Skill Set
K Hanna Korossy

As the car bumped along, Sam picked the lock in his hands. Or rather, picked at the lock.

Dean had gotten the Impala running again…mostly. She still sounded rough even to Sam's untrained ear, and occasionally coughed like an asthmatic—one malady the Winchesters had not yet been afflicted with somehow—but she was moving. Heading back home, at least temporarily.

They had intended to go straight to Alaska, the border to Canada only a few hours away. But they were only about two minutes out from Garth's when Sam had frowned and said, "Alaska. That means—"

"—crossing the border," Dean had finished, also looking pained as he slowed the car.

Sam glanced back as if he could see the arsenal in the trunk. "We could leave everything at Garth's?" he suggested. Chances were the border guards wouldn't find the false bottom anyway, but it was a stupid risk to take.

But Dean was already shaking his head as he sped up again, at least as much as he dared. "We gotta stock up on food, and I'm gonna check Baby over again. And we can leave a note for Cas." The angel was on his own search for leads and had been unreachable for days. That is, whenever the Winchesters even had spottier-than-usual phone reception.

That sounded logical, except Sam wasn't sure the car would even make it back to Lebanon, let alone north again to Alaska. But he knew better than to voice any doubts to Dean about his baby. So Sam had just nodded and dug out the padlock he'd tucked into his pocket earlier and started working on it.

Dean quickly noticed, and glanced at him and his hands a few times before nodding at the latter. "Little late for that, isn't it?"

Sam readjusted the paper clip he'd unbent to jimmy the lock. His mouth tightened as it continued to resist him. "I'm trying to figure it out."

"The lock?" Dean's eyebrows rose. "It's pretty simple—there are pins—"

"Not the lock," Sam said, finally giving his brother an exasperated glare. "This whole thing."

So could we ever actually pick locks, or was it Chuck this whole time?, he'd asked Dean back at the monster fight club. And the question had been chewing at him ever since. Needing Garth to come to their rescue—twice—hadn't helped.

Dean was listening. "It's one thing to be able to eat like you do and not get indigestion or cavities," Sam went on. "That's luck. Or…a teflon stomach. But picking a lock, fixing a car, fighting—those are skills. Dad had us opening locks blindfolded and behind our backs before we were ten. You put in every piece of this car's engine yourself, and you take better care of it than you do of yourself. No matter how bad our luck is, it shouldn't keep us from being able to do something we know how to do." He dropped the impossible lock into his lap in a burst of frustration.

Dean chewed on that a moment. "Okay…but there's still bum equipment. Fan belts with invisible cracks. Jammed locks. Monsters you can't take down without a grenade launcher. The fact we don't usually have car issues, or unpickable locks, or-or a credit card that's not bulletproof forever no matter how good our hacker, those could still partly be luck."

Sam turned in the seat toward him. "Yeah, but all of that going bad at once? That's not normal, Dean, that's cursed. Plenty of people are drivin' around in old—" at Dean's look, he quickly corrected himself. "—vintage cars without them breaking down every five minutes."

"Hey!" Dean snapped halfheartedly. The fact that Baby had just lurched didn't help his case. He cleared his throat. "I mean, we are kinda cursed, right? By Chuck?"

"Okay," Sam conceded with a nod. "But that's not a sort of downgrade from hero-status. We've been sick and broke and screwed enough times over the years to know we don't have some kind of immunity from everyday crap."

Dean took that in. And Sam could see his shoulders slowly relax, his jaw loosen.

Because they were good at what they did. Dean knew everything there was to know about weapons, cars, and strategy, and made a mean burger. Sam knew more monster lore than most seasoned hunters he'd met, and a whole lot of other stuff. They both won most fights they were in, trained most of their lives in all kinds of combat, and could hack just about anything. Chuck had probably protected them some; Sam had often thought it was miraculous neither of them had ever had a permanent injury. But to think all of their achievements were just something Chuck had bestowed upon them was, frankly, insulting. And with his brother's self-esteem issues, Sam was pretty sure this had been messing with Dean even more than him.

Dean glanced over at him again, actual smile lines around his eyes. "You wanna spar a little before we head out? See if you're all luck and no skill?"

"Me?" Sam answered with his own half-smile. "Who tapped out on a vamp?"

Dean shook his head and pulled off into a gas station. "See how much cash you've still got."

Sam dug out his wallet. "We should have enough for gas, at least."

Dean climbed out, glancing wistfully into the back seat at the bag of grilled-cheese sandwiches Bess had given them.

"Hey," Sam nodded at the gas mart. "Ask them if they've got to-go packs of something called Lactaid." Off Dean's puzzled look, he added, "It'll let you eat cheese."

Dean broke out in an uncomplicatedly delighted smile. There was new energy in his step as he went to pay and fill up the car.

The blood, the sweat, the tears, that was all them, like Dean had said. But so were the small pleasures, the in-jokes, the contentment of just being together. That was something luck couldn't touch.

That was what gave Sam hope.

The End