For What It's Worth

Part II

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes, but eventually nodded. He turned back to the pages on the table, tapping a few with his fingertips. "Jackson and his guys brought this back with the latest round of supplies last night. It's something they found at Magnus's." He trailed his index finger along a section of tightly scrawled script, not really touching the paper, not risking smearing the ink. Nerd. "This part we get. It details a cache of supernatural weapons he'd hidden somewhere here in the bunker."

"In this bunker?" Dean clarified incredulously.

"Yeah."

"Sam, we've been through every square inch of this place."

"Apparently not."

Dean scoffed and moved closer to the table. He shook his head. "So Magnus did something shady and hid a bunch of crap from the rest of the Men of Letters? Catch me, Sammy, I might faint from shock."

Sam frowned. "Yeah. Well, as long as the pompous son of a bitch wasn't just patting himself on the back, we're looking at the possibility of some serious firepower he scrounged up and squirreled away."

"How serious we talkin'?"

Colin leaned in, threw his weight around just in case Dean had managed to forget he was there over the course of the last few minutes. "This could finally be the upper hand we need."

Jackson, for what it's worth, stuck to the perimeter of the conversation.

Dean raised his eyebrows, waited for Sam to nod his agreement before continuing. "Great. So were you guys debating hairstyles or something? What the hell are we doing standin' around talking about this? Let's find these weapons."

"Yeah, well, that's easier said than done." Sam exhaled, a long breath teeming with tangible impatience and frustration. "In these notes, Magnus mentions a spell that's needed to locate the room, and to gain access once it's found." He turned his attention back to the notebook, spinning it on the table so Dean could easier see the pages. "It's this bit in the margins we're held up on. I'm guessing it's more details about the spell."

Dean squinted, leaned over to get a better look at the passage in question. His weak leg protested the angle, and he gritted his teeth behind pursed lips, taking a moment to compartmentalize the stab of pain that was suddenly radiating through the entire left side of his body.

"It's in Enochian."

Dean raised his eyes to his brother. "Yeah, thanks, Sam. I can see that."

Behind him, Jackson chuckled, and Sam gave Dean a look that let him know he wasn't in the mood for games and even less so for a bout of smartassery, and if they weren't in a room full of people Sam might have hauled his weak ass up against a wall or otherwise gotten in his face by that point.

"What's it say?" Sam seethed through clenched teeth. "Is it relevant to the spell or the weapons?"

Dean scanned the scrawls, translating bits and pieces easily enough but still needing a moment for his tired eyes to adjust and his sore body to loosen up. He couldn't discreetly reach down and knead the muscles in his leg, so he took a few slow breaths and willed them to relax so that the entire limb didn't lock up on him when he attempted to straighten. It wouldn't go far in making his case if he fell on his face trying to walk out of the room. "Both, I think."

"You think?"

Colin raised his eyebrows. "Sam, you want me to get Castiel? Or…" He blanked on the name, waved a careless hand in the air. "The other one."

Dean shifted his eyes to his brother – seriously, dude? – and then leveled a glare at Colin, not giving a shit about the man's size or military training. He'd mop the floor with the guy if he kept on that way, bum leg or not.

"Dean?" Sam prodded from the other side of the table, doing the valiant thing and giving his brother another shot before he made that call for someone with wings and a fluency in Enochian that wasn't secondhand and born from irritation.

Dean forced his gaze back down at the notebook to double-check the translation, and despite his assurances to Cas, it was proving to be a bit straining. "It's not the spell, but it might be the place to find it. An old Men of Letters chapter house," he said, squinting at chicken scratches that would be a rough read even in English. "In…Upland, Indiana."

Colin took that as his cue, immediately moving to rustle together a handful of maps and atlases from a shelf and slapping them onto the table next to the notes.

Sam leaned over Dean's shoulder like he was checking his homework, like he stood a chance in hell of seeing what Dean saw in the Enochian writing. "A chapter house? Like that one before in St. Louis?"

"I don't know, Sam. You seein' a picture or something here that I don't?" Dean resisted the overwhelming urge to elbow his brother out of his personal space, sidestepped out from under him instead and waved a hand at the notebook once he wasn't feeling quite so cornered. "I got spell, chapter house, and Upland, Indiana."

"Address?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah."

"Anything useful about the specifics of the spell?" Jackson finally spoke up.

Dean liked the guy, he did, and the kid was clearly shouldering a bit of responsibility over this one, finding the notebook and organizing the hasty supply run back to the bunker that ended with a few of his guys laid up in the infirmary. He was looking for some immediate gratification with regards to the information, but it didn't look like Dean could put the young hunter's mind any more at ease than he could his own.

"Sorry," Dean said, shaking his head. "Magnus wasn't exactly the type to make it that easy."

"No," Sam scoffed. "He was the type to put a world-saving weapons cache in one place, the spell to get to them in another, and the location of the damn spell somewhere else entirely."

"Son of a bitch," Jackson deadpanned.

"You're not wrong," Dean agreed, tilting his head. Those pesky muscles in his leg screamed out once more for attention, and he shuffled slowly away from the table until he could lean back against the wall, further from prying eyes and the harsh, exposing light at the center of the room.

"Okay," Colin piped up from where he was bent over the maps, in a loud, harsh tone meant to shush them, meant to command their attention because it was the only thing he could command. "Upland's looking to be a twelve-hour drive, assuming we don't run into trouble."

"And how often does that happen?" Dean commented coolly, without requesting permission to speak from his wannabe C.O.

Sam thought on it a moment, gnawing his lower lip and somehow appearing to Dean simultaneously as the leader he'd become and the boy he barely ever was. "We've lost enough as it is, and we can't afford to put this off. We move out tonight. As soon as we're ready."

Dean clapped his hands together. "All right, sounds good. Let's go."

Sam and Colin exchanged the sort of look over the table that was liable to get the both of them smacked, and Sam tapped his fingertips on the tabletop as he squared his shoulders once more over the notes in question. "Hey, guys, could you give me and my brother a minute here?"

"Sure thing," Jackson said, nodding at them with a genuine smile as he headed out of the room.

"You bet." There was something dark and feral buried none-too-deeply beneath Colin's perpetually cool and cocky exterior, something that once more set the hair on the back of Dean's neck at attention. They sized each other up as he passed on his way to the door, two alpha dogs in the yard. Colin raised his eyebrows on the threshold, the expression looking like a dare or a threat, or maybe both.

As soon as the others were out of sight but not necessarily out of earshot, Dean rounded on his little brother. "I don't like that guy."

Sam frowned but doesn't raise his eyes from Magnus's notebook, probably dwelling on the fact his giant nerd brain couldn't crack the code like Dean so effortlessly could. "Who, Colin?" He tilted his head, mouth dropping open as he tried another angle on the pages. "You like him just fine, Dean."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, well, that was before I went down for a few days and that son of a bitch decided I needed to be replaced and that he was the one to do it."

Sam's eyes whipped up. "A few – " He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't think that's what's going on."

"Then what?"

"Dean, you…" Sam took a breath, made sure he had all the words in a tidy line before pressing on and saying them aloud. "When you were captured – "

Dean shoved down the wince that threatened to crawl from his gut and climb his spine, plastered on a blank, emotionless expression. Captured. Sure, we'll call it that.

" – the three guys that were with you? They didn't make it."

Dean swallowed a lump suddenly lodged in his throat, one that tasted stale and sour and a lot like guilt. Considering what he went through, the fate of the others had seemed fairly obvious. He hadn't asked about them, hadn't wanted to. But that didn't mean he'd forgotten their names or faces – he never would – but had stupidly thought maybe if he never voiced it out loud, he could pretend for as long as possible that he wasn't directly responsible for the deaths of three more people. He cleared his throat, reached up to knead the back of his neck. "Yeah, I figured that. I guess I just – "

"They weren't just killed, Dean." Sam fully abandoned the book on the table. His gaze darted away from Dean before he dragged his eyes back. "They were ripped apart. For fun. And they were his friends. He's just…suspicious, man. He doesn't understand why, out of all the people the Hollow Men have killed, you were…left alive."

Dean folded his arms across his chest. Alive. Yeah, that's about all he was, and barely that, when they were done with him. When they'd grown bored, when they'd had their fill of the sounds they could rip out of him. When they left him in that freezing, decaying building, hanging at the mercy of numb fingers and raw wrists, broken and bleeding with nothing left to cling to but the hope that any of the operations randomly shutting down inside his body would finally kill him and grant him a release.

But he hadn't died, and Sam and a team of blurry, faceless blobs had found what was left of him by sheer luck. Whether that was good or bad was yet to be seen. Dean couldn't figure that he was really doing much more than simply surviving. Not yet.

"Well," Dean began, his voice low and rough and escaping him seemingly of its own accord, pulling his mind from those dark, endless alleyways he was likely not to come back from one of these days. "I could tell him if you like." He forced a tight smile, hitched a shoulder. "Or, hey, maybe you could. He seems to like you well enough. Hell, you guys could – "

"Shut up, Dean." A weighted sigh rolled past Sam's lips. "Just…don't be a dick, okay? Cut him some slack."

Dean's eyes widened. "Cut him some – " He let out an insincere bark of laughter. "So now I gotta apologize for not being dead?"

"What? No, of course you don't ever need to…" Sam paused, raised his hands. "We're getting off-topic here."

Yeah, I should say so. Dean dragged a hand down his face, rubbed at his chin. He took a moment to decide on the best approach, figured that Sam was his little brother before and above anything else, and that usually meant honestly was the best play. "I gotta get out of here, Sammy."

Sam wasn't dumb, or naïve. "Out on this mission, you mean?"

"Yeah." Dean narrowed his eyes at his brother, not necessarily appreciating the incredulousness in Sam's tone. "Yeah, that's what I mean."

Sam shook his head. "Dean – "

"Just – hear me out." Dean tapped the air with his fingertips then took a deep breath. "I'm goin' nuts, man. I can't take it anymore. I hate the way everyone looks at me around here."

Sam, unimpressed, arched a brow. "Dean, that's because the last time most people here saw you, it was either when we found you in that building or when you were brought back here covered in blood and half – " he broke off, bailing out the both of them. He pointed his eyes at the ceiling, rolled them down and fixed his gaze on the hard, grey cement floor. He sucked in a harsh breath, released it slowly. "What do you expect, Dean? It's been damn near two months since anyone has seen you up and around."

"Well, it's barely been a month since I could – " Dean pulled up short, but it was too late. The damage had been done.

Sam rocked back on his heels, the slightest hint of a smirk settling on his face, something akin to a dare to finish the sentence, as Dean almost made his brother's point for him.

Dean wisely chose not to take the bait, instead squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. "Well, I'm fine now. I can do this mission."

In true Sam Winchester fashion, his brother bypassed the fact that they didn't even truly know what all said particular mission could entail, and reduced Dean's argument to the lowest common denominator. "Really? You really think you're well enough to be a part of this mission?"

"Yeah, Sam. That's what I said. Which words are giving you trouble?" Dean bit down on the inside of his cheek and attempted to tamp down his rising anger, knowing it would get him nowhere with Sam.

"And your leg? Colin said we're looking at a twelve-hour drive, at least, just to get to the house. You think it's healed enough for that? It's really strong enough to handle that kind of trip?"

Dean's jaw ticked, and he resisted the urge to knead away the pain suddenly shooting through his shin. Like Pavlov's fucking bell. "Yeah. It's fine."

"Great." Said like he wasn't buying it for a second, and Sam took a step closer to Dean, purposefully crowding his personal space. "And you're shooting steady enough?"

Dean snapped and surged forward a step, mimicking his brother's movements and refusing to back down. "Say enough one more time, Sammy. Really. I dare you."

Sam sighed and dropped his hands onto his hips, a casual posture he only made when he was actually tense as a fucking board. The look he gave Dean was one that hadn't been warranted in quite some time, something eerily similar to all those teachers who knew he didn't have his homework when they were collecting. Like he just wasn't doing as well as expected. "Look, you're my big brother, and I'd do anything for you. But I'm not going to put more lives at risk because you feel helpless."

Dean wanted to take offense to Sam's words, he did, but he was smart enough to realize the logic in his brother's statement. It might be a risk, to others as well as himself, for Dean to accompany a team on a mission. However, he hadn't ever been one to let something as trivial as logic stand in his way, and he certainly wasn't about to start now. "You can't stop me, Sam. I'm in this just as much as you are."

Sam, on the other hand, had something of an unhealthy respect for logic, and it wasn't often that he let it fall to the wayside. But when he did, he put it all out there. When he did, marks were left, both inside and out. The struggle for control played out over his features, and his eyebrows pulled together in a way that made him appear younger by a decade, and worried, always, for his big brother. It was a recognizable, anxious look, like he feared Dean might shatter into a million jagged pieces right in front of him or murder everyone in the bunker with the blunt end of a hammer, but damned if he knew which. A familiar worry that wavered between concern and wariness, and Dean resigned himself to wait his brother out, but a man could die of old age while Sam Winchester tried to decide exactly what he was feeling.

Sam's jaw ticked. Wariness it was. "Look, Dean, I know you feel responsible for these people – "

"I am responsible for these people, Sam. We both are." Dean stepped closer to his brother, continuing in a harsh whisper as sounds of conversation in the hallway drew nearer. "This…" He gestured emphatically to encompass as wide a territory as he could manage. "All of this. It's on us." It's on ME. "We brought about the end of the world." Sam was supposed to understand where he was coming from, but Dean had been on the fringes of the battle for so long, apparently long enough for them fall out of sync all over again. It wasn't supposed to be this hard, and Dean felt desperation and frustration rising like fire in his gut, and found himself lashing out at his brother. "Because you wouldn't let it go when I told you to. Because you had to keep pushing." It wasn't true, not entirely, and he didn't mean it, but in the blink of an eye, it was too late for take-backs.

Sam's head jerked back as if he'd been physically struck by the accusation behind Dean's words. "Wouldn't let it go? Dean, you could have died! Or worse!"

Dean rejected the thought with a jerk of his head. "I had a plan."

"Well, it was a stupid plan."

"It was my choice to make! Mine, Sam."

"Like dying had been my choice to make?" And discretion be damned, because Sam was making all sorts of noise now, heaving all manner of off-limit remembrances at Dean. "A choice you ignored, by tricking me into letting an angel in? And, oh yeah, getting Kevin killed?"

There was a moratorium on bringing up some of the less palatable discretions in their respective pasts, and Dean might have asked for it, but Sam was crossing a line now. One he drew himself, and Dean was too surprised to be properly stung. "That's different, and you know it."

"How?" Sam exploded, throwing his arms wide. "Tell me, Dean, why is it okay for you to sacrifice your life, but not okay for me to sacrifice mine?"

"Because it just is!"

Sam shook his head, returning his hands to his hips. "That's not good enough, Dean, and it's not fair."

"Well, too damn bad. Because you know what, Sam? What little life is left, it ain't fair, and it never will be."

They stared each other down for a few beats, Sam's chest heaving and Dean's leg aching, but they could go toe-to-toe in stubbornness for all of eternity, however short that may be.

Dean knew, probably better than anyone, exactly how short it might just be, so he spoke up first. "Look, Sammy, I'm gonna make this real simple for you. You can either let me come with you, or I can follow you." He shrugged. "Either way, I'm not sitting this one out."

Sam's eyes narrowed and his jaw visibly clenched. He jerked his head, just slightly, just enough to telegraph his next move.

Dean went to sidestep the strike, but his leg was throbbing for real now and he was off his game and he wasn't nearly quick enough to completely dodge the thrust of Sam's long-ass arm, a thrust that ended with his sizeable palm connecting right above the junction of Dean's left shoulder.

The motion wasn't rough or aggressive. It was simply a period to be put on this conversation. A statement, and Sam sure made it, because Dean was knocked too easily off-balance, spun on his bad leg and sent stumbling over his own lingering weakness into the wall. His elbows, shoulders and head slammed in succession against the unyielding tile at his back. Enough to smart, sure, but there was more harm done to his pride. There was a brief pause in which he clung to the wall by his fingertips in an attempt to keep himself from sliding all the way to the floor, and in that moment he wasn't sure whether he felt more betrayed by his brother or his body.

Dean glared up at Sam, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say the son of a bitch seemed pretty damn pleased with himself over this little display. "What the hell, Sam?" he demanded, pushing off of the wall. He surged forward and threw an awkward retaliatory shove at his brother, and barely managed to knock Sam back a single step.

Sam bounced forward, nostrils flaring as he grabbed a handful of Dean's sleeve, pulling him close and getting in his face. "Tell me again, Dean," he fumed steadily, "that you are ready to do anything more than get us killed."

"Dammit, Sam, I'm trying to keep you alive!" Dean argued, all but shouting himself now, and wrenching free of his brother's grasp. He threw a hand toward the open doorway. "Keep them alive!"

Sam remained unimpressed. "How? By forcing your way onto a mission when you can barely stand? When you can hardly shoot straight? Please, Dean, explain to me how that's gonna help me. Or anyone."

"My shooting is just fine – "

Sam didn't seem to want to hear it, grabbed Dean once more and spun him on his feet while the words were still in his mouth, yanking him too easily out of the room and suggesting with a fierce heave forward that he start walking. He seethed down Dean's neck the entire length of the hallway, pushing and pulling him in the direction he wanted his brother to walk. So maybe it wasn't a period Sam was trying to put on the conversation after all, but more of a semicolon.

Despite the creeping flush of anger and humiliation at being manhandled in such a way, Dean knew his brother enough to know when to push back and when to let Sam think he was in control. He'd seen a lot of variations of his brother over the years, and this current, all-grown-up version of the once gawky geek did not take kindly to being fucked with, so Dean allowed himself to be steered and marched through the thankfully empty halls until they ended up in the shooting gallery.

He blinked dumbly when Sam reached behind his back and dragged the Colt 1911 free of his waistband, slamming the pistol into the counter with a heavy thunk of metal. Yeah, it was pretty obvious that Dean had gone and pushed his brother steamrolling right past mad into that old school brand of Sam Winchester fury that only surfaced when Dean was snugly straddling the line between stubborn and hypocrite.

Dean jutted his chin and chose a side, gripping tightly to his own personal brand of pure, unadulterated and bullheaded stubbornness. He started to fold his arms over his chest but Sam pursed his lips, grabbed Dean's right hand and yanked it downward, holding it firmly over the grip of the gun. "Sam – "

"No, Dean. No." Sam pushed down on Dean's hand until he winced, fingers instinctually curling around the grip. "You take this gun, and you hit that target, and then we'll talk about you getting back out there."

Bitch, Dean thought, ripping the gun and his own hand free of Sam's grasp. He turned to face the target and squared his shoulders. He'd been taking target practice every morning, and he was more or less relaxed with the familiar gun in his grip, even with Sam breathing down his neck and scrutinizing his every move. He raised the 1911, lines up the shot only to drop his shoulder, just a fraction, when the target blurred.

"Whenever you're ready."

Not a dare, or a comfort. Just a steadily spoken reassurance that, all shouting aside, Sam knew exactly what this was about.

Dean squeezed off his shots. One, two, three, four, and the paper target jerked with the impact of each fired bullet.

When Sam dragged the target forward, the center bullseye was sufficiently thrashed from the shots, but Dean couldn't help but wince, watching his brother study the end result. It should have been a tight enough grouping, but he was sick of settling for tight enough, and Sam was very much looking to make a point.

He was no good to anyone while he was cooped up here, and that was the only point Dean figured should matter. This wasn't the way to get back on his game, locked away in the cold, stale bowels of the bunker, barely more than utterly worthless and trying to stay sharp by shooting at pieces of paper. He needed to be out there, on a mission. In the action. That was when he'd be better, and back to himself. Not just good enough but GOOD.

"Happy?" Dean set the still-cooling Colt on the counter, fingers remaining curled around the grip, and turned to face his brother, wary of the answer. Which was no answer, and that was answer enough. He may not have shot on par with his own standards, but clearly better than Sam had expected. "I told you. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm ready to get out of here."

Like a dog with a friggin' bone, Sam just wasn't ready to give up that easily, and he raised his eyebrows, clinging to those last words out of Dean's mouth. "Out of where, exactly? Because this is, maybe, the second time I've even seen you out of your room this week."

"Well, you've been a bit busy," Dean returned coolly, "and I haven't exactly been invited to the top secret meetings lately, have I?"

"Dean…"

Dean waved his left hand, his right still clutching his gun and resting atop the counter in a way he hoped looks casual, and not so much like a necessary lifeline to remain standing. "Whatever, man. I can do this. I mean, I know I was sort of bad off before, but – "

Sam snorted. "Sort of bad off? Do you have any idea what you…" He licked his lips and dropped his gaze to the ground, releasing a long breath, and with it, whatever anger he was gripping on the trek down. What was left was something akin to pity, that damn look on his face again, like Dean was liable to snap or break. "It almost killed Cas to heal you, Dean. To save you."

Dean tried, and likely horribly failed, to hide his grimace, knowing full well what it had taken from the angel to heal his injuries. Of which there had been more than plenty. He hadn't had to bear witness to most of it, had been dropped into some kind of angelically-induced coma for the first two weeks of what would become a month-long process before he could accomplish something as simple as sitting up in his own bed without assistance. But he'd had to look Cas in the face for some of it, and the strain put on his friend was an impossible thing to miss.

All the more reason for Dean to go on this mission, to prove he was more than a liability, more than torn flesh angel-duct-taped together and stretched across a freshly assembled jigsaw puzzle of previously broken bones. "Look." He prepared to fortify his argument, took a breath deep enough to remind him of those recent breaks, and just how bad off he'd really been. No bullshit coating needed, just a private, all too real memory of soul-crunching agony even Sam couldn't properly understand. "This spell in that chapter house in Upland…it's big, right? It's important. We should have our best people out there."

"We will," Sam said pointedly.

"Damn it, we've already lost six people this month, Sam."

Sam looked honestly taken aback that Dean knew that, but just because he hadn't been by their side didn't mean he wasn't feeling the hit each time someone from their side had gone down. The guilt was tearing him apart in ways the Hollow Men couldn't even dream about.

"Good people," Dean continued, "who shouldn't…it should be me out there."

"And it will be." Sam's eyes slid down to where Dean's gun hand was resting on the counter, and he followed his brother's gaze, saw his hand twitching with a slight tremble he hadn't even registered and couldn't quite still. "When you're strong enough," he said, softer.

Dean jerked his hand away from the weapon, stuffing it into his pocket instead. He squared his shoulders and balanced his weight between both legs while pressing down on the injured wince that threatened to give him up once and for all. "You need me," he said seriously. "You need me out there to tell you if things are gonna go south. You're losing more people without me than you would with me, and you know it. You know that, Sam. And something this big? It's too risky to take on without that kind of advantage."

Sam's eye twitched, and Dean recognized that tic as stone number one. "Cas can do it."

Dean scoffed, playing it up. "Cas? Yeah, sure, he can sense…" He couldn't say it. He just couldn't. "Them, well enough, but they can sense him, too. He might as well be a damn homing beacon. And besides, we both know that I can feel them coming from much farther away."

Sam tensed at that, brows pulling together. Despite his words, Dean knew that bit of information was likely brand new to his brother. The connection he shared with the Hollow Men, with the infected…this was probably the most they'd ever spoken of it.

Sam closed his eyes and rubbed his fingertips into the center of his forehead. That last point of Dean's had been meant to serve as his checkmate, and if he'd left Sam this much without an argument, he may have succeeded. "You really," he said finally. "And I mean really, think you're strong enough to do this?" He was just overcompensating, and probably didn't mean to sound like a dick as he asked it.

Dean folded his arms over his chest. "Sam…"

His brother held up his hands between them. "I get it. Or, some of it, at least. I do. This is your fight just as much as it's mine – "

Dean made an incredulous noise in his throat.

"Okay," Sam conceded. "Maybe even more so. But that doesn't automatically mean you're going to be anything more than a liability out there. What happens if you get just a little too trigger happy? Or, God forbid, something gets the drop on you?"

Dean had long ago grown immune to Sam's seemingly endless barrage of nightmare hypotheticals. Unfazed, he brushed them away with an easy pfft of breath. "Why don't you let me worry about me?"

Sam shook his head, finding some nondescript spot on the wall to occupy his gaze as he worried his lower lip, losing ten years in the blink of an eye. He made one last vague attempt at a rebuttal, even though it was already obvious who'd won here. Dean had chipped away, bit by bit. At Sam's stubborn resolve, at his arguments. He didn't have a good enough reason to force Dean to stay behind, and he knew it.

"Then what about this, Dean?" Sam threw a last-ditch, Hail Mary point of his finger toward the targets hanging at the end of the range. "What if it was me down there instead of a piece of paper? Would you honestly be able to not hit me right now?"

It felt like a low blow, but it was supposed to. Dean responded in kind, jerking his head. "Why don't you take a walk and we'll find out?" He clenched his jaw, and it clicked painfully. "No, you know what? I don't need this shit, Sam. I've been on the wrong end of a lot of bad crap. Enough to know when I'm ready to get back in the fight. And I'm ready."

Sam dropped his arms to his side, and his hands smacked dully against his thighs. It sounded a lot like defeat, and that was something Dean could too easily recognize. "Dean…"

Dean threw a hand up, cutting off whatever valiantly pointless thing his brother was thinking about saying, and grabbed his Colt 1911 from the counter, tucking in back into the waistband of his jeans. He stepped purposefully around Sam, patting him roughly on the shoulder as he passed. "Let's go, Sammy. We're burnin' daylight."

To be continued...