With Spit and a Prayer
folder
Supernatural › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
6,219
Reviews:
83
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Supernatural › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
6,219
Reviews:
83
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Supernatural, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter Thirteen
Many thanks to AngelJade, From Across the Pond, and Starflow for their kind reviews :).
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Thirteen
One hundred and six days
----
“Why do you come here, Sam?”
Sam didn’t answer. He concentrated on his hand, where it lay on the stiff leather of the couch. He didn’t know why the couch was upholstered in leather; it seemed so uncomfortable, so redolent of style over substance. His hand looked pale and thin against the deep brown, and when he flexed his fingers he felt the sweat slip against the shiny surface.
“This is the third day you’ve come here,” Horst said, in the same gentle, measured voice in which he’d said everything so far. “You keep on coming back, but you never say anything. Would you like to tell me why that is?”
Sam thought about his knuckles. They were bruised and raw, and he thought he must have scraped them on something, maybe hit something. That was what happened, outside; you couldn’t avoid getting hurt, getting damaged, no matter how hard you tried. It was better to stay in the room, in the bed, especially now that Dean was gone and there were no barriers separating Sam from the world any more. Safer inside.
That wasn’t what Dean wanted, though. Dean wanted Sam to come here, to this place, more than that, he wanted Sam to talk. The whole prospect was terrifying. This doctor, with his kind eyes and his understanding smile, and Sam wanted so much for that smile to stay there, but how could it, how could it if he talked? Then the doctor would see what Sam was, and he wouldn’t smile any more, wouldn’t want to help Sam any more. Sam knew the guy only cared because he was paid to, but that was enough, that was all he had right now so it had to be enough, and Sam wasn’t ready to lose it, little though it was.
Except Dean wanted him to talk.
“Can I ask you something?” Horst asked, sitting back in his chair, and Sam concentrated so hard on his hand on the shiny arm of the couch that his eyes started to water. Horst waited a moment, like he was expecting Sam to answer, then said, “Who was the man who made the appointment for you?”
Sam felt his throat start to close up. He’d been OK, so far, not great, but OK, he’d made it here three times and back twice and he hadn’t felt that sickening feeling of impending doom, the tight bands across his chest like his ribcage was being crushed. Now, though, now was different. Dean had made the appointment, it was the only thing that made sense (except even that didn’t really make sense, not really, because Dean had left Sam, left him alone, and now he wanted Sam to talk to a stranger and Sam didn’t know why, and was it part of a scam, was Dean hunting for something, and if so, how could Sam play his part if he didn’t know what the part was?), but he didn’t know if he was supposed to say that or not, didn’t know what Dean wanted him to say. So he said nothing, and concentrated on trying hard to breathe.
Horst was watching him. “The person who made the appointment said he was you, but I don’t think he was,” he said slowly. “Sam, I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”
Sam felt sweat start to trickle down his spine, and he pulled his legs up in front of him. He was meant to do something, but what, what?. Dean’s gone, Dean’s gone, he thought, and then he realised to his horror he’d said it out loud.
Horst leaned forward instantly. “Dean?” he said. “Who’s Dean? Is that the man who called me?”
Sam clamped his jaw shut hard, biting down on his tongue until he tasted blood. Stupid, stupid. What was this for?
“Sam?” Horst asked. “Who is Dean? Where has he gone?”
“I don’t.” Sam’s voice felt weird and rough in his throat, and the metallic tang of the blood seemed to stain the words. “I don’t know.” I don’t know where he’s gone. He left me.
“Why did Dean go?” Horst asked, and Sam didn’t want to talk, he didn’t, especially since he didn’t know the rules, but he’d started now and it would all be over soon, so he might as well get it done.
“Because I’m not...” he said, and wondered if there were even words to describe why Dean had left him, and whether he could say them without them ripping his throat to shreds. “I’m not... enough.”
He looked at Horst out of the corner of his eye, waiting for his sympathy to fade, for him to sigh and say well, I expected more from you, Sam. But Horst just crossed his legs at the ankles and said, “What makes you think you’re not enough for Dean, Sam?”
And that. The answer to that was lost in a mire of desperation, and Sam was lost with it.
----
Dean watched as Sam slipped back through the motel room door, and sighed. It was all going to plan, at least, Sam had made it to the shrink’s office three times now, and nothing terrible had happened to him. Not that anything else terrible needed to happen to him now. Dean wanted to stay, to watch the curtains, the door, make sure Sam wasn’t going to go anywhere else, but he couldn’t, not this time. Therapy wasn’t exactly free, and paying for it with a fake credit card or insurance would just wind up fucking Sammy over, so Dean needed cash, and he needed a lot of it. He had no illusions: Sam was not getting better overnight. Neither of them were.
He drove two towns over (in the opposite direction from Bobby’s place), and found a bar with a pool table and some easy marks. He should have picked somewhere more densely populated than South Dakota to hole up, but there was no way he could move Sam now, so he would just have to keep finding new towns, new bars where he wasn’t known, until they were ready to go. It wasn’t hard – hustling had always come as easy to him as book-learning did to Sam, and he was proud of it, because it might not be the most salubrious pastime but it was his -- but it took time, time to build up an image, time to drink less than he looked like he was drinking and laugh more than he wanted to, time to lose as many games as he needed to and win as many as he could. By the time he made it back to the motel, it was past two, and he was so tired that the white lines on the road were blurring in front of his eyes. But he had a week’s worth of therapy sessions in his pocket and no paper trail to lead to either Sam or him, and that was about as much as he could hope for right now.
The back seat of the rental car was cramped and stuffy, and the seat was stained with something unidentifiable, but Dean had slept in worse spots and renting a second room on top of the car was spending money he could be using for Sam, so he curled up and tried to ignore the ache in his back and shoulders. He was tired, so tired that even his fingers felt heavy as lead, like if he tried to stand up he would just crumple to the ground, and all he wanted was to sleep for a year, and then wake up to find Sam had brought coffee and there was a hunt to go to and none of this had ever happened.
That wasn’t what he got, though. What he got was waking up before dawn with his clothes drenched through with sweat, even the seat damp with it, his dick straining against his jeans and his brother’s pained voice still echoing in his ears. The light was filtering in through the car windows, grey and thin like dirty dishwater, and Dean let his head fall back against the seat, closing his eyes because he was just so tired.
----
The showers at the YMCA were pretty gross, a patina of grime on the tiles and limescale clogging most of the shower heads, but Dean was grateful for the feel of the water against his skin, grateful for feeling clean at least physically. He was grateful, too, that Sam wasn’t there, and although he tried to tell himself it was because Sam would get the wrong idea again, that it was for Sam’s sake, really he was grateful for the quiet, just for Sam’s absence and for the fact that he didn’t have to deal with his problems right now, and what kind of a person did that make him?
But he knew what kind of a person he was, had known for a while, he knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him. Because at some point, sitting in the car, watching the motel room and trying not to think about all the things Sam could be doing in there, he had made a mistake, and he had found out who he really was. He had thought... he had just thought that maybe, OK, maybe Sam was right and maybe he (his body, not him) had some kind of weird attraction thing going on for Sam, and that was sick, of course it was, but if it was true then he could at least control it, once Sam was back to normal he could just ignore it and get on with his life, like he did with so many other things. But he had tried, and oh Jesus God what did it say about him that he had sat there imagining his brother’s naked body, imagining making love to him, and hoping, fucking hoping to get hard.
But he hadn’t. And he’d known that whatever it was, it wasn’t over, that his limp cock didn’t mean it was over, because before he could stop himself his mind had twisted the scene in his head until Sam was pushing away, trying to make him stop, and that was when Dean had realised that what was wrong with him was so much worse than wanting to fuck his brother, because he didn’t want to fuck him, at least, not if Sam wanted it too. So really, worrying about what kind of a person it made him that he was happy not to have to deal with Sam’s issues was kind of like complaining about getting blood on your jeans when your throat’s just been cut. Dean was fucked, and the only thing he could be grateful for was that he’d got himself away from Sam before he could fuck him up too, any more than he already had.
He hunkered down in the seat and fixed his eyes on the motel once more. There was no hope for Dean, not now, not ever, and he was OK with that, he’d accepted it, after what he’d done, what he’d become, hope was really more than he could ask for. But Sam was still alive, and even if Dean could never speak to him again, he could still save him.
----
One hundred and nineteen days
----
“Why do you think Dean wants you to come to these sessions, Sam?” Horst asked, and Sam closed his eyes. The questions never stopped, every day, and he tried, he really tried to answer them, because Dean hadn’t come to tell him he was doing the wrong thing yet, so he figured maybe this was right. But it hurt, like each answer was locked in place inside him and needed to be ripped from its moorings before he could get it out. The questions were destroying him, piece by piece, and maybe that was what Dean had intended all along.
“I don’t... know,” he said, and it was true, he’d thought about it, God, all the time, but he still didn’t understand what it was that Dean intended. That was his fault, though; he knew he ought to understand, just like he knew he ought to be able to find his brother, that he could find him, if only he could remember how.
“Do you think maybe he wants you to get better?” Horst asked.
Sam didn’t even need to consider that. “I can’t get better,” he said, amazed that Horst would even suggest that, given the things he already knew about Sam, even though Sam had tried to keep it from him, had tried so hard not to say too much.
Horst leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Why not, Sam? Why can’t you get better?”
Sam shook his head, concentrating on forcing his tongue to form the words. “I... It’s just me. It’s me. How can I stop being me?”
Horst considered this. “Have you ever felt differently?”
That was a weird question, weird, and Sam didn’t know how to answer it. He knew that once, he had thought that Dean loved him just because he was him, and God, it sounded so arrogant now. Dean had done so much for him, and Sam had thought it was because he was Sam, that he in some way deserved it. It was weird to think of that now, to think of that man who’d been so blind, and Sam was almost wistful, because with the blindness had come a confidence and self-belief that he could only remember the edges of now, like a fading echo on a clear day. But it was better, it was better to be honest with himself. It was better to know.
“Sam?” asked Horst, and Sam blinked, remembering where he was.
“I... guess,” he said, not wanting to admit it. “I used to feel less...” He tried to think of a word to describe it, but there was nothing.
“All right,” Horst said, putting the tips of his fingers together, “that’s good. Can you tell me what happened to make you change your mind?”
And there was that question again. It always came back to that, to the one thing that Sam couldn’t answer. He wondered if he ever would be able to, and if, on that day, the last piece of him would be stripped away and he could rest at last.
----
One hundred and twenty-nine days
----
Sam sat on the bed and stared at the phone. It was strange, that something so significant could be so small, so light. The casing felt smooth and cool in his hand, glinting silver and alien in the dim light that filtered through the curtains, secretive, like a glimpse of another world. He hadn’t received a message from Dean in a week, but that was OK. Dean was gone, and Sam was pretty sure now that he wasn’t coming back. It was what he’d expected.
Horst, though, seemed to think differently. He’d been pressing, pressing about Dean, saying things that Sam knew couldn’t be right, and now he’d said that Sam had to call Dean, had said it almost incredulously when Sam had mentioned that he hadn’t even tried to contact him. But Dean had said if you need me, and Sam knew what that meant, it meant that even now Dean didn’t think Sam would be able to just bite the bullet and leave him alone, even now Dean was shouldering the burden he’d never asked for. So Sam hadn’t called, because he didn’t need Dean. He didn’t need anything.
Except Dean had told Sam to go to Horst, and Horst had told Sam to call Dean. And now Sam had no idea what to do any more. Dean had chosen to go, and Sam had let him, because Dean never got anything for himself, and Sam hadn’t been able to give him that no matter how hard he tried. And if her called Dean now, what would that mean? Would it mean that Sam was just dragging Dean back into the life he’d tried to leave behind?
No, Sam decided. Horst didn’t know, not really. He wasn’t calling Dean.
But he fell asleep with the phone in his hand.
----
One hundred and thirty days
----
When Dean woke up, it wasn’t because of a dream, and he took a moment to register that blessed relief before he realised that the thing that had woken him up was still happening. His mind was thick with sleep, even more so than usual, and it took him a minute to realise that the tinny guitar sound was his phone ringing, so by the time he’d fumbled it out of his jacket pocket it had gone quiet and dark.
Bobby, he thought first, but there was no message this time, and when he flipped to the caller ID it said Sam.
Dean stared at the display, and then over at the motel room. The window was dark, and there were no signs of life. No new messages, his phone read, like it was mocking him, and when he pushed the button again, it said Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam.
Dean chewed his lip and debated. He could just go in there. What if Sam was in trouble? He should go, he should make sure.
But Sam hadn’t left a message, and Dean had managed this long without stumbling. He wasn’t going to let it all crash down now. He clenched the phone in his fist and sat up, wide-awake now, staring out of the window and waiting for dawn.
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Thirteen
One hundred and six days
----
“Why do you come here, Sam?”
Sam didn’t answer. He concentrated on his hand, where it lay on the stiff leather of the couch. He didn’t know why the couch was upholstered in leather; it seemed so uncomfortable, so redolent of style over substance. His hand looked pale and thin against the deep brown, and when he flexed his fingers he felt the sweat slip against the shiny surface.
“This is the third day you’ve come here,” Horst said, in the same gentle, measured voice in which he’d said everything so far. “You keep on coming back, but you never say anything. Would you like to tell me why that is?”
Sam thought about his knuckles. They were bruised and raw, and he thought he must have scraped them on something, maybe hit something. That was what happened, outside; you couldn’t avoid getting hurt, getting damaged, no matter how hard you tried. It was better to stay in the room, in the bed, especially now that Dean was gone and there were no barriers separating Sam from the world any more. Safer inside.
That wasn’t what Dean wanted, though. Dean wanted Sam to come here, to this place, more than that, he wanted Sam to talk. The whole prospect was terrifying. This doctor, with his kind eyes and his understanding smile, and Sam wanted so much for that smile to stay there, but how could it, how could it if he talked? Then the doctor would see what Sam was, and he wouldn’t smile any more, wouldn’t want to help Sam any more. Sam knew the guy only cared because he was paid to, but that was enough, that was all he had right now so it had to be enough, and Sam wasn’t ready to lose it, little though it was.
Except Dean wanted him to talk.
“Can I ask you something?” Horst asked, sitting back in his chair, and Sam concentrated so hard on his hand on the shiny arm of the couch that his eyes started to water. Horst waited a moment, like he was expecting Sam to answer, then said, “Who was the man who made the appointment for you?”
Sam felt his throat start to close up. He’d been OK, so far, not great, but OK, he’d made it here three times and back twice and he hadn’t felt that sickening feeling of impending doom, the tight bands across his chest like his ribcage was being crushed. Now, though, now was different. Dean had made the appointment, it was the only thing that made sense (except even that didn’t really make sense, not really, because Dean had left Sam, left him alone, and now he wanted Sam to talk to a stranger and Sam didn’t know why, and was it part of a scam, was Dean hunting for something, and if so, how could Sam play his part if he didn’t know what the part was?), but he didn’t know if he was supposed to say that or not, didn’t know what Dean wanted him to say. So he said nothing, and concentrated on trying hard to breathe.
Horst was watching him. “The person who made the appointment said he was you, but I don’t think he was,” he said slowly. “Sam, I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”
Sam felt sweat start to trickle down his spine, and he pulled his legs up in front of him. He was meant to do something, but what, what?. Dean’s gone, Dean’s gone, he thought, and then he realised to his horror he’d said it out loud.
Horst leaned forward instantly. “Dean?” he said. “Who’s Dean? Is that the man who called me?”
Sam clamped his jaw shut hard, biting down on his tongue until he tasted blood. Stupid, stupid. What was this for?
“Sam?” Horst asked. “Who is Dean? Where has he gone?”
“I don’t.” Sam’s voice felt weird and rough in his throat, and the metallic tang of the blood seemed to stain the words. “I don’t know.” I don’t know where he’s gone. He left me.
“Why did Dean go?” Horst asked, and Sam didn’t want to talk, he didn’t, especially since he didn’t know the rules, but he’d started now and it would all be over soon, so he might as well get it done.
“Because I’m not...” he said, and wondered if there were even words to describe why Dean had left him, and whether he could say them without them ripping his throat to shreds. “I’m not... enough.”
He looked at Horst out of the corner of his eye, waiting for his sympathy to fade, for him to sigh and say well, I expected more from you, Sam. But Horst just crossed his legs at the ankles and said, “What makes you think you’re not enough for Dean, Sam?”
And that. The answer to that was lost in a mire of desperation, and Sam was lost with it.
----
Dean watched as Sam slipped back through the motel room door, and sighed. It was all going to plan, at least, Sam had made it to the shrink’s office three times now, and nothing terrible had happened to him. Not that anything else terrible needed to happen to him now. Dean wanted to stay, to watch the curtains, the door, make sure Sam wasn’t going to go anywhere else, but he couldn’t, not this time. Therapy wasn’t exactly free, and paying for it with a fake credit card or insurance would just wind up fucking Sammy over, so Dean needed cash, and he needed a lot of it. He had no illusions: Sam was not getting better overnight. Neither of them were.
He drove two towns over (in the opposite direction from Bobby’s place), and found a bar with a pool table and some easy marks. He should have picked somewhere more densely populated than South Dakota to hole up, but there was no way he could move Sam now, so he would just have to keep finding new towns, new bars where he wasn’t known, until they were ready to go. It wasn’t hard – hustling had always come as easy to him as book-learning did to Sam, and he was proud of it, because it might not be the most salubrious pastime but it was his -- but it took time, time to build up an image, time to drink less than he looked like he was drinking and laugh more than he wanted to, time to lose as many games as he needed to and win as many as he could. By the time he made it back to the motel, it was past two, and he was so tired that the white lines on the road were blurring in front of his eyes. But he had a week’s worth of therapy sessions in his pocket and no paper trail to lead to either Sam or him, and that was about as much as he could hope for right now.
The back seat of the rental car was cramped and stuffy, and the seat was stained with something unidentifiable, but Dean had slept in worse spots and renting a second room on top of the car was spending money he could be using for Sam, so he curled up and tried to ignore the ache in his back and shoulders. He was tired, so tired that even his fingers felt heavy as lead, like if he tried to stand up he would just crumple to the ground, and all he wanted was to sleep for a year, and then wake up to find Sam had brought coffee and there was a hunt to go to and none of this had ever happened.
That wasn’t what he got, though. What he got was waking up before dawn with his clothes drenched through with sweat, even the seat damp with it, his dick straining against his jeans and his brother’s pained voice still echoing in his ears. The light was filtering in through the car windows, grey and thin like dirty dishwater, and Dean let his head fall back against the seat, closing his eyes because he was just so tired.
----
The showers at the YMCA were pretty gross, a patina of grime on the tiles and limescale clogging most of the shower heads, but Dean was grateful for the feel of the water against his skin, grateful for feeling clean at least physically. He was grateful, too, that Sam wasn’t there, and although he tried to tell himself it was because Sam would get the wrong idea again, that it was for Sam’s sake, really he was grateful for the quiet, just for Sam’s absence and for the fact that he didn’t have to deal with his problems right now, and what kind of a person did that make him?
But he knew what kind of a person he was, had known for a while, he knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him. Because at some point, sitting in the car, watching the motel room and trying not to think about all the things Sam could be doing in there, he had made a mistake, and he had found out who he really was. He had thought... he had just thought that maybe, OK, maybe Sam was right and maybe he (his body, not him) had some kind of weird attraction thing going on for Sam, and that was sick, of course it was, but if it was true then he could at least control it, once Sam was back to normal he could just ignore it and get on with his life, like he did with so many other things. But he had tried, and oh Jesus God what did it say about him that he had sat there imagining his brother’s naked body, imagining making love to him, and hoping, fucking hoping to get hard.
But he hadn’t. And he’d known that whatever it was, it wasn’t over, that his limp cock didn’t mean it was over, because before he could stop himself his mind had twisted the scene in his head until Sam was pushing away, trying to make him stop, and that was when Dean had realised that what was wrong with him was so much worse than wanting to fuck his brother, because he didn’t want to fuck him, at least, not if Sam wanted it too. So really, worrying about what kind of a person it made him that he was happy not to have to deal with Sam’s issues was kind of like complaining about getting blood on your jeans when your throat’s just been cut. Dean was fucked, and the only thing he could be grateful for was that he’d got himself away from Sam before he could fuck him up too, any more than he already had.
He hunkered down in the seat and fixed his eyes on the motel once more. There was no hope for Dean, not now, not ever, and he was OK with that, he’d accepted it, after what he’d done, what he’d become, hope was really more than he could ask for. But Sam was still alive, and even if Dean could never speak to him again, he could still save him.
----
One hundred and nineteen days
----
“Why do you think Dean wants you to come to these sessions, Sam?” Horst asked, and Sam closed his eyes. The questions never stopped, every day, and he tried, he really tried to answer them, because Dean hadn’t come to tell him he was doing the wrong thing yet, so he figured maybe this was right. But it hurt, like each answer was locked in place inside him and needed to be ripped from its moorings before he could get it out. The questions were destroying him, piece by piece, and maybe that was what Dean had intended all along.
“I don’t... know,” he said, and it was true, he’d thought about it, God, all the time, but he still didn’t understand what it was that Dean intended. That was his fault, though; he knew he ought to understand, just like he knew he ought to be able to find his brother, that he could find him, if only he could remember how.
“Do you think maybe he wants you to get better?” Horst asked.
Sam didn’t even need to consider that. “I can’t get better,” he said, amazed that Horst would even suggest that, given the things he already knew about Sam, even though Sam had tried to keep it from him, had tried so hard not to say too much.
Horst leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Why not, Sam? Why can’t you get better?”
Sam shook his head, concentrating on forcing his tongue to form the words. “I... It’s just me. It’s me. How can I stop being me?”
Horst considered this. “Have you ever felt differently?”
That was a weird question, weird, and Sam didn’t know how to answer it. He knew that once, he had thought that Dean loved him just because he was him, and God, it sounded so arrogant now. Dean had done so much for him, and Sam had thought it was because he was Sam, that he in some way deserved it. It was weird to think of that now, to think of that man who’d been so blind, and Sam was almost wistful, because with the blindness had come a confidence and self-belief that he could only remember the edges of now, like a fading echo on a clear day. But it was better, it was better to be honest with himself. It was better to know.
“Sam?” asked Horst, and Sam blinked, remembering where he was.
“I... guess,” he said, not wanting to admit it. “I used to feel less...” He tried to think of a word to describe it, but there was nothing.
“All right,” Horst said, putting the tips of his fingers together, “that’s good. Can you tell me what happened to make you change your mind?”
And there was that question again. It always came back to that, to the one thing that Sam couldn’t answer. He wondered if he ever would be able to, and if, on that day, the last piece of him would be stripped away and he could rest at last.
----
One hundred and twenty-nine days
----
Sam sat on the bed and stared at the phone. It was strange, that something so significant could be so small, so light. The casing felt smooth and cool in his hand, glinting silver and alien in the dim light that filtered through the curtains, secretive, like a glimpse of another world. He hadn’t received a message from Dean in a week, but that was OK. Dean was gone, and Sam was pretty sure now that he wasn’t coming back. It was what he’d expected.
Horst, though, seemed to think differently. He’d been pressing, pressing about Dean, saying things that Sam knew couldn’t be right, and now he’d said that Sam had to call Dean, had said it almost incredulously when Sam had mentioned that he hadn’t even tried to contact him. But Dean had said if you need me, and Sam knew what that meant, it meant that even now Dean didn’t think Sam would be able to just bite the bullet and leave him alone, even now Dean was shouldering the burden he’d never asked for. So Sam hadn’t called, because he didn’t need Dean. He didn’t need anything.
Except Dean had told Sam to go to Horst, and Horst had told Sam to call Dean. And now Sam had no idea what to do any more. Dean had chosen to go, and Sam had let him, because Dean never got anything for himself, and Sam hadn’t been able to give him that no matter how hard he tried. And if her called Dean now, what would that mean? Would it mean that Sam was just dragging Dean back into the life he’d tried to leave behind?
No, Sam decided. Horst didn’t know, not really. He wasn’t calling Dean.
But he fell asleep with the phone in his hand.
----
One hundred and thirty days
----
When Dean woke up, it wasn’t because of a dream, and he took a moment to register that blessed relief before he realised that the thing that had woken him up was still happening. His mind was thick with sleep, even more so than usual, and it took him a minute to realise that the tinny guitar sound was his phone ringing, so by the time he’d fumbled it out of his jacket pocket it had gone quiet and dark.
Bobby, he thought first, but there was no message this time, and when he flipped to the caller ID it said Sam.
Dean stared at the display, and then over at the motel room. The window was dark, and there were no signs of life. No new messages, his phone read, like it was mocking him, and when he pushed the button again, it said Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam.
Dean chewed his lip and debated. He could just go in there. What if Sam was in trouble? He should go, he should make sure.
But Sam hadn’t left a message, and Dean had managed this long without stumbling. He wasn’t going to let it all crash down now. He clenched the phone in his fist and sat up, wide-awake now, staring out of the window and waiting for dawn.