a close call. He had nearly fallen asleep. Nearly. Something must have jolted him. He still smelled like cheap motel soap from a joyless shower he couldn't remember, and it was in his hand. The gun. Every cold, hated curve of it burned brands into his fingers. Sam rejected it, he hated it, because of what it stood for. And what did it stand for? The reality of monsters? The death of his mother? Obedience?
Murder. Murder so that he could live, but still murder.
Sam's hand didn't shake. He was tired and the fear was no longer capable of throttling his nerves. It lay there inside, present and accounted for, but useless and fat and almost apathetic. Fear was slowly trying to separate Sam from himself for a simple reason: the real Sam did not want to do this...
click
The closet door.
Sam instinctively gripped the butt of the gun. It was close range-almost point blank, if one wanted to do the distance and the math. A five-year-old could make this shot...
And then the eye appeared.
It appeared, but it was...somehow different this time. For one thing, it wasn't shining-it was glowing. Glowing yellow.
"Look who I see there. Is it Sam? Sammy?"
Sam blinked but his own eyes went wide. That voice...he didn't know that voice. But...something remembered that voice.
The yellow eye stared at him and he could almost sense a smile behind it.
"Are you going to shoot me now? Shoot me before you know everything, Sammy?"
Who are you?
He hadn't said it out loud, but the words seemed to reverberate in the air anyway.
"Do you want to find out? Come on, Sam. Sammy. Samuel. Take a peek inside here. Don't worry, it's not like that book you read in 3rd grade. We don't all float down here, but it's interesting. It's not quite ready for you, but I'll give you a sneak peek. If you want."
That yellow eye was laughing at him. It was ten times more disturbing now that there was a voice; it was ten times worse because it sounded inviting in the way that leaping out of a plane with a hastily packed parachute was inviting to the reckless. To the directionless. After all, when leaping out of a plane there was really only one direction in which to go. Ever.
Down.
"She's here with me, you know. All cooked. Well-done. Your mother..."
Bang!
No more talking. Shutting up now, you fucking yellow freak. Sam shook, his hand shook, the smoking muzzle, the blackened cover shook. Holy shit. Holy fuck. What the hell...
"Sam. Did you miss?"
In the darkness, Sam's eyes went round and the whites around his irises hurt. There was...no way. No way he missed. It was as if the word "mother" had placed a target and drawn the bullet right out of his gun. He had never wanted to shoot anything else so much in his entire life. It was point blank. There was no way...
The eye was gone but the voice was not. The muffled, amused tones were building that cold, dormant rage.
"What do we have behind door number one, Sammy? Does it make you mad? Mad that I remember more than you do..."
Sam flung the covers off. That door was no longer a closet. Was that what he thought it had been? It wasn't a closet at all. His hand trembled and his eyes were fixed on that opening. That tiny opening. Something was behind that door, flickering. Sweat was cold on his skin-he could feel the white t-shirt clinging to him, scratchy against his throat. His throat was so dry. The carpet under his toes was like sandpaper as he took a tentative step, and then another. As if in a dream he remembered his father's voice.
It's time...
He held the gun up, steadied it with his other hand, his soul focusing every sense onto that opening, the dancing yellow and golds. Sam held his breath. One hand reluctantly left the ironically comforting presence of the gun to reach for the door handle.
Hot fingers. Burning skin. Burning to the bone.
Sam couldn't scream. The horror had lodged into his throat, preventing anything, even a gasp, as the door shot open and the hand, flaming, latched onto his wrist. It was unbelievable in every way except that it hurt. If nothing else, that pain, that searing, skin-crisping pain, and the feeling of being inexorably pulled towards the door made Sam abandon any hope. He brought up the gun. He shot at the arm. The kickback was the kickback of a 9 millimeter, not so much, but he felt it in the muscles of his hand, the tendons in his arm. He shot it empty. Sam's heels burned with the friction as he slid closer.
Oh shit. I'm going to die!
The useless weapon fell to the floor and was gone. Sam pulled at his own arm, his eyes fixed on that burning yellow and orange orb that didn't care. Didn't care that he he didn't want to know what was behind that door. Didn't care that he didn't want to die.
Dean.
Sam's foot hit the door jam. He braced it that for all he was worth.
Dean!
A wind rushing from the opening, as small as it was, was like the gate over a furnace from hell. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to know!
And then the fire became an icy trail from his forehead down his spine. Cold.
This is you, Sam. It's all here. Thank you for showing me...
"Dean!"
He screamed it at the top of his lungs...but nothing came out.
The ice was shiny. Like an eye. He was encased in it.
I've got you, Sam. You will come to me. So many fears, but this one is the most beautiful...
"Sam!"
Sam gasped. His head shot up from the page of his history book. Every muscle in his body ached. What the hell. Where the fuck?
"Hey, Sammy? Sam!"
Sam felt his entire upper body move, being shaken from behind, no, the shoulder. For seconds he was frozen solid. So cold. He was actively rejecting reality.
He would crawl away from reality and sit here where he could do nothing and nothing could hurt him and nothing would happen to him. He could hide for as long as he wanted because he could not be found and could not be seen...
"Oh shit. Sammy!"
His chair moved, and a flower of a sting on his left cheek, the jerking reaction, somehow connected to his chest and his lungs started to work again. Another breath. And another.
"That's good. Okay, fuck. Jesus. Breathe, Sammy."
Dean began to swear a kind of blue streak then. It wasn't artful, but it satisfied some need. Yes, a river of superfluous vitriol accompanied by a hand on his forehead. Sam looked straight ahead, and then his eyes focused on his brother. His head hurt. His brain hurt. Why did it feel like his soul hurt?
"Did you just slap me?" Sam asked it as if he had done nothing to precipitate it. Had he?
Something just happened. There was a voice. And fire and cold.
Dean opened his mouth, stuck like that for a second, and then that rare expression of total vulnerability on his face disappeared.
"Yeah, you little bitch. D'you want me to do it again?"
Sam blinked. Dean blinked. He shook his head slightly and sat back. What had that voice said? You'll...come to me?
What voice?
"Just admit it. History is a fucking snorefest. You can't even defend it now. Did you get any drool on that book?" Dean was talking again and being an ass, but Sam was shaken in ways he couldn't quite recall and Dean's voice was familiar. It filled the empty spaces for the moment, redirected the panic. Everything was right where it was. Without even really realizing what he was doing, Sam lifted his arm. He gazed at it. But it was his arm, nothing more. He touched his forehead but it was hot, not cold.
"Hey, man..." Dean was staring at him, he had his mouth open to say more and then stopped. "Are you hungry? Because I'm starving."
Sam pursed his lips and took a breath.
"Yeah, actually."
But the bang of a pot and clink of silverware had already begun. Sam picked up his pencil, trying to make his brain realign into something that wanted to finish this homework.
"Hey."
"Hn."
"Did you have a nightmare?"
Dean's tone was conversational, but it had an edge.
"Um. I don't...remember. Why? Did I say something?"
There was a pause. It might have been too long, or it might have been Dean just trying to read directions on a box of mac and cheese. Reconstruction. Carpetbaggers. Amendments to the Constitution.
"No, not really."
Man, I fell asleep on my history book. Lame, Sam. Way to be lame. I'll never live this down...
But Dean said nothing else, and Sam was finished with the answer to question four by the time a bowl was filled with steaming orange pasta. Sam's eyes creased at it, the completely unnatural color, the steam, like glowing orange and smoke...
But it was only mac and cheese.
"Congratulations, this doesn't suck." He said finally after the third mouthful.
"Too bad you do."
"That was an idiot's comeback, Dean."
"I know you are but what am I?"
"An idiot."
"Only idiots use the same insult twice in a row, idiot."
"Well then, look who's talking."
"Eat your pasta, bitch."
"Jerk."
"I know you are, but what I am I?"
Dean liked to talk, yeah. But it filled the empty spaces, and everything was where it should be. At least for the moment.
March 18, 2007
Sam 23-years-old
Dean 27-years-old
"Dean, I want you take care of your little brother, okay? Watch him. Protect him. But, son, if you can't save him, if he becomes one of them, then...it has to be you. When the time comes, you'll know it's too late, and then the only way to save him is to kill Sam. Remember that, son. Remember it."
Dad, don't go! I can't do this!
"Dean, I've tried running before. I mean, I ran all the way to California and look what happened. You can't run from this, and you can't protect me..."
Sammy...you used to have faith in me...
Dean came out of his sleep full tilt. He turned his head quickly, and when he didn't see Sam in the other bed he was up and grabbing his nickel-plated .45 from under his pillow, pulling his jacket from the bed post, before Sam's voice stopped him.
"Dean?"
Sam was at the motel table, computer open, newspapers in front of him, a concerned and worn Sammy expression tilting his features.
Oh, thank God.
Still here. Still here despite...despite learning the horrible truth about Dad's last words after that Croatoan freakiness. Despite once running away to Indiana to follow his "Alice in Wonderhell" breadcrumb trail of other Yellow-touched "special" kids. Despite the disappearance, under questionable circumstances, of the nice little psychic girl who saved his brother's life when Gordon and his fucking anti-hero crusade crossed his path.
And it was the complete middle of the night.
Dean cleared his throat.
"Did you...did you have a nightmare?" Sam asked gently.
"Hm? No, I was just...gonna take a leak." Dean coughed.
"With your gun?"
"Hey man, have you seen the cockroaches in Illinois motels? They are hella huge. Those things could survive a nuclear war but not this baby." Dean shook the gun in the air a little with a grin and then slid it back under his pillow.
"...Rrright."
Dean stood up. Stretched. Whatever time it was, he was up now. "What are you doing? Did you have a nightmare?"
Sam took a deep breath, ran a hand over half his face, and then shook his head. His eyes travelled back to the computer monitor. "No. Tried to sleep and then gave it up."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Too hesitant.
"What are you thinking, Sammy?" Dean crossed to the table.
Sam covered something small on the table with his palm, but not before Dean saw it. Saw it clearly.
He remembered another night Sam had clutched that thing, stunned, his heart destroyed. He remembered closing Sam's numb hand over it. Why, Sammy. Of all things, why keep that thing? After what she did to you...
His brother was a masochist. That's all there was to it. At least, he hoped that was all there was to it. "Sam..."
One look and Dean knew Sam knew he had seen it.
"It's happening again, Dean."
"Sam, we don't know exactly what happened to Ava, okay? Don't...don't go all Donnie Darko on me now."
Sam gave him a weird look, "Dean, this...isn't really anything like Donnie Darko."
Dean shrugged, "The hell if I know. That fucking rabbit costume actually did give me nightmares, and I had no idea what was going on at any point in that movie..."
Sam raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Nevermind. More appropriate reference than I thought."
"Shut it." Dean looked over Sam's shoulder at the 20 tabs Sam was running simultaneously. Moving his eyes only, he visually checked Sam's hand. It was still hanging onto that red and black hair tie.
"Please, don't ask me why," Sam said in answer to the look he couldn't have possibly seen from his vantage...
Dean froze. How did he know he was...? Fuck, Sam was psychic but...
Sam pointed at Dean's clear reflection in the monitor.
Oh. Duh.
"I don't just know everything, Dean. If I did, I wouldn't be up at 4am searching the grid."
His older brother relaxed slightly, put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.
"Sam...it's all doing a 'Chariots of Fire' race around your head. You've got too much goin' on. Can't you at least let...let something go? You know. Let this thing be?"
Sam shook his head. "Everything I do goes back to it. It all goes back to it. The hesitation, the mistakes...whatever is coming, whatever...Dad...was thinking, he knew it too. Dean!" Sam twisted suddenly in his seat as Dean's hand fell away and his brother pivoted on his heel in frustration.
"Sam, your 'hesitation' saved people, okay? Saved that guy at Cedar Lake. Hell, you saved him from me. He wasn't infected, remember?" Dean turned back to him, "And...and you didn't gank Gordan when you had the chance, even though you knew he was tryin' to kill you in cold blood."
Sam shook his head, "He was trying to stop me from something, Dean. Gordan was a homicidal sociopath, but who knows where I am headed? You can't rule on that one yet."
Dean threw his hands into the air. "Look, you have to stop equating the ability to kill things with killing the boogeyman...or you are goin' to turn into what you're trying not to become, and hell if I know what Dad was doin' back then."
"He was trying to make me smarter. Ready. I don't know..."
"Oh, you say that now like it all magically makes sense. Did you have another green-smelling dream?"
"Dean," Sam clenched the hair tie and his face crumbled, but only for a second. For an instant. "What Dad said to you. He based it on the me he knew. The things he knew. And if I just wander down the path he saw, then you'll have do it. You will pull the trigger like he told you to. That's what he trained you to do. You'll do it."
Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously, because, God, to imagine he had been trained to kill his only little brother after being told so many times to protect him, that such a thing could have been Dad's plan all along... Dean couldn't even touch that let alone accept it as apparently Sam had.
"No, Sam, stop..."
"You will..." And then quieter, "I'd want you to...if I became that person. If I couldn't...If I couldn't break this...this goddamn chain from then. If I could just face that fear I couldn't face before. If I could be stronger, calmer...prepared." He looked up at Dean meaningfully. Pleadingly. "It doesn't mean I'm going to become a killer if I can find it, retrace my steps, confront it. Deal with it the way I should have back then, the way I knew I should have. Don't you see, Dean? The fear I had when I was nine...it's not gone. Dad wanted me to face it, to get over it. I should have. He'd never have needed to say that thing to you if I had. He'd never have burdened you with it."
"Sam, Dad was a coward."
Sam shook his head. "You don't believe that."
"Maybe I do now. Maybe I do. The point is that going all the way back there, to the past...I mean, what is it, Sam? What the hell are you still so afraid of?"
Sam and Dean's eyes met.
The pain in the room was so close to the surface. Silence crashed through the tiny barrier and Dean realized that, after all this time, after bringing this kid up and changing his diapers and watching him obsessively almost every day of his life until he was 19...he just didn't know his brother well enough. And that was damn scary.
"Dean, believe me or not if you want, but...something is leading me back to it. My dreams, little things, all of it. I told you I wasn't going to hide it and I'm not. When I know what I need to do, I'm going to do it. I have to move past it. I have to move us all past it, you included."
"I don't need my little brother to-"
"Dean. I have never felt more certain about anything in my entire life. The whole thing with Yellow Eyes, with Dad, with the other psychics...I've got nothing. It's all grey and fuzzy and ominous. But this one thing...this one fucking monster that's still out there...that thing is mine, Dean. You didn't do anything wrong when you were 14. Nothing. You have to let me accept this, all of it."
Dean slumped onto his bed. So fucking stubborn. Just like Dad...
Sammy...
"Did you have another dream about Dad?" It was quiet.
Sam took a breath. "The same one. But clearer. A little."
"Still smells like green?"
"Y-yeah, and the silver box is in Dad's hand, but now they are surrounded by a hundred or more other silver boxes. And...and he looks right at me...looks me right in the eye..." Sam pauses, "...and he says, 'it's coming back.'"
A chill ran down Dean's spine.
"That's it?"
Sam nods.
"And...and when were you going to tell me this, Mr. I'm Not Hiding Anything?"
His little brother shrugged, "When you were happily listening to Led Zeppelin?" His eyes looked up at Dean hopefully, apologetically...haunted.
"Zeppelin? Really," Dean answered blandly.
"Maybe Mettalica, but not during the Black album."
Dean nodded, "You better not fucking interrupt the Black album with your petty psychic dreaming crap."
Sam smiled and a line in his forehead relaxed. "Absolutely not. Some things are sacred."
"You bet your ass they are." Dean stood up, stretched, and took a deep breath.
"Well, this has been fun and adorable and far too revealing, and now I'm going to get black coffee to cleanse myself. You want your caramel mocha chocowhipped espresso yummycup usual?" Dean picked up his coat and gun again. He clinked the keys in his pocket.
"Yeah, actually. Double on the chocowhipping, please. Running on a sugar low."
God. What a girl.
"You got it, Samantha."
Sam snorted and gave Dean the finger...which meant they were all good.
Dean couldn't help squeezing Sam's shoulder one last time before heading out the door and locking it behind him. He didn't think overly much about his last view of Sam through the motel window, his hand open, the hair tie staring him full in the face, and Sam's bowed head. He pushed the image away because, what the hell, Sammy. Putting yourself on an island is going to kill you. Kill us both. And I'm the one always afraid of it, of losing you. I'm the coward, not Dad. Not you.
(to be continued...)