Chapter 7 The More Things Change

I-80 E, Nebraska

Silence weighs more than gold, more than lead. It sucks life from the air and makes every thought a yell – or a scream – in the mind. The interior of the black car wasn't completely silent. Sam could hear the engine. He could hear the roar of the tyres over the road. He could hear the occasional rattle from the trunk when they ran over a seam or crack or divot in the highway's surface and the weapons shifted back there.

But between the two of them, the silence was like a wall. Unbreachable. Unscaleable. Thick and impenetrable.

Dean had brushed off his fumbling attempts to lessen the impact of Kevin's words, smiling derisively at the suggestion that there'd been any impact at all. Sam had watched the cracks papered over and seen his brother's shoulders and back stiffen as they'd gotten into the car, the knuckles white under the skin as Dean had gripped the steering wheel and gear shift. A tape went into the stereo, the volume went up and they'd driven back to the motel with Rock Out pumping through the car, drawing stares from the street.

Over the last five days, they'd checked every point of exit from Laramie, flashing Kevin's yearbook photo around, and the surreptitious photo Dean had taken on his phone of Linda Tran, had even gone to the cops and reported them as missing, hoping to get a wider search going. They'd spiralled out along the roads, showing the photos at the diners and gas stations and truck stops along the highways and interstates. None of it had helped. Kevin and his mother had vanished effectively. The only good thing was that if they couldn't find them, probably Crowley wouldn't be having much luck either.

So they had nothing and Dean had started driving east this morning without saying a word. The stereo played the oldies but the volume remained bearable. Sam had the feeling that if he said anything – anything at all – it might go back up.

He looked out the window at the flat plains rolling by them. They hadn't been partners – hadn't been brothers – for a lot longer than just a year, just the year gone by. Everything had piled up so heavily that he had no idea what they were now. Betrayals and lies, secrets and pain, sealed up and not looked at again. He'd felt like he'd gone through some of it, but he realised now that he'd barely scraped the surface. Too much had happened. None of it could be undone.

He shouldn't even be here, he thought morosely, hunching deeper into the corner. He had a chance to do something different. Something that would save him.

He glanced at Dean's stony profile and wondered how long it would take before he saw the pointlessness of trying as well.

Lincoln, Nebraska

The market wasn't crowded, despite the sunshine and blue skies, and Sam picked up a bag, browsing the stalls as they walked slowly through, picking up fruit and vegetables. He picked up an apple and bit into it, slurping back the juice as it ran over his lip.

They'd pulled into Lincoln just after midday and Dean hadn't made a fuss when he'd asked him to stop, just parked and followed him through the stalls, his attention glued to his phone screen.

It wasn't a truce, exactly, Sam knew. His brother was done wrapping up his latest load and shoving it to the back of his mind, and he was humming again, the hunter back to the fore, not really paying attention to him or what he did or said.

"Guy goes to Purgatory for a year, all hell breaks loose. Check this out. A jogger in Minneapolis gets his heart ripped out," Dean said suddenly, staring at the phone.

Sam glanced at him. "I'm guessing literally?"

"Only way that interests me," Dean agreed absently, scrolling down the web page.

Sam picked out a half a dozen tomatoes, putting them into the bag.

"And then, there's another article from six months ago. Same thing happens, also in Minneapolis. What does that tell us?"

"Stay out of Minneapolis," Sam suggested sourly, pulling out a wad of notes.

"Two hearts ganked, same city, six months apart," Dean continued, oblivious to the comment.

Sam stopped at the till and paid for his produce, listening to his brother talking on behind him. He didn't want to be here, he thought. Didn't want the worry, didn't want the life. Dean was skating along the edge of something, he knew that, but he couldn't see how deep it went, and he couldn't get him to talk about it at all. Every attempt had resulted in a neutral expression and a one-sided smile that hadn't gone near his eyes. He wasn't interested.

And Sam wasn't interested in hunting. So, where'd that leave them?

"I mean, that's got to be a ritual, man," Dean looked at him, almost oscillating on the spot. "Or at least some sort of a heart-sucking-possessed-satanic-crack-whore-bat."

Sam frowned and looked at him. "A what?"

"It's a case," Dean said patiently. "Look, I say we hang out the shingle again and ride."

"We're on a case, Dean," Sam corrected him through a mouthful of apple. "Kevin and the demon tablet need to be found, so heart guy takes a number."

"Uh, we just spent a week chasing our asses trying to lock Kevin down, okay?" Dean said. "And look at us. We're –"

He stopped and looked around the market, confusion filling his face. "Where the hell are we?"

"Farmers' market," Sam replied slowly. He held up his apple. "Fresh food."

Dean looked from the apple to his brother's face, his expression equal measures of doubt and disparagement.

"What?" Sam felt his defences rising. "I had a year off. I took the time to enjoy the good things."

"While avoiding doing what we actually do."

"Wow," Sam looked away, exhaling sharply. "Dean, does it make you feel that much better every time you say it?"

"All right, man," Dean said, smiling but not looking at him. "Look, I get it. You took a year off to do yoga and play the lute, whatever, but I'm back. Okay? We're back, which means that we walk and kill monsters at the same time."

Sam felt himself hardening inside again. His brother knew exactly how to push his buttons and he didn't need that shit, didn't need to feel like a five year old every goddamned time there was any dispute between them. His brother didn't need him, didn't need him to be around, complaining about hunting. Dean loved it. He could go do it on his own.

"We'll find Kevin," Dean continued, the mockery fading from his voice. "But in the meantime, do we ignore stuff like this? Or are innocent people supposed to die so that you can shop for produce?"

And there it was. Again. John Winchester, risen from his grave – or pyre – or whatever. Twisting everything he'd done to make it seem worse than trivial, a series of self-indulgent fancies that by their very nature were endangering people every day. He'd never learned to argue against his father, and he found himself trapped by the way Dean was twisting everything now. How was it so goddamned bad to want to eat decent food instead of the swill his brother insisted on forcing on them at every greasy spoon along the major arteries of the country? No one had died because he wanted fresh tomatoes every once in a while. He shut down the train of thought and looked away, not missing the slight, smug smile that flashed over his brother's face.

He wanted to tell Dean that wanting a normal life wasn't a sin. It wasn't lining people up against the wall and machine-gunning them to death. He wanted to throw in Dean's face that he'd got to have a normal life, even if he'd been too conditioned and too goddamned obsessive to enjoy it. He couldn't say any of it. Not here, in a public place, where the anger would get out of control on both sides because there was too much in their past that had been held back and held in and had festered for too long. Not now, while they still had to work together to find Kevin and get the tablet and close the gates to Hell. He swallowed the masticated apple in his mouth hard and followed his brother back to the car.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Detective Stone dropped the file on the desk and swivelled it around, opening it in front of the agents who stood on the other side. Why the feds were interested in this case was beyond him. He pushed the scene photos aside and pulled out the close-up of the chest.

"Here's what's odd about this thing – the guy wasn't chopped or cut into, no incision. But his heart was ripped out of him like a peach pit," he said, tapping the photo.

"Was he robbed?" Sam looked at Stone curiously.

The detective shook his head. "Phone, watch, money all still on him."

"What about enemies?" Dean asked.

Stone's face twitched in a fleeting smile. "He was in town for a conference. No local connections."

"You guys had another one of these about, uh, six months ago?" Dean leaned on the desk.

"Yeah," Stone looked down at the file. "And we hit a brick wall."

Dean waited and the detective looked back up at him, brows rising. "We had nothing to go on, really."

He turned away, walking to a cart with a television screen and video machine on it, and picking up the remote. "Thought maybe we got lucky here. A park surveillance camera picked up something."

Security footage played on the screen, showing the victim jogging along the path, and another man, much heavier, overtaking him on the left, speeding past and out of camera range.

"Huh. That chubby guy the last person to see the vic alive?" Dean's eyes narrowed as he looked at the last still frame.

"Other than the killer. Name's Paul Hayes," Stone said. "We, uh, pulled him in for questioning."

"So what makes you think he's clean?" Sam asked.

"Well, so far, no reason not to," the detective said with a slight shrug. "I mean, he said he briefly saw the victim, he ran out ahead, that was it."

"What, you mean he didn't fall to his knees and confess to gutting the guy?" Dean looked at him, his tone faintly derisive.

"No." Stone looked at him coldly. "I mean we did a thorough check on the guy, not so much as a parking ticket came up." He turned to gesture at the screen. "I mean, look at him. I mean, sure, he can run a little bit, but Tyson he ain't. You think he's gonna grab Freddy Fitness here and throw him down and rip out his heart?" He looked back to Sam. "I don't think so."

Dean raised his brows, looking at Sam.

"Forgive me if I didn't take him out back and shoot him," Stone added sarcastically, staring at Dean.

For a moment, the detective and Dean stared at each other. Sam looked at them and cleared his throat.

"Okay, uh, so... any idea where we can find this guy?"

"Yeah." Stone said, his gaze shifting dismissively from Dean to Sam. "I'll get the address."

Sam waited until he'd left the room before rounding on his brother.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"What?" Dean looked at the television screen. "You heard him –"

"Dean, we don't have Bobby answering the number on our little white cards anymore, so we don't aggravate law enforcement because if they get mad enough to check on our creds, we're in deep shit," Sam hissed at him furiously. "Or are you okay with being chased by the law … again?"

Dean's mouth compressed as he stared at the television. After a moment, he dragged in a deep breath. "All right. You're right."

He looked at Sam, and shrugged. "You're right, okay?"

The house was a small two storey in a leafy suburban road, white walls and gym equipment being the most memorable things about it. Sam sat on a kitchen stool, watching as Paul Hayes made himself a nutrient drink of some kind in a blender behind the kitchen counter.

Hayes was definitely the guy who'd outstripped the jogger in the park. In his late forties, he was fair-skinned, with receding silver-threaded grey hair, heavy jowls and a still reasonably wide girthline, not unlike a few million other middle-aged men throughout the country.

"Sorry. I kind of try to stick to a nutrition and workout schedule," Hayes said, pouring the swampy-looking liquid into a glass. He looked up and tilted the blender toward Sam. "Do you want a hit?"

Sam's brow wrinkled up in alarm. "I'm good. Thanks."

"Oh." Hayes put down the blender and carried his glass around the counter, stopping by the end.

"So, Paul, you passed a runner who was later killed. Did you speak with him at all?"

"Yeah, I went over this with the cops," Paul said, gesturing slightly with his glass as he spoke. "I-I didn't know him. I'd never spoken to him. I ran past him. I never saw him again. The end."

He tipped the glass up, swallowing a large mouthful. "Mm, oh. It's disgusting. It tastes like crap, but it keeps you young," Paul said, smiling cheerfully at Dean as he came into the room.

"Paul, on the security footage from the park, we noticed that the jogger you outraced was a good deal younger than you," Sam said tactfully, looking at him.

"Yeah, and less, uh..." Dean added, with a sweeping gesture.

"Uh, full-figured?" Paul suggested helpfully. "You should've seen me before. Yeah, hugging a desk all day and watching TV all night, eating fried … everything … was killing me," he looked at Sam. "I had a health scare about a year ago."

"Sorry to hear that."

"No, it changed my life," Paul said, glancing around. "I mean, I started taking care of myself."

"Now your body's a temple, huh?" Dean smiled encouragingly.

Paul raised his glass to him. "Where I worship every day!" He swallowed another mouthful of the green liquid. Dean looked at the glass, nose wrinkling involuntarily.

"Uh, is there anything else you need to know?" Paul asked, glancing at his watch. "'Cos, I, uh, I'm on kind of a –"

"Schedule," Sam supplied, nodding as he got to his feet.

"Right, schedule." Paul grinned at him, wiping the green moustache from his lip.

The café was up-market, dark colours, stone and timber and modern furniture and the rich aromas of freshly made-to-order coffee filling the interior. Dean sat at the long varnished counter by the window, staring at the laptop screen intently. Sam walked through the tables and sat down at the counter, flipping open the file next to his brother.

"All right, so ... what's the word? What did you find poking around at Paul's?" he asked, looking down at the notes.

Dean shook his head. "Ah, just the usual – condoms, hair gel. No hex bags, nothing satanic, nothing spooky."

"So, he didn't seem like a guy who'd be voted most likely to disembowel?" Sam asked pointedly.

"No, they never do," Dean said, staring at the screen as he flipped through the hits.

Sam let out his breath in a gusty sigh. He wasn't sure which was more annoying – his brother all hopped up on adrenalin, itching to put a knife into someone, or so completely involved in the research that he didn't even hear the tone of voice Sam used. The answer itself had been no surprise. Monsters were guilty until proven innocent. Never the other way around.

"Wait a minute, here it is," Dean said, his voice rising slightly.

"What, murder?"

"And a do-it-yourself heart bypass. Two days after this one." He frowned as he read the news report.

"What part of Minneapolis?" Sam looked at him.

"The Iowa part." Dean turned around to look at Sam. "Ames."

"Well, Paul was here being questioned. There's no way that could have been him." Sam said quickly. More than one murderer? More than one monster? When had that ever been the case?

"This guy was a cop." Dean read through news report. "This is exactly what happened six months ago." He turned to look at Sam. "Minneapolis, then Ames. Guess you missed that one."

"Missed it?" Sam stared at him.

"I told you about the pattern in that … farm … place, in Lincoln," Dean said, closing the laptop and getting up. "Come on, it's only about three hours drive, we can be there before the cops stop taking visitors."

Ames, Iowa

Dean looked at the policeman, sitting across the table from them. Officer Levitt was in his mid-thirties, he thought. Didn't think he'd get knuckles rapped by his brother from talking to this dude. Levitt was being pretty candid.

"Arthur Swenson. Real top-shelf officer. Twenty years on the force. He'd ordered a pizza, which the vic delivered," Levitt confirmed.

"And then?" Sam asked.

"The vic didn't make his next drop-off. His body was found on the walk in front of Swenson's." He lifted a shoulder slightly, looking at Sam.

"And he wasn't wearing a heart?" Dean checked.

"No. Heartless," Levitt agreed, straight-faced. Dean looked at Sam.

Sam flicked a glance at his brother. "And, uh, what about Swenson?"

"Crumpled on the front stoop. Covered in blood. Crying like a baby. He'd been in court all week," he said. "Testifying."

The phone on the desk rang, and Levitt picked it up, looking at them. "Excuse me."

He turned away, his voice dropping as he spoke on the phone.

Sam leaned closer to Dean. "So that couldn't have been him in Minneapolis."

"I hate when this happens," Dean muttered back.

Levitt set the phone back on the cradle and raised his brows at them. He had work to do, couldn't be spending all day long talking to the government.

"So, Swenson, what does – what does he have to say?" Dean asked.

Levitt's mouth curved up slightly. "Uh ... it's not real helpful."

The police interview room held a table, two chairs, welded steel bars on the doors and windows and had been painted in an almost-but-not-quite caramel, and an almost-but-not-quite apple green. Dean looked around the room then focussed on Arthur Swenson, twenty-year veteran of the Ames Police Department, dressed in a t-shirt and sweat pants, rocking back and forth at the table, muttering softly and staring at nothing.

"K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy. K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy. K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy."

Dean stood at the door, looking at Sam. "So, you getting his statement?"

"Uh, yeah, k-kind of," Sam frowned, holding the small recorder in front of Swenson, listening to the soft babble. He grimaced. "Probably not."

"It's too bad I dropped out of Lunatic 101," Dean said, leaning back against the bars and looking around. Levitt had been right. This wasn't helpful. And it was making the nerves at the back of his neck prickle to see a cop sitting there swaying like a long-term lunatic.

"Whatever it is, it sounds like he's repeating it," Sam leaned closer. Dean looked at Swenson. The guy looked like he was having a very bad trip, he thought.

"Look at his eyes," he said to Sam. He raised his voice and leaned on the table, closer to the police officer. "Hey, Arthur ... did you do this alone?"

Swenson was varying the rocking with bobbing, his head going up and down as he stretched and seemed to retract his neck. Dude looks like a turkey, Dean thought, staring at him uneasily.

"Arthur, did some invisible voice tell you you had to kill?" Sam added, looking at him.

Swenson brought his clasped hands down on the table hard, and the muttering became louder, his head bobbing more pronounced. "K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy!"

"Oh, now you've pissed him off," Dean glanced at Sam. "Hey, Art. Can I call you Art?"

He sat on the edge of the table, reaching into his jacket pocket. "Listen, I'm gonna sprinkle your arm with holy water and it's gonna steam and burn if you're possessed by a demon." He pulled out the small metal flask, glancing at Sam when Swenson made no response. "He's a mushroom."

Pouring the holy water over Swenson's wrist, they both watched it drip off the plainly unaffected arm onto the table.

"Okay, not possessed," Sam said quietly.

"Arthur, you want to tell us why you did this?" Dean tried again.

"K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy. K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy. K'uhul ajaw, Cacao, shi-jiiy."

"Okay." Dean flicked a look at his brother and got up from the table, walking back to the door. The man had clearly fallen off the perch, he thought uncomfortably, hearing the soft muttering behind him. Whatever had happened was locked tight inside his head and nothing could get it out now, he'd thrown away the key and filled the lock with epoxy.

Sam stopped the recording and sat back in the chair, studying the officer. He had a strong sense that this was a big piece of the puzzle they were looking for – but he couldn't see how. Swenson was only one short step from a drooling vegetable.

"Come on, Sam," Dean said, looking out through the door. The guy was giving him the creeps.

Dean drove into the slot in front of their room and turned off the engine, glancing at his watch. Seven o'clock. He was starving and tired and he wanted a beer. He unlocked the motel room door, pushing it open and pulling off his jacket and tie as he walked in. Tossing them carelessly onto the luggage rack, he kept walking to the bed beside the window and pulled the duffle onto the end. He pushed stuff out of the way as he looked for his t-shirt and jeans.

Sam shed his jacket as he followed Dean in, and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling out the recorder and hitting play. Officer Swenson's voice filled the room, repeating the same words over and over again.

Dean looked down and picked up the suit jacket, scrunching it into a ball. He really didn't need to hear that crap again.

Sam clicked the device and the recording stopped. "So, what do you think?"

"Personally, I prefer the Keith Richards version," he said, shoving the jacket back in the bag.

"Any of the words sound familiar to you?"

He shook his head. "If they are words. Sounds like babble to me." He looked at Sam for a moment and remembered, digging into his pocket for his phone. "Wait a second."

"What?" Sam looked at him as he moved to the edge of the bed and sat down.

"I bought a translation app," Dean said, concentrating on bringing it up on the screen.

Sam smiled uncertainly. "You bought an app."

"Yeah," He got it running. "Here, play it." He held out his phone and Sam moved the recorder close to it, clicking play and letting the recording run for a few seconds. Dean nodded and hit search on the app, watching the results.

"And babble wins," he said with a hint of triumph. ""Language unknown."" He held up the phone so that Sam could see the result. Sam looked at the screen and back to his brother. He doubted that the application held every language, living and dead, that had been known to mankind. But he wasn't prepared to spoil Dean's short-lived entertainment either.

His phone rang and he shifted on the bed to pull it from his pants pocket.

"Agent Sambora," he answered, looking at Dean absently as he listened. "What?"

He stood up, looking around for his jacket. "Yeah, we're heading out now."

"What?" Dean looked up.

"Get your jacket and tie back on, Officer Swensen just performed eye surgery on himself at the lockup. They've taken him to the hospital."

"Really? Now?" Dean looked at the jacket in his bag reluctantly. He was tired and hungry and he wanted a damned beer. He didn't want to put on the jacket and tie again and go marching out into the night for who-knew how long. "Dammit."

Dean looked through the window into the hospital room at Swensen, who was lying on the bed in restraints. Beside him the man's attending doctor watched as well.

"So, Dr Kashi, what are we looking at here, some kind of psychotic break?" he asked, turning to her. Dr Kashi was a small-boned, slender woman, easy on the eye, Dean thought looking down at her. Unfortunately, she had a British accent that reminded him too vividly of another British woman he'd known once.

"Oh, definitely. He was very thorough. Severed the optic nerve. He was determined to remove the eye," she said quietly.

"And he used, uh, what to cut with?"

Her face registered a tiny grimace. "He doesn't look strong enough, but he broke off part of the bed frame and used it as a knife."

Dr Kashi turned to the nurse who brought Swenson's file, taking it from her with a murmured, "Thank you."

Dean looked back through the window. "They should put warning labels on those beds."

"Like I said – determined," Dr Kashi said, opening the file.

"I noticed that he had two different-coloured eyes." Dean turned back to her.

"Yes. Apparently, he was in an accident where much of one eye was shattered," she explained. "His vision was saved with a transplant."

"When was this?"

Flipping through the file resting against her arm, she stopped when she got to the man's history, skimming over the details, her brows rising slightly as she read the date. "A year ago, almost to the date." She looked up at him. "And, interestingly, it's the transplanted eye he chose to cut out."

"Really?" Dean looked at Swensen. Transplanted eye. Transplanted eye that Swensen removed, painfully and forcefully, himself. He turned back to the doctor. "Hey, let me ask you something, doc. Is it possible to trace the donor of a transplanted organ?"

Dr Kashi looked at him carefully. "Difficult."

"But possible?"

"All things are possible." She smiled at him.

"Hmm." He turned back to Swensen. Why had the guy cut out the transplanted eye? Something was nagging at him, some once-heard reference, dim memory, years-ago movie quote … he closed his eyes and thought of a stone axe, floating in the darkness.

If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.

That was it. He opened his eyes and look at Arthur Swensen. He guessed that eye had really offended the man.

In front of the motel room, Dean turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, not moving. His nervous system was buzzing slightly, not as bad as it had been, but a long way from being relaxed. From being able to relax. There was a part of him that wanted to turn the key, reverse back out of the lot and keep driving, just keep driving until he was a long way from anywhere. A long way from Sam, he admitted to himself, that thought amping up the crackle along his nerves on its own.

They weren't what they'd been. Not even before … He lifted his hands and rubbed them hard over his face. It wasn't just the year apart, he knew. It was the fucking great cracks in the foundation stones of their trust. He didn't know how to repair those. Didn't even know if they could ever be repaired. Years of lies and secrets. Too many betrayals. Too much … fucking everything.

Suck it up, he told himself. No matter how uncomfortable or painful it gets, no matter how God-awful it becomes, you're sticking with him. He leaned his head against the wheel. The alternative was to try and stay on the wire alone. He wasn't sure he could do that.

Suck it up.

He got out of the car and picked up the box of take-out and coffee, shutting the door and locking it. Balancing everything on one arm, he managed to get the room key out and open the room door.

"Hey," he said as he shut the door behind him.

"Hey. Arthur Swenson had an eye transplant a year ago, right?" Sam looked up from the laptop then back to the screen.

"Yeah," Dean said, walking past the beds to the table. He put the box down and grabbed the sugar for his coffee.

"Well, I remembered that Paul Hayes was talking about a health scare he had a year ago that changed his life," Sam continued. "So I pulled up his medical records from Minneapolis." He looked up to see Dean staring at him sceptically.

"You want me on board, I'm on board," he said, shrugging and looking back at the screen.

Dean looked down at his coffee. Just like that, he thought. But for how long? A day? A week? It didn't matter, not really. They would either get through everything or they wouldn't. He turned back to his brother, listening as Sam continued.

"Anyway, you want to guess who else, other than Arthur Swenson, had a transplant in the last year?"

"Paul Hayes?"

"I gave it away, didn't I?" Sam said, the joke falling flat as his brother ignored it.

Dean leaned against the table. "Okay, so we've got two suspects in two identical murders in two different cities that both had organ transplants a year ago."

"Yeah. Also ..."

"Love when there's an 'also'," Dean commented, drinking his coffee.

Sam set the laptop aside and shifted to the edge of the bed. "I got to thinking about all that stuff Arthur Swenson was talking about. Maybe your translation app called it "language unknown" because it's a dead language, like ancient Greek or Manx."

"Manx?"

Sam looked at him, and let it go. "So I e-mailed an audio file of Arthur's mumbling to Dr Morrison."

"Who?" Dean's face screwed up as he tried to put anything to the name.

"Dr Morrison, the anthropology Professor who helped us out with the Amazons."

"Yes, okay," Dean nodded, memory trickling back. He'd blocked out the pompous ass the first time he'd met him. "Okay. Well, let's get our asses on the road."

"Headed to ...?" Sam's forehead creased up.

"Well, if we are in a repeat of a cycle from six months ago, then, after the murders in Minneapolis and in Ames, the next heart attack was in Boulder, Colorado," Dean explained hurriedly, already calculating time and distance and fuel.

"Boulder? Where the hell you'd get Boulder?" Sam looked at him.

"Just running a hunch," he said, putting his coffee down and turning to the bed to get the duffle packed.

I-80 W, North Dakota

The black car sped along the interstate, heading west. They'd passed North Platte an hour ago, and weren't far from the Colorado border. Dean watched the road ahead as he wove through the slower vehicles, changing lanes, keeping them moving at a steady eighty. He was starting to feel it again. The interplay between himself and the car, and the road, and the traffic … nerve and muscle, metal and thrust, tarmac and shadows alongside them, and tendon and rubber … he smiled slightly as his hands rested lightly on the wheel and directed them through without effort.

Sam looked at the sea of red lights ahead of them, brightening and dimming as they manoeuvred through them. He could feel his brother's energy snapping and crackling through the car's interior. He could see, from the corner of his eye, Dean's slight movements as he caught the intentions of this driver or that driver, reflexes cat-fast in cutting them off or moving out of way. There wasn't anything that was quiet in Dean. Nothing that rested.

"All right, case is coming together. Things are coming together, man. You and me. It is all good," Dean said, voice deep and almost happy. He looked over at Sam.

"Hey."

"What?" Sam turned his head, brow lifting.

"What are you thinking about? Organic tomatoes?" Dean asked, the almost-happy feeling fading a little.

"Uh, I'm not thinking about anything," Sam said uncertainly, looking at him. He turned back to the front slowly.

"I don't know about you, but this last year has given me a new perspective."

Sam felt his heart sink a little. "I hear you, believe me."

"I know where I'm at my best, and that is right here, driving down crazy street, next to you." Dean slapped the wheel lightly, looking over at Sam.

"Makes sense," Sam said uncomfortably, too aware he had to try to say something, and way too aware that no matter how he phrased it, it would probably explode in his face.

"Yes, it does."

"Or ... maybe you don't need me," Sam said quietly. He almost heard Dean's attention sharpen on him, and he drew in a deep breath. It was time he said something to his brother. He couldn't just let it go on and on without Dean knowing that he didn't want the same things anymore. Hell, had never wanted them, not in the same way.

"I mean, maybe you're at your best hacking and slicing your way through all the world's crap alone, not having to explain yourself to anybody."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Dean said slowly, his almost-happy feeling gone. His heart was pounding uncomfortably against his ribs. "Seeing as I have so many other brothers I can talk to about this stuff."

He shot a look at Sam, mouth tight.

Sam heard the change in his tone, and sighed. "Look, I'm not saying I'm bailing on you. I'm just saying make room for the possibility that we want different things. I mean, I want my time to count for something."

Dean stiffened slightly, brows drawing together. "So, what we do doesn't count?"

His phone rang, the sound shrill in the tension that filled the space between them. Dean looked at Sam as he extracted it.

"Yeah? Hey, Dr. Kashi." The brusqueness in his voice softened as he listened to her. "Okay. Thank you. Uh … could you run one more name for me? Yeah – Hayes, Paul. Uh-huh. And the donor? Seriously? How many others? Did anybody from Boulder, Colorado, receive any of those organs? Okay, thank you."

He closed the phone and put it back in his pocket, glancing at Sam. The decision to let the previous conversation go was instant. He didn't want to hear what Sam wanted. He wanted to go back to not-talking. It felt safer.

"Well, this is gonna rock your socks. She says that both Paul Hayes' kidney and Arthur Swenson's new eye came from – you ready for this? – Brick Holmes."

Sam heard the change in Dean's tone and understood. This was how they'd done it as kids. They'd perfected this game, both using any outside opportunity to not-talk, as Dean had called it once. Let the world interrupt and don't go back. For the moment, at least, he was happy to play.

"You don't mean the Brick Holmes," he said disbelievingly, not having to pretend too hard. Brick Holmes had been a legend. Had been his hero, once upon a time.

"I do."

"The all-pro quarterback?"

"Indeed. Yeah, the guy played at the top of his game for like a million years, didn't he?" Dean dug through his memories of earlier years, when they'd watched the games sometimes. Sam was playing, that was all he cared about right now.

"Yeah, he – he bought it in a car crash last year," Sam turned to his brother, remembering bits and pieces of the news reports now.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, not bothering to remind Sam that he hadn't been around last year. That came under talking, not not-talking.

"Nose-dived off a bridge or something. He must've signed a donor card," Sam's voice dropped a little as he remembered that Dean hadn't been around last year. He looked through the windshield. "Did the doc say how many organs he donated?"

"Including our two suspects? Eight," Dean told him, glad to be on safer ground again.

"Eight?"

"Eight."

"Okay, um, and one of them's in Boulder, am I right?" Sam asked, feeling his stomach twitching a little at the multiple levels of duplicity that currently flowed between them, like rip currents in a treacherous ocean.

"You would be wrong. That's the bad news. Good news is, Brick lived just outside of Boulder." Dean stared at the road. The previous attacks had culminated in Boulder. He wasn't sure why the pattern hadn't repeated. He'd checked the police databases and was sure of the information.

"Well, Brick's dead," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's all we got, so we are going to Boulder," Dean said, fingers curling tightly around the wheel. He took the 76 where it curved south on the border between North Dakota and Colorado, heading for Sterling. Another two, maybe three hours, max, he thought.

Maybe you don't need me.

His mouth compressed as he heard his brother's words again. His stomach knotted and he looked at Sam sideways, seeing him looking out the passenger window, staring at the blackness of the nighttime countryside. He'd heard what Sam had wanted to say and it hadn't been 'you don't need me'.

The little cabin, standing in between Sam and his father, Sam's face twisted in anger. I was always going to go. The words from the past bounced around inside his head and he struggled not to let anything show, not to let anything out at all. His fingers were welded to the wheel, bones white under the stretched out skin.

Maybe you're at your best hacking and slicing your way through all the world's crap alone.

Alone. No brother. No family. No friends. So he could turn into … Gordon? Turn into a monster killing other monsters? He was walking along the wire with his eyes closed as it was. He needed Sam here, needed him to keep from falling. But Sam didn't need him, he thought, admitting it slowly, holding the idea tentatively like a glass ball of immense fragility. The truth was, no one needed him.

Purgatory coalesced in the dark turmoil of his mind, the image of the stone axe pushing everything else away. Kill or be killed. Survive or die. Simple choices.

Dean drew in a deep breath, focussing his attention on the image. He was a hunter. That was who he was and he would be that whether he was surrounded by people or the last man on earth. Nothing could change it.