Chapter Text
They're in a crap-hole diner off of Route 35 and Sam's coffee is as grey as the sky. Sam himself is tapping away at the laptop, already scanning news sites for their next hunt.
Their latest evil-dead is barely a hot shower and an hour of highway in the rear-view. It was Dean who had staked zombie-girl into the sodden earth of Walnut Hill Cemetery, from whence she came. His upper arms tremble with the recent strain of grave desecration. He stretches his legs out, feeling full and lazy now that they're safe. The grimy window frames a grim October landscape and he's glad for the indoor comfort of the diner; thinks again that they should head South for the winter.
“Hey Sam, what kind are they?” Dean asks, gesturing at an impressively large cloud of tiny bodies rising from the skyline and sweeping their way.
Sam glances up, registers the menace, and immediately goes back to typing.“What, the birds? Starlings probably,” he says distractedly. “Hey, listen to this. There are four missing persons in Stonefort, Illinois, but they're all adults with reasons to disappear, so nobody's making a fuss yet.”
“Yeah?” The starlings turn and fly away again, a fleeting 'U' writ large across the sky. They settle back in the copse of trees where they'd started. Crazy birds. “So what makes it interesting for us?”
“One of them turned up dead last night, missing one eye and one tooth. Well, probably missing one eye and one tooth,” Sam amends, “It's not an official report. Crime scene details were leaked.”
Dean doesn't know how Sam finds this shit online. He misses the days of the local newspaper, when you could cut a story out and hold it in your hands. It's too easy for words on a screen to change; for computers to lie. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” he says, doubtful, “Probably just some Bible nut getting his vengeance on.”
“Yes, except,” Sam swivels the laptop so that Dean's looking at a blurry photo from a blog site. He taps the screen with a fingernail and if Dean squints he can make out a symbol drawn onto wood. “Lambs blood,” Sam says. “It's the Hand of Eris. Y'know, Eris? The Goddess of Chaos?”
Dean says nothing, just rolls his eyes and sips his tepid coffee. Trust Sam to find witches.
****
The next time they stop it's because Sam orders him to, 'Pull the fuck over Dean.' Dean's vision is straining in the dark and he must have blinked his eyes rapidly and screwed them shut one too many times. They're only five miles out of Stonefort but Sam makes him switch before swinging Baby's headlights back out onto the blacktop.
“Where are we staying anyway?” Dean asks. Sam hadn't called ahead to book a room. Dean allows for the familiar shift when Sam slides the bench seat back a few inches for his longer legs. He fusses with the mirrors too before settling, always so difficult to please.
“Look at the laptop.”
Dean huffs but does as he's asked, the screen dazzling him even on the dimmest setting. There's a map open on the desktop, five locations linked by thin black lines to form a pentagram. The centre of the pentagram sits across the boundary of the Shawnee National Forest.
“There's a settlement of vacation cabins,” Sam explains, “Right there, at the centre of last known locations. The fifth point is where they found Bruno Reye's body.” He looks smug.
“Yeah, okay,” Dean concedes, but inwardly sighs. There will be nobody home this time of year, and God knows log cabins are cosier than some of the places they've stayed, but Dean has an ongoing love affair with guaranteed hot water, and also with adult movies on cable.
Three nights ago, in a chain motel with pink décor, they'd had a breakthrough. Sam had turned a blind eye to Dean's TV porn for the first time ever, and Dean is keen to test these new boundaries, although he doubts that Sam will ever agree to watch it with him. The problem is that Sam can't stand for Dean to know when he's turned on. It's the one area where Sam's a closed book to Dean. Commenting on long showers, catching Sam watching porn, or worse, joking about Sam getting hot under the collar, it all conspires to drive Sam into a colossal snit. Dean used to worry that it meant Sam was some kind of prude, but now he gets it. Sam needs this big mystery, this one part of himself that Dean can't touch.
Secretive little brother with his unreadable eyes.
****
The Buckner Ridge Cabins are deserted, as predicted. Sam mocks Dean for choosing the cabin farthest out from the others but Dean knows his training, even after all these years. Trees screen their cabin from the track and it would mean a couple of extra minutes' warning, should someone come looking.
“Catch.” Dean says it too late for Sam to brace himself, so the carry-all of basic protections hits him square in the chest. He lets out an 'oof,' but closes his arms around it on instinct, as Dean knew he would.
Sam glares daggers. “Fucking jerk,” he mutters, but it's just for effect.
The interior is a mismatch of the kitch and the bizarre, with way too many cushions. It's clean and tidy though, only a thin layer of dust from a couple months' vacancy, and the electricity works, which is great news for hot water.
It's hard to tell whether the owners are elderly and stuck in the fifties, or if they're yuppies with a keen eye for all things retro. Probably the latter, judging by the fancy espresso machine in the side kitchen. Sam notices it at the same time and catches Dean's grin, shooting back one of his own.
Two tribal masks and a colourful tapestry adorn the walls. A weird triangular-shaped guitar thing stands in a corner beside a dirty metal statue of a fox. The furniture is old looking, red dimpled leather and dark wood; the kind of thing Dr Watson would sit on while Sherlock Holmes paced and smoked his pipe.
“No curtains,” Sam notes, and it's true, no blinds either. It's not like there are neighbours to worry about but it still rankles with Dean that they will be visibly vulnerable to the outside world.
“We could make our own,” he says, “There's plenty of blankets. Hammer and nails in the car.”
Sam chews on his thumb nail while he considers it and Dean kind of hopes he'll say yes, even if he is bone-tired and it would mean prolonging the routine precautions keeping him from sleep.
“Nah. If someone does come out here then they're gonna find us, curtains or not,” Sam decides. “And it would leave holes in the walls.”
“They're really small nails,” Dean grumbles, but Sam's right.
Two bedrooms lead off the main living area, linked by a tiny shared bathroom. Dean hates sleeping in other people's beds. Motels are one thing but this is different, it's someone's home-from-home, and besides, each bedroom is occupied by only one king-sized bed. Dean hates sleeping in separate rooms even more.
“If we sleep in here then we won't have to heat the whole place,” Sam says, gesturing around the small living area, and Dean relaxes.
They roll out their floor mats and sleeping bags, toe-ends pointing to the little wood-burning stove in the centre of the room. Dean lays salt lines and starts a small fire. Sam moves rugs and climbs on a chair to chalk their ever-growing artillery of protective sigils on the floors and walls.
When it's finally time to sleep Dean can't. His eyes keep straying to the window on Sam's side. He wants to put himself between Sam and the curtainless void but there are windows on his side too. It makes him restless.
There's plenty of moonlight to watch Sam by. His face is slack in sleep, turned slightly away, north-north-east. What does Sam dream of these days? Hopefully not the Cage anymore, and if there are prophetic dreams then he's keeping schtum about them. Dean wants to make him dream of nice things. He imagines projecting dreams of french fries and candy in Sam's direction. He thinks about running through fields of yellow sunlight, maybe wrestling each other, and it quickly degenerates into the fantasy of being allowed to touch.
Dean turns away and jerks off silently, imagining that his hands are Sam's larger ones, imagining pressing his body against his brother. Sleep comes quickly enough with the post-orgasm fuzz.