Hey Jude

Hey Jude
Date of Scene:	14 September 2017
Location:	South Dakota
Synopsis:	After the incident at Sioux Falls, Dean wakes up in SHIELD medical. He and Sam reconnect after nearly a month apart.
Cast of Characters:	Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot:	Blood on My Name

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Dean Winchester has posed:
SHIELD medics had gone about their work on each of the victims immediately upon their arrival to the scene. They’d insisted that each of those present give them room to work--an insistence that wasn’t well-received by all of those present. But physicians exercise authority easily. It’s their training, especially when lives are at stake.

Most of the victims were kept for observation if not outright treatment. It’s fortunate that so few of the victims had been occupied long. It meant they hadn’t had the opportunity to be so terribly treated. Others were less lucky.

Days without food, water, or rest have had their impact on Dean. The IV he’s hooked into, with its constant stream of fluids has made a world of difference. He’d wanted to eat pretty quickly when he’d arrived to the facility, but his doctor insisted he not. Ironically, this made him all the more determined. He’d rushed the process and put something in his stomach before it was ready… and had suffered the consequences as a result.

It’d become increasingly obvious Alistair carved him before occupying him. The wounds had festered. Infection had started to set in. He’d been feverish. Consequently, he’s been on a solid round of antibiotics since his arrival. The med team has insisted that it’s fortunate he got here when he did. That he’s lucky. The phrase was enough to make Dean ill.

Lucky.

Dean Winchester, lucky.

His mother was killed when he was four. His brother was cursed to become a monster. His father didn’t care that he was being tortured for a year. His was body occupied and abused for days. Yeah. He’s lucky.

It made him angry. But he buried it. Locked it down. Sam had been in earshot. He’d probably seen the change in his brother at the phrase. Whatever had opened was shut down again. The notion of being lucky with what had happened to him over the course of weeks was enough to breed distrust.

The good news is, most of the time he’s been in the facility, he’s been some version of asleep. It made it easier to keep the lockdown in place. But even in his sleep he’s been humming. Hey Jude seems to be stuck in his head--an oddity. He’d tried singing it once to Sammy when he was four, and suffered consequences for it. Many of them. It was a lesson he only needed once. The song was Mary’s and was to die with her. That’s when Dean had found a song of his own to act as a lullabye. But it never produced those same feelings of comfort for /him/.

When he knew John couldn’t hear, he’d listened to the Beatles, but like some kind of guilty pleasure, he’d promptly shut it off if anyone was in earshot. Including Sam, even when John wasn’t around. The Beatles were sacred. And like a forbidden religion, it was kept for the corners of his own space.

But here, even when asleep, he thinks of it. How she’d sung it. What she’d looked like when she sung it. What it felt like. And thanks to days of his will rebelling, it happens even when he’s not trying. The song has followed him since he collapsed. He’s hummed it almost constantly. A few bars at random intervals.

And so he’s still there. He’d slept in most of the time since he’d come here. Or, had pretended to sleep. Most of it involved vivid memories he’d rather let go of. He hasn’t said much. He sits up in the bed they’ve confined him to as he stares skeptically at the IV hooked into his arm and the heart monitor he’d taken off three times already to get talked to about the importance of monitoring. His lips turn down into grim line as he stares at the window of the room. At least it gives him something to look at. It’s a welcome distraction. And so he stares at the window. Haunted green eyes train on buildings in the distance.

He’s getting out today. He’s already decided that, no matter what the med team says. He’s an adult. He can make decisions. He needs to get home. He needs to fix the Impala. There are things to do. And getting out means getting control of his faculties. Of his body. Of his emotions.

Sam Winchester has posed:
It’s hard to tell what Sam Winchester is thinking or feeling right now.

Doctors tried to chase him out, but the truth is he just retreated to a corner and folded his arms. The large man had agreed to put on scrubs, to stay silent, to retreat out of the way, but he hadn’t even opened his mouth to tell them he wasn’t leaving this room. Something about what he’s radiating now makes the argument open and shut before anyone speaks a word.

He’d had the predator’s aura at that point. The one that tells more sensitive humans, the ones with better instincts, they’re in the presence of someone vastly more dangerous than themselves, someone who means business and has no fucks to give.

He’d stood in the corner concentrating on a chant. His mouth moved to speak it without any sound, all beneath his surgical mask. This particular SHIELD facility got a ward against evil that was difficult to set, but he had hours to stand there, stand guard, and set it. It’s a chant that made it into a Madeline L’Engle book but which he’d discovered was the real deal. If focused on in Latin, not English.

“Hanc fatalem horam, et locus ejus omnis potestas in Caelo, cum sol splendet, et nives per lanam ex capris: Omnem habens virtutem ignis, et fulgur cum celeri ira sua, cum celeritas in ventis iter, et habebant altitudinem suam in mare, et factum est cum saxa suas iniquitatem, et terram ejus eremi vastitate: haec omnia locum, per gratiam, et auxilium Dei omnipotentis, inter me et potestates tenebrarum!”

Over and over again, in sets of three times three, for hours, until he felt sure Lucifer himself couldn’t touch this building.

To him there is some irony in calling on Heaven. He now knows /viscerally/ what he’d known logically. Heaven abandoned him when he was just six months old. But the spell still worked, and if it had trouble deciding if /he/ was among the powers of darkness it /had/ finally decided. He was the one who set the spell, so it didn’t harm him. Perhaps if he proved he could be good in spite of what had happened to him, Heaven would quit turning its back on him. And his brother.

And fuck them if they didn’t, because Sam wasn’t going to be good because he got a big Heaven cookie at the end of it. He wanted to be good because he chose to be good.

After that, he settled at Dean’s bedside, his feet up on an ottoman in a chaise chair once they got him out of surgery and into a room. Arms folded. Fred is with her family, Jo is with her Mom, Bobby’s still getting treatment too.

He’d listened to Dean mutter in his sleep, and it brought tears to black eyes. And then: /fuck you, Dad/. He wouldn’t do this while Dean was awake ever, but he sang the song to him softly. He wouldn’t do it while anyone was watching, either. It would mortify Dean. Probably make him mad, were he awake, Sam didn’t know.

He knew the song was special though, knew the aversion, knew the way it got rapidly shut off every time it came on the car radio, knew the strange look that would come over Dean’s face.

This isn’t the first time he’s ever sung it, either. The year Dean’d had the flu so bad Sam had thought he was going to die of it, a cold winter in Pennsylvania where their Dad had rented them a vacation cabin prone to getting snowed in...and then had disappeared for six months. There hadn’t even been a school for 30 miles, and Dad hadn’t “had time” to enroll them. He’d listed them as home schooled at the next place they ended up. And Sam had learned: how to nurse someone through the flu, how to do meal planning and prep, how to grocery shop for snowstorms, how to shovel snow, how to drive the car, how to fake a driver’s license so he could do so at the age of 10, how to dress and carry himself so he could pass for older. That had been the year he’d run his first credit card scam, too. The year he’d decided he couldn’t play sentry and nurse, so he’d called Bobby and asked about wards and had received six thick tomes on the subject.

A year they got to spend 8 whole months at Bobby’s after that, because Bobby had finally come to get them when, exhausted and scared because Dean wasn’t getting better, he’d finally asked if the older man would come, and take his brother to a doctor. The year Bobby had decked John right in the nose when he’d come to claim his sons, the worst fight the two men had ever had. Because a 10 year old could not take a 14 year old to the doctor without getting CPS involved, and Sam knew CPS could never be involved.

He hears Dean shift and he opens his eyes. Dark green eyes, right now, the color of pine trees at an approaching dusk.

“Dean?”

Dean Winchester has posed:
At the sound of his name, Dean scrubs his face with his hands. He sniffs loudly. There’s something strangely reassuring about being able to force air into his lungs. And even if he denies it, he basks silently in being able to exercise control. He turns his head to face Sam. The buried thoughts remain locked down as he quite lazily manages a faint quirk of his lips. But the grifter’s smile never catches his eyes. The smile is practiced. It had been perfected through years of lies to complete jobs. But there are some hauntings that not even a hunter can resist.

Plain as day, Dean’s eyes speak a different story. Their colour, the way they crease at the edges, the reflection of something other behind them--all call to the change. Something has shifted. He can feel it. But some had shifted before Alistair had happened. His life has been reframed in his own mind and memory. And its reframing has left him in want. Those same eyes call to discontent. To confusion. To anger. To hurt.

But feeling anything let alone everything at once is a liability for a Hunter. So he locks it down as best he can. Smiling. And it would convince almost anyone, save his nearest and dearest.

His eyebrows draw together some, a measured consideration, while he lets those green eyes linger on his brother’s. There’s a flicker of concern that flashes in them when he watches Sam. But he attempts to lock that down as well. He’s a soldier. He can handle this. He can handle anything. “...hey,” his voice feels foreign in his own throat. He folds his arms across his chest. It’s more comfortable that way, only to cringe when the line in his arm bends at the motion. Nope. Straight arms. He’s getting out today and won’t let posturing be the reason he doesn’t. IVs work better with straight arms.

His lips press together tightly after the word. There’s much to say and nothing to say. And so his eyebrows lift with some unspoken thought. Yet what he gives words to doesn’t match the expression. “Thanks,” he starts--that much is true, but the rest that comes out finds itself shrouded in a lie, “I know you bailed me out, but… I don’t really know what happened…” His eyes narrow slightly, fully prepared to be challenged on that front.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam knows his brother is full of shit.

He also knows his brother is going to want to save face. And that he’ll finally deal with it when he’s ready to. Right now, what Dean Winchester needs are choices. They can be shitty choices, but they must be his.

So Sam allows a look of relief to pass over his face, and retreats to one of his masks. Humor. “Yeah? No, that’s good, because when he made you roll up your pants leg and sing show tunes I thought you’d never recover.” A boyish grin flashes over his face, one that never reaches his eyes either. His eyes say it all too: ‘I know you’re full of shit, I’m going to give you a pass, but I am here for you.’

Turning more serious, he transfers himself from chair to ottoman so he can pull it closer. “I drew on you with a Sharpie while you slept,” he says, as if it were just a standard slumber party trick. He points to Dean’s arm, where he’s drawn an anti-possession ward right near that IV needle. “I think you should get it done permanently though.”

He pulls aside his collar, revealing his tattoo.

But though he’ll give Dean a pass on some things, he won’t on others. His face turns sober, serious, and for once, he says exactly what he wants, exactly what he needs. “Look, things are bad right now,” he says quietly. “Real bad for you, real bad for me. The only way we’re going to survive this is together, man. I need you. I need the crap out of you. I need you to--please don’t take off anymore. I know--I know I was an asshole. I know I left you and Dad. But you’re the better of us, and--I need you not to run off anymore. I’m not saying there won’t be times it doesn’t make sense to split up, I’m not saying we need to be joined at the hip, but...we have that check-in system for a reason, and--”

He looks down. “It would kill me to lose you, Dean. I know you think--you maybe think--I don’t care but--”

He lets the whole thing linger in the air. Dean might not want to talk. But Sam is more than willing to.

Dean Winchester has posed:
The smile loses its edge at the mention of show tunes and something more genuine replaces it. “It’s fortunate I have no memory then,” Dean’s teeth flash with a modicum of self-deprecation. Relief colours his expression. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to stop replaying it in his head.

The notion of being drawn on though has his chin tucking towards his chest to examine the symbol on his arm. And as he sees his arms, his face blanches. He feels queasy. His eyes lid lightly and he leans back again to watch the ceiling above. The heart monitor hooked to his index finger begins to beat loudly. He inhale a long breath, holds it, and releases it slowly. Those hands. His hands. His arms. They betrayed him.

But the breathing doesn’t work. Not quickly. Not effectively.

The image flashes across his memory. Fresh. His eyes cinch shut.

Alistair shuts Dean’s cellphone. The front room of Bobby’s house feels familiar and foreign at the same time from this vantage. His hands tremble. Dean hasn’t lost his fight. He may have no real control, but he doesn’t make it easy for his body’s other occupant either. The body is his. It belongs to him and the interloper isn’t welcome.

“What was that about?” Bobby’s voice cuts through the silence. There’s a glint in the older man’s eyes that Dean catches. And, with easy access to his thoughts, he knows Alistair catches it too. It’s horrifying. How can he stop thinking in his own mind?

Bobby shoves a now-open bottle of beer to the Dean-mon. “Drink. I know it’s useless to ask you to talk about it, ya idjit.” There’s a pause. “But you can’t run from this, son.”

Dean’s lips hitch up on one side. The bottle draws to his lips. He takes a swig. The fluid burns hot in his mouth. It sears, smoking his tongue. There’s nothing sweet or normal about the beer. It wretches in his stomach. Something skips in Dean’s mind. He misses something. The room changes. It’s the dining room. Not the front room. And in an instant, Bobby has his shotgun out. It’s dizzying in the moment. Alistair lifts Dean’s hand and Bobby is plastered against the wall. Alistair moves telekinetically rips the first layer of flesh from the skin covering his forehead.

Bobby’s screams fill the house. It echoes.

In the present, Dean forces his eyes open to meet Sam’s. His head shakes. Shake it off. And then, bluntly, he offers, “I don’t want a tattoo.” Free will. Agency. He aches to exercise it. “Those places,” tattoo parlours, “are shit. They’re full of wannabe hippie beatniks who don’t even know who Zeppelin even is.” His expression suggests he’s also dead serious. And focusing on this makes the heart monitor begin to return to a normal pace. It’s helping him lock it down.

When Sam begins to reiterate his needs though, Dean can feel his eyes narrow again. Something in his brain cracks. “I didn’t take off because of you,” it’s the truth. “I didn’t leave my phone behind because of you,” it’s true that he didn’t want to be called. But it wasn’t for lack of wanting to talk to Sam. He didn’t want to have to lock the truth down. He didn’t want to have to lie about John’s betrayal to his brother’s face. But more than that, he didn’t want to give voice to the truth. “I made choices. My choices. All of them.”

His eyes train on Sam’s. “Dude. I never thought you didn’t care.” Absolution is something he’s willing to give. “Just lose that thought right now.” His eyes actually roll at the next, “And there’s no way I’m the better of us Sam. Of any of us,” including John, especially at this moment.

He inhales another long breath. “When did this story turn into a Lifetime movie?” His head turns towards the window. “I’m fine. I can’t promise not to take off. Not when it’s necessary. I know you don’t get it, but I needed to. And not just because of Crowley.” Sure, Crowley had something to do with it, but it was John who nailed that coffin shut. “I needed to talk to Jo. I needed to…” seduce a stranger. His shoulders sink. Hopefully it’s enough to make Sam get it while telling him almost nothing.

He knows Alistair brought up John. He knows Sam may have ideas of his own. He knows all of these things. But instead of talking about the issue directly, he hones in on something tangential. “I need the road. Sammy--” there’s so much he wants to say in the space between his words. There’s so much he longs to express. His heart actually aches as he holds it back. The judgment he feels for himself and his inability to utter it actually hurts more. Alistair had been cruel. But he’d found honesty in the cruelty. “--you don’t need me anymore. I know you care. I do. But you’re getting roots. It’s.. good, probably.” He manages a bitter laugh. He’s not someone able to assess the qualitative nature of goodness on much of anything, let alone roots.

“You have Fred. You have SHIELD. I’m gone in a year. Less, probably.” His smile turns bitter. And while there’s more to say, he won’t let himself speak it. Not yet, anyways.

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Yeah, I have an angle on that,” Sam says. He’s got a wish demon in his back pocket. He just has to figure out how to use her. “You’re not dead yet.”

He also scowls. He’s not sure about SHIELD. It’s all over his face. What he says is, “You have Jo. Dude, at some point it is maybe okay for us to get hot Hunter girlfriends.”

He leans back. He folds his arms. He listens to what Dean has to say, and he thinks about it for a long time. He says, “You know, WAND isn’t the most well-funded department ever. I get the impression it’s hard to look at Congress and say ‘we need a billion dollars for ghost hunting.’ It’s a fringe department. May seems content to let me choose my cases, and there are SHIELD offices all over the country. We’re still in South Dakota.”

He’s already had some of this discussion with Fred.

“So. You need the road. Fine. There are cases all over America. I need a steady paycheck so I don’t have to defraud people to do this job. Fine. Turns out there are people willing to pay me to do what we do anyway. Fred needs her people at the Hyperion, but turns out she’s willing to hop in a car as long as I’m willing to drive her back.”

He gestures to the door. “Bobby has had a home base, and has simply taken road trips to his hunts, as long as we’ve known him, man.”

“Bottom line, you can have the road. And you can maybe keep your room, keep a home. It doesn’t have to be either-or. That kind of no-compromise thinking gets us in a lot of trouble. Sometimes it’s okay to take the third option.”

And as for the tattoo artist: “And what you’re saying is if you don’t have to go to a parlor and I can find an artist who knows abou Zeppelin, you’ll get the thing that keeps Alistair from riding shotgun in your skull again. Awesome, I’m gonna get on that.”

The tone Sam gets when he decides to mother Dean just like Dean fathers him is absolutely present in that final statement.

Dean Winchester has posed:
The mention of Bobby’s home base changes something in Dean’s expression. His gaze settles on a spot on the bed. His lips purse. It washes over him. All over again. The guilt feels distinct. A glance is given the IV. He wonders if they’ve put painkillers in here. He could really use a drink.

He can smell it. The fire. It burns brightly in his mind, and he can smell it. The Roadhouse. Bobby’s home. He frowns openly. It’s not guarded. He doesn’t even try. The mention of letting Alistair ride shotgun in his skull earns Sam a pained look. It’s not particularly convincing for someone who has no apparent memory of an incident, but they both know he’s lying.

He pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off the oncoming headache. But that’s not where the pain is. His hands settle over his eyes, forcing them closed. Again the heart monitor quickens. He can feel a tightness grow in his chest. He’s struggles to find his breath. And he flicks the monitor off with punctuated impertinence and disregard for the machine. It’s bad enough he’s having a panic attack; he’d rather his brother not be able to hear it.

He struggles to lock it down. For days he’s been in fight or flight mode without having any ability to do either. Not really. And now he can’t control it. Not the way he wants.

Maybe he can channel it. Anger. He’s lucky, they said. He put everyone he loved in harm’s way and he’s lucky. A demon exploited his very thoughts. His emotions. Every unuttered bittered concern. Not just his body.

Alistair sliced him. He sliced Bobby. And others. He was bait to get them. Bobby’s house burned. It might be fine, but yellow eyes knew what he was doing.

His father left him for a year. A whole year. To toughen him up because he clearly wasn’t tough enough in the first place.

He’s lucky.

Frustrated hands fall to Dean’s sides, away from his eyes and he pulls at the IV in his arm, digging it out with all the ceremony of having no fucks left. The site oozes with blood and his eyebrows draw together as he wraps his opposite hand around it to stop it. He pulls back the covers and his feet hit the floor.

And then, in what likely seems like the biggest subject change he’s made in weeks, he asks, “I need my wheels. You know where Baby is?”

Sam Winchester has posed:
And just like that, Dean shuts down the conversation.

Frustration and concern do a dance on Sam’s face. He steadfastly tries to ignore the heart monitors, knowing how his brother will feel about hiding his response. He’s never seen his brother have anything like a panic attack, and after a moment, remorse joins the dance.

Hazel eyes betray a man who doesn’t know what to do. He raises a slightly shaking hand to his hair and pushes it back. “Baby was in bad shape. May did what May does, which is try to take care of you by having her pulled off the highway and sent to the shop where some SHIELD-bigwig gets his cop magnet seen to.”

He hates this, because he has to stand in front of the door. “Look, man,” he says quietly. “I know everything about everything sucks. But you can’t just take off. We have other people here that we, you and I, have to see to and take care of and deal with.”

An appeal to responsibility is going to have to do, where nothing else will work. Dean can’t just take off and leave Jo and Bobby in the wind. To say nothing of Fred, but Jo and Bobby are, he knows, the ones Dean will worry for the most.

And then, changing the subject again--and perhaps giving Dean something else to think about: “I’m going to try to get off the stuff, man. I think Claire can help.”

Even as he says it he wonders who will die without his powers. But something about Alistair trying to push him into becoming more of a monster, and something about knowing he’s just ramped up the force of his addiction by sipping on a high-ranking demon, has him stubbornly deciding to go his own way and clean himself back out anyway. When there’s time. When there’s a moment. But he’s going to try.

Dean Winchester has posed:
The mention of anyone touching his car earns an offended expression. His lips part and his eyebrows draw together. Someone touched Baby. Without his permission. He barely lets Sam drive that car. He only let Jo drive it the once. Alistair let it slide the second time. Demon prick.

He frowns. But he doesn’t let go of the anger. Anger is easier than the rest. Anger is allowed. Anger he can cope with. It can burn hot and bright and he can let it continue. The mention of responsibility earns Sam a sobering expression. The appeal feels unbelievable. “That’s the problem, Sam.” He’s not supposed to have those ties. His mind trails to a time when he’d considered that before.

//Just Over Five Years Ago//

The television blares in the Kilgore, Texas motel room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dean Winchester lifts the beer bottle to his lips again. His fingers are white against its dark tone. Next to him, the shoulder bag. He’s packed and ready to move on out.

“You talkin’ to me?” Clint Eastwood asks. Dean’s eyebrows lift and he reaches for the remote to shut the movie off.

“Not today,” he mutters to himself as he tugs the strap of the bag over his shoulder and rises to his feet. He abandons the now-empty beer bottle to the table.

It’s then that the door opens and his father treads through the door. John has a flare in his eyes, the kind that suggests he shouldn’t be trifled with today. Or… any day, from Dean’s vantage point. Dean inhales a long breath and holds it before observing. “So…” his green eyes search John’s face several beats, and he draws his own conclusions, “...Sammy is gone then.” His thoughts on the matter remain neutral as his lips press into a thin line.

John’s eyes roll. “Yeah, no thanks to you.” His arms fold and he eyes Dean and the bag over his son’s shoulder.

Twenty-something Dean stares at his father. He’s not Sam. He hasn’t openly defied his father, questioned their life, or even bothered to critique it. He’s done his part consistently without praise. He even raised his own brother, mostly alone, to that end. But the blame causes a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. Not that John can tell. John never bothered to learn the nuances of Dean’s expressions.

Sam would’ve seen it.

The subtle change colour in Dean’s eyes when anger flashes behind them. The way his eyes narrow, however minutely. The faint pull of his lips. Sam would’ve caught all of it. John misses each signal. And so, when he lowly asks, “How do you figure?” it comes across as naive to the elder Winchester.

“/You/ were responsible for making sure he had some loyalty to us in this. /You/ were the one who should’ve shown him the importance of getting the yellow eyed demon. /You/ were the one who should’ve been stronger with him. Harder with him. You made him /soft/,” the flatness in his tone doesn’t invite argument. “You just had to go to that goddamned graduation didn’t you?”

There’s a long silence that follows John’s question, and it’s not until John grabs his son’s collar to force Dean to look at him that he even receives a response. Dean’s hand grasps at John’s, pushing the hand away from his jacket. “He didn’t even know I was there,” he replies to the question.

But that’s not what he takes issue with.

“But you’re wrong,” Dean says blandly. “I didn’t teach him to run away. You did that.” His expression sours. “I taught him to defend other people. I taught him he could be strong. I taught him not to be afraid--that he could do something about all the things that go bump in the night. I taught him to be independent because no one else was going to take care of him when sick. Because you weren’t there. You’ve never been there.” Dean’s throat clears, “I’ve been waiting. Virtually sixteen years I’ve been waiting for you to show up. And because you didn’t, I did. Sammy needed someone to raise him. So yeah, I did it.”

And in a second, John’s fists do the talking. Dean lays creamed on the floor with a hand pressed to his jaw. His eyes close and he lays there a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I’m heading East,” he finally says. “There’s a pack of werewolves terrorizing Jersey. Seem to have taken up residence as an organized crime… thing.”

“I thought we’d intended to head West… we’ve got yellow eyes on the run--” John counters.

Dean peels himself from the floor. “I think it’s time I do some on my own. I’m an adult. I got a truck I fixed at the garage,” that he’s been working at for months, “think it’s good to go.” He shrugs and then catches the glint in his father’s eyes. “Look. I know you’ll still be off doing solo jobs. I may as well do the same. I don’t have to keep Sam in school anymore, so we can double our efforts by splitting up. I know you need to go after yellow eyes, but I need to become good at this alone,” it’s something he’s never done before. He brings himself back to a stand and tugs the bag over his shoulder again.

John stares at Dean a few moments. At least one son has stuck to the course. And for the first time in a long time, something shifts. For a moment the disappointment seems to disappear. “You should take the Impala.” He tosses the keys at Dean. He may as well have said he’s proud of his son. That’s what it feels like.

And for a moment Dean feels like his brain will implode. He’d spent years doing everything he could to get this man’s attention. He took care of his brother, patched his father, and filled his mother’s role of trying to keep the family together. But this earns pride--something that will fuel him long-term.

Shock causes Dean’s lips to part. But he doesn’t object. He just nods. His throat clears and he walks towards the door, still holding his jaw. But before he walks through the door, he offers, “See you at the Roadhouse?”

John nods. “Or on the road.”

Dean nods again before striding through the door.

It was the first time he’d recognized it: his father was proud of his loneliness.

While he’d never been forthcoming, in that moment, he learned that being a man means being an island.

//Present//

He doesn’t offer further explanation on what he means. He’s shut down once already. And when he puts his mind to it, he can be painfully vague.

But the notion of Sam getting off the juice earns some measure of approval. And it does seem to allay some of the more challenging feelings Dean is struggling against. “Good,” he says darkly. He knows more than he aims to let on. He spent days listening to Alistair discuss things he could scarcely understand. And in processing those thoughts, he’s come to some conclusions.

His jaw tightens. And then something else kicks in. His eyebrows lift and he levels a look at Sam. “You’re not a monster.” And there it is. Plain and simple. “You’re my brother and I--” sentiment has never been his strong suit. He was better when they were younger. Before he was given the Impala. Before John made it clear he regarded independence as more important than family.

“I love you.” He doesn’t say it enough. He knows he doesn’t. Sam said his needs. And so Dean mirrors that with one of his own, but only one: “I need you to be okay. With or without me,” because he’s still preparing Sammy for a life without him.

And then, finally having said that, his shoulders slump with defeat. Something washes over him. It’s not the secret that anyone expects to loose, but, “Dad knew all along. Where I was.” And then, as if it needs saying, he adds in a deadpanned tone, “I would never do that to you. Or him. Or a stranger. Or my worst human enemy.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“I love you too.”

It’s so simple for Sammy to fold Dean into his arms. He comes forward and does. He’s so big now, and for a moment he wants nothing more than to use all that size and power to shelter Dean from the world. Dean may not like /Lifetime/ movie moments (which is such a lie, Sam has caught him enjoying that shit more than once), but Sam is unrestrained in his emotion, and /he/ needs to hug his brother even if his brother is going to pretend not to care.

Being told he’s not a monster is nice. Helpful. He needs to hear it. Dean needs him to be okay with or without him. “And if you’re really going to die, I need the time you have left,” he says.

But when he learns about John, the cold rage on his face is palpable. It washes through him like a tidal wave. He pulls back from Dean, still holding his shoulders. His eyes go pitch black once more. He’s looking a little peaked, a little pale, but there’s enough demonic blood in his system to instantly offer this marker of his absolute fury.

“That son of a bitch,” Sam hisses. His fingers tighten on Dean’s shoulders, clutching at him until he realizes he might well be hurting his brother. His nostrils have flared, and his cheekbones stand out in stark relief as his mouth flattens. It is safe to say Dean has /never/ seen Sam this pissed in his life.

All in an instant, he knows precisely how he’s going to save Dean’s life.

And then: “This bullshit. About ties? That was /his/ bullshit. That man who led me on a /fucking snipe hunt/ on a year. Looking back, I see it now.” Sam’s teeth are gritted. “That monster fouled up my trail. I could have had you out of there--”

His rage needs somewhere to go. He turns from Dean and flings the ottoman against the wall with his will. It shatters in a flurry of springs and wood. He just has to destroy something. He has to. He’ll go crazy if this anger doesn’t get to go somewhere. In so doing, he burns even more of his reserves. A headache, a dull and distant migraine throb, begins in his left temple. He ignores it.

“Dean,” he says, chest heaving, voice shaking. “You have got to stop holding yourself to standards set by that man. He abused you. Then he betrayed you. Everything he ever taught us is garbage. Not the techniques, but the attitudes. /You/ were the one who brought some nobility to this. /You/ made it about saving people. Okay? Everything good about Hunting came from /you/.”

Dean Winchester has posed:
He shouldn’t have said it. The moment it loosens, Dean regrets it. Sam’s fury far outweighs his own. When it had happened, he knew it would. He knew he shouldn’t tell his brother. Weirdly, it seemed important when he said it. He needed Sam to know that those three words--/I love you/--meant something different to him than they ever did to John.

It meant making deals with Hell to rescue his brother from its depths. It meant renegotiating that and becoming Crowley’s bitch in a bid to last longer to help Sam. It meant bending over backwards to protect his baby brother at every turn.

Love isn’t just a word. It’s an action. And while Dean doesn’t say it nearly enough, he lives it. Day in, day out. He lives all of it.

The ache in his shoulders as Sam clutches them doesn’t ease. He’s had the demon treatment. And the pressure doesn’t help. Worry tugs at his eyes and lips when Sam throws the ottoman across the room. His throat begins to close up. Sam need shim. He knows Sam needs him.

/That bullshit about the ties is his bullshit/. Dean’s lips twitch. He blinks hard. “It’s not.” For the first time Dean really gets it. “There are rooms full of people who were on Alistair’s radar because of /me/. Because he had access to every memory and thought I’ve ever had. Because he knew where the demon traps were because I’d helped build them. Because he knew what I did and didn’t care about. Because he knew the people on my radar who would hurt you the most.” He emits a mirthless laugh. “The people who would hurt me the most.”

His lips purse. “He didn’t take Fred because it didn’t suit his plans. He didn’t take Jo or May because he felt he could get to them another way. He saw my hand and played it with style. And now he knows it. All of it.” He taps his temple. “Sam, my thoughts aren’t my own anymore. I don’t own them. Someone else literally stole them. Looked at all of them and saw what would rattle out.”

The mention of John abusing him makes his mouth dry. John punched him. He didn’t even try to defend himself. His chin drops towards his chest. “I’m not noble. I’m not out for revenge like he is, but I’m not noble.” What he did for Crowley makes his stomach sick. “But I would do anything for you. And all of Hell knows it. Lie, cheat, steal, kill, whore. I’d do it all.” Crowley called his card. “And most of it I’d do for them.” His eyes flit towards the window.

“I don’t think it makes me noble.” He turns his gaze back to Sam. “I’m pretty sure it means Dad won. I’d lose everything I am to this life. Hell, I don’t even know if I am anything more than this life.” It’s a rare moment of honesty. “He tried to convince me that you leaving was some kind of personal insult or hatred. I almost believed it.”

He manages a vague smile. “Do you know the first time I got it? The first time I understood why you wanted something more than this life?” His lips quirk into a tighter smile. “It was the night you died. Because even at sixteen, I knew you were the only thing keeping me sane. Grounded. Happy. Dad probably wouldn't even have noticed.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam looks down. He still has a nagging feeling that he ruins Dean’s life more than he helps it, but Dean has a very different take. He swallows back tears, one hand still on one of Dean’s shoulders, though not squeezing.

Two ways to look at everything. Monster or man. Heretic or hero. Dean’s burden, or Dean’s brother and best friend. He decides, at least, to believe Dean’s interpretation on two of those things. He is Dean’s brother, and he is a man.

Jury’s still out on heretic. “There are plenty of dark deeds I’d do for you too,” he says. There are plenty of dark deeds he intends to do for Dean, as soon as he can. “And for them. It’s a dark business. But at the core of it, we help people. We’ve helped a lot of people. And that’s what /I/ lost sight of.”

When he raises his head his eyes are the right color again. And he’s speaking now like a much older man. There is, in Sam, the shape of someone who can lead others. He can project gentle, total confidence. He can be a rock. It’s still a fledgling thing. Still something he hasn’t even fully realized about himself. He’s found it in himself mostly for Fred. A few times in front of others.

Dean needs to know he’s going to be okay. Dean needs a partner, not a baby to take care of. And Dean needs to know he’s still needed. Turns out these things aren’t really mutually exclusive.

“Listen to me,” he says, and there’s utter certainty in his words. “We’re not going to let anyone back in your head. That’s why you need the tattoo. To stop that. And why I’m definitely not going to take no for an answer on being right there while you get it.”

A tight, grim, cynical little half-smile creases his face. No humor in it. Just darkness. “I’ve been researching the runes on the knife. I think it would send a lesser demon to oblivion with one strike. That means they can be killed for good. Alistair is going down. You mark me.”

Another pause. “Meanwhile, there are still things waiting back in New York. The sorcerer who got me addicted in the first place, Volkov. He’s still alive. We’ve still got a hydra to kill. We can’t protect any of these people by shutting them out, Dean. We can’t protect each other by shutting each other out. We can only do that by being there.”

A sudden smile.

“So let’s stick together. Let’s kill some evil sons of bitches and raise a little hell.”

Dean Winchester has posed:
Dean’s eyebrows lift. He watches Sam with intent and he can feel his jaw tighten at the notion of getting a tattoo. “Dude,” the word itself is pained. He can relent on its necessity. He can relent to its importance. He swears he can still feel Alistair in his mind--even with the demon long-gone. He knows. But he knows other things too. And so he settles on a few carefully chosen words, “I don’t know that I can.”

He cringes. “I don’t… I don’t think you get it.” It’s irrational. Wholly irrational. He knows it is. But decades later, he has the same fear he did when he had to receive his first booster without Mary. The memory has hung on. He couldn’t even hum Hey Jude to himself when it happened. He’d ended up with more than a vaccine. It wasn’t the last time he got backhanded. But it was the only time he really let himself cry about it.

“I was put on a plane.” There’s a pause. His eyes widen, “//Baby// was probably put on a plane. A fucking plane! Those things are death traps, Sam! You get in one you are letting your life into someone else’s hands!”

The notion of raising hell earns Sam a tight smile. Still guarded. Still measured. “Things aren’t fixed in Virginia yet. There’s a lot more to be done.” There’s a long pause that follows. “When Hydra had you? I was stuck. In Virginia,” in prison.

“Alistair… Lilith,” yeah, he knows names, “Azazel… they’re up to something. And I think it’ll spread.” His expression edges on grim. “It’s big. Whatever it is.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I asked Jo to come along,” whatever that means. He levels a look at Sam. “Look, she’s not my girlfriend. I have no business--” his hands lift in defeat. This is not a question he aims to answer, but Sam had mentioned girlfriends. “But she’s along for the ride.” Whatever that means. Everything in Dean’s life is fluid. “Just… no reason to make assumptions there.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
Needles and planes. Well. Sam is afraid of clowns, so he can’t talk.

“Ok,” he soothes, conceding to this first: “She’s not your girlfriend.”

Now what to tackle next? Sam looks sober as he listens to this parade of names. He shivers. Lilith had visited him only once in Hell. She’d asked if he wanted to be her boyfriend, waved looseleaf paper in front of his face, and asked him to check yes or no. And then she’d cackled like a loon. It had scared him almost as much as everything Alistair had done. He sweats a little now, thinking of it.

“We’re not going to abandon any of it,” he says firmly. “We can drive anywhere in the nation in 48 hours or less, you know that. Even New York to California is only 42 hours straight shot.” Takes more if you stop to sleep, of course, and there’s eating, and other necessaries which probably makes that trip more like 72 hours at its most sane, but the straight drive time is what it is. And child of the road that Sammy is, he has drive times pretty well memorized by time zone, east-west and north-south. Five hours from Houston to Shreveport. 24 hours from Dallas to Detroit. Four hours from Detroit to Chicago. Six hours from Chicago to St. Louis. He can rattle them all off. He learned drive times and road signs before he learned some basic kindergarten skills.

Finally, this: “It doesn’t look or feel like a needle, Dean. You’ve already faced the IV, yeah? It feels like a little series of firm thumps against your skin. I tell you what. Before we go, you can have a few beers, loosen up a little bit, and then after, I will buy you a whole pie, and won’t say a word if you eat the whole thing.”

Bribes. They are a totally legit mothering tool.

Dean Winchester has posed:
There are few times in life Dean retreats into his more juvenile self. He’s had to be an adult long before he hit adulthood. But the mention of the tattoo has him retreating to that place. Like a petulant child, his bottom lip extends. “Ehn,” he’s not sold. Even the bribery isn’t working as well as it usually would. He really doesn’t like needles. “Beer and burger first.” Pause. “No, wait, whiskey. Shots. I don’t remember the last time we had shots together…”

It’s possible it’s been literal years before at least one of them was legal.

“And a burger. With bacon. And cheese.” Pause. “And a fried egg over top.” He missed eating. A lot.

But he catches, and addresses, Sam’s shiver. Kind of. “So.” His throat clears. And then silence falls over him. For a few beats he watches Sam thoughtfully. His lips purse lightly. “I know you’re trying to get me out of my deal,” it’s a nice way to start. “But I need you to know I don’t have regrets about it.” He looks pointedly at Sam. “At all.” His eyebrows draw together. “And… I know what I’m getting into.”

His eyes actually roll now. There’s more to say. So much more. “When I was… gone,” it’s a kinder word than tortured, “for a year, I died. More than once.” Although he can’t be sure how many times. “I don’t know why Crowley brought me back, but I do know what it sounded like there. I also know I don’t belong to Alistair. Crowley is a son of a bitch. But some are worse than others.” There.

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Shots, burger, bacon, cheese. Pie after, done.” And with that, Sam spits on his palm and offers his hand. Agreement made, accord done. The whole tattoo party plan is happening, cause really, /none/ of these people are going home without one. If he has to spend his whole paycheck and use his last two fake credit cards, this is happening. And he can probably expense it all. Ha! There are some benefits. But the shots and burgers will be just them. They need it. They deserve it.

“While there’s something to be said for winding up in the same place together after death,” Sam says grimly, “I cannot live my life knowing you’re there. You heard. I lived. And I remember it all now, Dean. It’s not happening. Someone would have to be a real monster for me to wish that on anyone.”

Fortunately, he knows one of those. Fucker.

“I--”

How to even talk about this? “The fact that you did that for me--It’s the bravest goddamn thing I can think of. It makes me wish I’d--been a better brother.” At every turn. “I wish I’d been more careful. If I hadn’t been such a dumbass on that hunt…”

Dean absolves him, but he still feels it in his gut, the guilt that he died, that /he/ forced Dean’s hand, that Dean has been through 9 years of torment for /him/. And /he/ fell for John’s tricks, /he/ didn’t see through them, /he/ didn’t rescue his brother. Who without a doubt suffered longer than he ever did.

Dean Winchester has posed:
A wry smile follows Sam’s action and Dean mirrors it in an instant, spitting on his palm and extending it to take his brother’s hand. Some things are sacred. Like pacts between brothers. “Deal.” His smile extends. They both know he never would’ve got a tattoo if it weren’t for Sam’s insistence. It’s not in him. He’d rather die of polio than be pricked by a needle.

Dean’s eyes lid when Sam confesses he remembers it all. “Crowley took that from you. As a bonus.” A long pause follows. “If it’s something you’d rather lose…” he rakes his fingers through his hair. He might be able to arrange it. He feels dirty all over again and longs for a shower. Like after he’d seduced that young woman. His stomach churns.

His face feels hot when Sam calls him brave. His eyes settle on the floor. “Sammy it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t brave. It was right. When your twelve year old brother is sent to Hell, and you can do something about it, you do.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I told Dad,” finally. “He didn’t care,” Dean actually laughs at that. Like it matters. “It was dumb of me to ever think that would be the case.”

Sam’s thoughts on the hunt though warrant a crease of Dean’s forehead. “We were both dumbasses,” he states too honestly. But he actually laughs. “I thought breaking the windows of the house would make me feel better. It just invited Crowley’s mockery.” He laughs again. “He calls you Moose.” He looks pointedly at Sam. “And I’m Squirrel.” His hands lift as if to say /that’s Crowley/. “He’s a son of a bitch, but he tried to stop Alistair. The knife was his. Alistair was just… stronger.”

His lips press together tightly and he hmms. “They didn’t like each other. At all from what I could tell.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“No,” Sam says firmly. “Getting the memory back kind of sucked. I only need to go through that once. No guarantee wiping it again would help.”

He looks unsurprised that John didn’t care. He simply gives a thin-lipped shake of his head. It sparks the rage that’s still stoked there, stirs the embers in those hot coals burning inside his belly.

“Politics in Hell,” Sam muses, half-shaking his head. “Who’d have thought.” He didn’t really hear anything useful to this during his time there. He’d just died, and had been sent to the first realm of Hell to snatch him up. With nobody having any specific claim on his soul, the most powerful demons there got him.

He banishes the cold, dark, creepy feelings inside of him. The sensation that someone is looming over his shoulder. The memory of agony. He’d go back to a Hydra prison any day. He supposes he has some time to figure out a strategy for fighting his way up the hierarchy and earning himself some sort of a reprieve the next time he’s sent. He’s not 12 anymore, and he’s got more advance warning than any human should.

If he’s got to be damned, he intends to make Hell feel like /they/ are trapped with /him/.

It all flickers across his face: the terror and the determination all at once, before he fishes Dean’s clothing out of a nearby drawer, handing them off to him. “Come on. We can be out that window and down to the local burger bar before anyone knows we’re gone.” That, first, then he’ll check on Fred and Mr. and Mrs. Burkle, and Bobby, and -- no, best leave Jo to her Not Boyfriend. And then he will round them all up for the tattoo party of the century.

Dean Winchester has posed:
“Yeah,” Dean agrees about the politics. “They were arguing about these groups. And who Lucifer aligns with,” his eyebrows draw together sharply. “Like kids fighting over who’s Daddy’s favourite. It was… something else.” He shudders. He won’t think anymore about it. About what Alistair did with this body. What he saw Alistair do with it.

He looks at the clothes and rolls his eyes. He’d worn them too long. “Baby really is stashed at SHIELD somewhere?” because he has a change in the car. “I have my favourite shirt in the car,” the one he’d been wearing when they went on that hunt in June. Before everything turned to madness. “I love that shirt.” He’s personally offended that it’s off in some SHIELD facility. “I should get more like it.”

“You know I’m going to have to go over it with a fine-toothed comb. I don’t need those suits being able to track us that easy.” There’s a pause as he casts Sam a strange look. “Me, I mean. /Me/ that easily.” Because Sam works for them. Kind of.

And as he begins to change, he’s humming again. Hey Jude. Absently at first. And then, realizing he’s doing it, his head shakes, his eyebrows lift, and his eyes widen. /That’s John’s bullshit./

“Mom used to sing it to us,” he finally relents. Evidently honesty begets more honesty. “All the time. She hated lullabies. She loved the Beatles.” His lips twitch into a bittersweet line. “And she loved you.” Another pause follows the words. “I know he put a lot on you. You didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve that.” He inhales a long breath. “But she protected you. And… I would’ve done the same. In a heartbeat. Still.”

He shrugs and goes back to changing. Putting on his SHIELD issued clothes like putting on armour. Suit up.

Sam Winchester has posed:
No comment on Baby or shirts. Grumble Dean gotta grumble. After a certain point what you do is you give a wry half smile and you don’t address it. Otherwise you just start dumb arguments really. That’s what he does now. Yep. Favorite shirt. Baby.

Then...Mom.

Sam looks down.

If he’s internalized anything, it’s the idea that his mother’s death was his fault. It was a story that was told to him almost before he could talk. It was the top film on the marquee for every one of John’s drunken rages. If he’d never been born, Mary would still be here. He’s heard it so many times he has never even stopped to examine it.

But that’s John’s bullshit.

He exhales. “We’re going to buy so many Beatles cassettes,” he says.

Dean Winchester has posed:
The mention of the cassettes earns Sam a lopsided grin. Boyish. Dimpled. Downright pleased. It’s short-lived but it’s present. “We can listen in the Impala. SHe used to play it way too loud.” While Dean had come to terms with John’s betrayal, he’s only begun absolving himself of John’s bullshit. And it’s weirdly liberating.

Talking. Singing the Beatles. Embracing his Mom.

“She wasn’t perfect,” he offers. “But she lived up to the moniker.” He doesn’t talk about her often. He can’t remember the last time he really let himself. It might’ve been the last time they drank shots. His eyes trace back to Sam and his head cants to the side.

“Burger. I’m so hungry. I haven’t had a burger in like… a week.” Or anything besides sugar water and the toast he forced down his throat that came back up.

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Take it slow or you’ll end up vomiting everything back--” Then Sam smiles, dimples on his own face, and he throws his arm around Dean.

“Whatever, you’re Iron Man. Or at least Iron Stomach. Come on.”

It’s a good thing this is a one story facility. And with that, he opens the window, flashes the V sign at the exterior camera, aaaand finds a SHIELD vehicle to hotwire. What? He’s an agent, it’s fine.

You can put the Winchester in SHIELD but good luck putting a lot of SHIELD into the Winchester.

Dean Winchester has posed:
“Pfffft,” Dean replies so eloquently. “If man wasn’t meant to eat meat he wouldn’t have given us canines.” He points at his teeth. “Like vampires. They only got those chompers to eat people.” Speaking of eating people, “Same reason I don’t trust vegetarian vamps. Teeth weren’t designed for that.”

He climbs out the window, saluting at the camera as he lingers in the frame. With another flash of teeth he finishes crawling through it. “Dude. Agent Mom found me before--” he shrugs. Whatever. “They have crazy tracking skills. That’s all I’m saying.”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Yeah, I think they run facial recognition software on every traffic camera or something. They don’t even really need tracking devices.”

He gets the car hotwired and just programs the GPS to the nearest sports bar, a place where they can get both burgers and shots. This is an important mission here.

At least SHIELD is used to folks like this. They have some colorful personalities. Not that Sam knows that. He just wants to feel...like himself. And he wants Dean to feel like Dean. And stealing an SUV with a giant eagle on the side seems like a great way to do that. Well. Borrowing. He will return it. He’ll even top off the tank before he does. And if it ought to have a push button and a chip key, well, that’s the thing about government spending. It doesn’t always lead to the best equipment, and this thing has a bit of an older set-up.

There is totally a tracking device on this car of course, but. Likely it will also feed into the GPS and just see that they’re just making a food run.

“If anyone asks I’m practicing my skills for training purposes,” Sam says, a mischievous grin flitting right over his face.

Dean Winchester has posed:
“Yeah. But I’m pretty sure they won’t believe me, Bonnie,” Dean returns as his eyes narrow. A glance is given Sam a moment. He studies his brother. His head cants to the side as if decided something. “I’ll drive.” And then, with a wry smirk, “Probably lose cool points for being near this thing. Besides theft. Theft wins points.”

He frowns slightly. “These people better not have douched up my wheels,” his eyes scan each of the controls and some of the fancier features of the car. “Seriously. This thing is a douche magnet for people that don’t have to think about fighting. They just press a button and the machine can do it for them.”

His head shakes slightly and he puts the SUV into drive. “So. I have no idea where we are…” but he does know how to find a highway. He also knows how to speed. A lot.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam just shakes his head with a slight smile when Dean insists on driving. It never fails. He just takes the customary passenger seat. He doesn’t mind it there. It’s familiar. He doesn’t object to being called Bonnie either. Pretty common. And he doesn’t object to the speeding. This is Dean regaining control in the best possible way, really.

“The map’s right there on the dash,” he points out dryly. “I know it’s a little high-tech for your Luddite soul. It will read the directions and everything. We are in north South Dakota, for those following along in the home audience.”

Of course, Dean might count dashboard GPS displays as evidence of douchery.

Despite him getting all sassy, there’s a hint of a smile. Everything may not be okay in the broader scheme of things. It might not all be okay at the facility they’ve just left behind. But it’s okay right /now/ in this /car/, and that’s something.

Dean Winchester has posed:
“Frigging oxymoron, ‘north South Dakota,’” Dean repeats as his foot steps on the gas. He beams. He’s like a kid in a candy store. No, it’s not a fantastic ride, but driving makes him feel alive. It always has.

“Nothing about all of this,” he lifts a finger and points at each of the gadgets glowing on the gas, “makes the car /better/. Remember that. They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” For a twenty-something he remains a purist about cars. “It just makes the driver and designer look like douchebags. Like they can’t read a map,” his head turns for a second to catch Sam’s eye. “Like they don’t know how to actually /drive the car/.”

His eyebrows lift to punctuate the point. He does, however, shrug slightly as he proceeds to open all the windows. Power windows are a nice perk. Especially when wanting to drive fast down a highway.

He eyes a button at the centre dash and presses it. The roof begins to retract. It’s likely designed for tactical purposes. But that wins another flicker of a smile as Dean presses harder on the gas.

The wind resistance is immense. But it also seems to breed delight. He glances at the GPS. “You know where a pub is? Unless SHIELD is a lot cooler than I think it is, it’s probably not programmed in--”

Sam Winchester has posed:
“Well, people who /know how to use technology/,” Sam says with some amusement, “Know that every GPS device comes equipped with an automatic search-engine tie in, so I just typed in what I wanted and it found the nearest one. So the answer is yes, I sure do know where a pub is, and you’re going to want to make a right turn at Junction 314.”

This is good. His long hair starts whipping around his face, and he just grins until his cheeks hurt.

This is.../them/. This is exactly them. The road. The wind. The bickering.

He smirks, and gives his brother a long gaze, and says, “Through the wonders of technology I bring you…”

This thing has Sirius XM Satellite Radio. He considers grabbing the Beatles. But it’s the wrong mood for that now. They’ve done the serious, the heavy, the intense. Later they will buy all the Beatles, but he thinks there will no doubt be some intense emotions in the car. And...he thinks they’ll want to be in the Impala for that. Weirdly, he thinks: /Mom will want to join us -there-./

Maybe not so weirdly.

So he just switches to classic rock. Creedence Clearwater Revival booms over expensive SHIELD-themed speakers. Because the secret organization loves its branding. And...he sings, which he rarely does, hamming it up for his brother a little, because being the goofy, funny baby brother who can lighten the mood is part of his /job/ (thus why he tried it, first and foremost, with one Bucky Barnes). It occurs to him they probably could have even of taken /his/ car, but he’s not sure if it’s not locked up in a Quinjet or something.

“Some folks are born, maaaaaaaade to wave the flag…”

//SHIELD Control Room//

A technician looks up from his headset with alarm. “Er. Agent Takana? Should we…?”

The other agent reaches over and turns up the volume so they can listen too, shrugging. “I think Agent May would tell us to let it ride, Agent West. Just let it ride.”

Dean Winchester has posed:
Dean’s lips edge upwards into an easier smile. He’s relaxing. He’s feeling like himself. He cracks up as Sam begins to sing, and at the top of his lungs, over the noise of the wind, he joins, “Ooooooooh, they’re red, white, and blue!” His cheeks hurt because he’s smiling so broadly. They stiffen. He aches. But it feels good. He hasn’t smiled like this in months. He knows he hasn’t.

It’s a simple fact. He wonders how long it’s been since Sammy felt like this. He feels normal.

Like it’s five years ago, and Sam never left for school. The days leading up had been torment. But before that? Before they’d made it to Kilgore--the place of their parting--that had been almost perfect to him.

And in this moment it feels much the same.

He flashes another smile to Sam.

He has what he needs. His brother and the road.