Chapter 6

It's still weird. Five, maybe six nights, Dean's spent in his brother's bed, and it'll never not be weird. That's why he slips out when he starts to feel Sam waking up, makes sure he's gone before that awkward morning conversation.

He makes coffee. Dumps the grounds in the filter, dumps the filter in the machine, pulls two mugs off a shelf, stands and watches as it burbles and drips and pings. Wonders how long it'll really be until he's making shit like that happen with his ghostly powers in a desperate attempt to communicate.

He scratches the back of his neck as he waits. He's got, three weeks, at most, Sam said. Three weeks before the magic holding him to his body shits itself and he just drifts away. His reaper might come back for him, might not. Dean can't count on anything.

Except a little old lady in Maryville, Missouri. He doesn't know her, doesn't know anything about her, except that she's the granddaughter of Terence Bryant, the Man of Letters who, or so his journals say, found the location of the Holy Grail back in the Twenties. And the fact that she's living in the house he retired to, and when Sam called her, she told him there's still a locked trunk in the attic, with her grandfather's name on it.

So that's what they're doing. With three weeks left on Dean's limited time offer, they're driving to Missouri.

"Morning."

Dean looks up. Sam stands in the doorway, boots dangling from one hand, a wry smile on his face. His hair is still wet, he looks damp and warm, and Dean's already willing the coffee machine to be done so he can wrap his chilled fingers around a steaming mug. "Hey," he says. "Coffee's almost done."

"Good." It's early, early for a day they wake in the bunker, anyway, and Sam's eyelids are heavy with interrupted sleep. He dumps his boots by the table and drags himself toward the counter where Dean stands and the coffee maker burbles its last. It's almost natural, the way he fits himself into Dean's side, like it's normal.

It has been, at least the last few days. Sam's cautious, his eyes always on Dean, he follows him from room to room, like he's afraid to leave Dean alone. Afraid Dean's going to go batshit on him.

Dean leans back. It'll never not be weird, but it's warm, and he still feels like he should be the one looking out for Sam, but the truth is, Dean feels safe tucked up beside him like that. He pours the coffee, pushes one mug sideways along the counter, and when Sam slides his fingers into the handle, their fingers touch.

It'll never not be weird that there's a tingle in that accidental brush of skin, especially when Sam's practically got his arm around Dean and they sleep together now.

Sam sleeps. Dean lies awake and stares at the soft curve of Sam's mouth as he breathes.

"So," Dean says, as he turns away and bends to pick up his bag from the floor. He dumps it on the table, yanks it open, even though he knows exactly what it contains. He looks inside, runs his finger down the barrel of his favorite sawed-off, counts the salt rounds. "We ready to roll?"

"Whenever you are," Sam says, slumping into a chair and forcing one foot into a boot. He tugs the laces. "We get there by nine, turn around, back before dinner, right?"

"We are stopping on the way," Dean says. "For breakfast."

Sam closes his eyes and smiles. "You don't need to eat, but you keep trying."

"I want pie," Dean says. "I miss pie." He yanks his bag closed and looks down at Sam. "I'm getting pie."

"Whatever you want, Dean," Sam says, and he smiles.

---

Sam sleeps most of the trip, Dean drives, and when he pulls into a diner in some blink and you'll miss it town when they're three hours down the road, his mouth waters. He's prepared for the ultimate disappointment, but goddammit, he misses pie.

"Wake up, Sammy," he says, but he doesn't shake his brother like he might have before. No, he slides his hand over Sam's shoulder, while he's still sleeping he lets the warmth sink into his fingers through Sam's shirt, and he feels the solid muscle beneath. He lies awake every night with his palm on Sam's shoulder, like he can't get enough. "Goddammit, Sammy. Wake up."

Sam opens his eyes, blinks away sleep, wipes at the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. "Are we here?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nah. Some hick town. There's a bar, and a diner, and a court house bigger than the entire main street, and that's about it." He waves his hand out the window. "This is the main street." There's half a dozen stores on each side of the road. "It's the only street."

Sam pulls himself up. He huffs out a laugh and drops his eyes. "Okay. And we're stopped here why?"

Dean lifts his chin, pointing with it out the front window. "Pie," he says.

There's a sign on the front window of the diner they're parked in front of. "Best Ho-made Pies," Sam reads, then he turns to Dean. "Um."

"Don't care who makes 'em." Dean pops the door open and slides out. "Come on, Sammy. Pie."

So they head inside, and the bright morning sunlight fades as they step down into a half-basement diner.

Sam's head barely clears the low ceiling. Dean's lips curve up in a smile, and Sam gives him a look he knows from when they were kids. When they were kids, Sam would have followed that look with sticking out his tongue, now, it's more of a sneer.

They turn their attention to the interior of the diner. Dean's eyes slowly adjust to the small amount of light coming in through high, grimy windows, and then he can see the counter. There's a grizzled old dude sitting on a stool, hunched over a coffee mug. The server, a large woman well past her prime, pours coffee that looks as thick and dark as mud. She looks up, catches their eyes, then flicks them toward a couple of booths close to the door.

The vinyl is sticky with grime. Sam pulls a face and wipes his hands on his shirt. "You sure about this, Dean? This place is like, where slasher movies start. Car breaks down, and you're never heard from again."

Dean slides in opposite. There are decades old cigarette burns on his seat, they scratch at his hands as he presses them to the seat beside his thighs. "Look, Sammy." He puts his elbows on the table, flicks the menu down so he can read the back. "One, I know Baby inside and out, and there's nothing I can't fix. Two," He grins. "We're the guys who come in at the end and clean up the mess, so I think we'll be okay." He looks down, his eyes scanning down the list on the back of the menu. "I'm having one of everything."

Their feet settle under the table, Sam's longer legs stretching right across and tucking beneath Dean's seat. Dean presses his calf to Sam's, just for the warmth, and he flicks his eyes away while he does it, because most of the time they just don't acknowledge the way they touch each other now. He catches the eye of the woman behind the counter, and she puts down her coffee pot.

There's a hand written tag on her ample breast, almost lost in the busy floral pattern of her blouse. Dean squints, but the script is faded, but there might be an 'F'. "Morning... Flo?" he says, but her face is impassive, neither confirming, nor denying, his wild guess. "Coffee all 'round, and pie. One of everything you have."

She stares down at him, pencil hovering over her hand. "You alright, honey? You look like death."

"Funny you should say that—" Dean starts.

Sam butts in. "He has the flu."

Flo narrows her eyes, leans back enough that Dean notices. "Swine flu?"

Sam shakes his head. "Regular flu. Coffee is fine, thanks, that's everything."

She turns and leaves, and Dean grins over at Sam. "That's everything please go away now?"

"Yeah." Sam looks around. "This place makes me nervous."

"Relax, Sammy." Dean rubs his leg against Sam's, and it's meant to be a gesture of comfort, but for once Dean holds eye contact. Sam's pupils expand, and his cheeks color, and he sucks in a breath as his lips twitch in an almost smile. Dean swallows. "Everything's going to be fine." He looks away, along the line of the counter, down to the end of the diner where there's a big sign for the restroom. Beside the door, though, there's something that catches Dean's eye. "Dude," he says. "There's a life size plastic cowboy."

Sam looks horrified.

Dean grins up at him. "I'm sure it's not the mummified body of the last guy who broke down in town."

"Dean," Sam says. "God, stop it."

This time, it's intentional. Dean locks his eyes on Sam's face, and he traps Sam's leg between his feet, and he watches as Sam's eyes go black, as blood vessels in his face swell, as Sam opens his mouth on a gasp. Dean smiles before he drops his eyes, and it's not victory, it's not about making Sam squirm, it's about having the balls to do it in the first place.

He's fucked. They're both fucked, but since when have their lives been any different? From the moment Dean ran from their burning house in Laurence, his baby brother in his arms, nothing about the way they've lived has been normal. They're all they've got, and they've only got each other.

Still, the smile slips from Dean's face, and he looks up, and Sam's got his sad eyes on again.

Sam swallows. "You look like I feel," he says. "What are you thinking about?"

Dean gives Sam a scathing look. "We're talking about our feelings now? Really, Sam?"

"No." Sam shakes his head. "Just thoughts."

"Huh." Dean scrubs his hand over his face. "Thoughts. My actual thoughts." He looks up, into Sam's eyes, and Sam's pupils swell again. "Our lives were fucked from the beginning. Look how messed up we are, Sam. Our lives are blood and pain and death on repeat. Kinda makes you wonder why we keep coming back."

Flo appears, dumps coffee mugs down on the table, sloshes coffee into them. "Pie's not far," she says, and then she moves away again.

"Okay, so that's not exactly what I was thinking, but it's true." Dean wraps his hands around the warm mug in front of him, and then he looks up at Sam. "Isn't it."

"We do it because it's worth it," Sam says. He drops his eyes, shakes his head. "It's worth it, Dean. The blood, the pain, even the death. It's worth going through."

Dean sighs. "Because we help people," he recites.

"No." Sam's hand crosses the table. He's not stupid, they're in a hick town and even though no one here knows they're brothers, two men holding hands isn't exactly going to get a positive reaction. His knuckles, though, graze the back of Dean's hand. "What I did. I did it because I need you. And it's messed up, anyone else would let go, anyone else would have said goodbye and gotten on with their life a long time ago. But I can't, Dean. Not without you. And I'm scared. If this lead doesn't pan out, I don't know what I'm going to do, what we're going to do. All the other options are dead ends."

Sam's terrified. It's in his voice, in his face, in the fact that he reached out to Dean, to touch him in a way they never used to touch.

"It's all over, isn't it?" Dean stares down into his cup. A thin film of grease floats on top of the coffee. He drinks it anyway, and it tastes of nothing. "If we don't find the grail thing, if it doesn't exist, I'm finished."

"Dean," Sam says, his voice breaking. He lifts his hand to his face, but the motion is aborted when Flo returns.

"Best pie in Kansas," she says, sliding four plates onto the table and then drifting away.

Dean reaches for the pecan first. He grabs a fork, stabs it into the top of the pie, and then pushes it toward Sam. "I need you to eat this for me."

Sam frowns. "What?"

Dean shrugs. "I eat it, all I get is a nasty cardboard aftertaste. You need to eat my pie. Tell me what it tastes like. I want to watch you eat it." His mouth waters as the combined smell of four kinds of pie fills his senses and it's so goddamn unfair that he can smell the good stuff but not taste it.

"Dude," Sam says. "That's weird."

"No weirder than anything else we've been doing lately," Dean says, and there, he's done it, he's called attention to the fact he's been lying in Sam's bed while Sam sleeps. With effort, he holds Sam's gaze, even when Sam drops his eyes away, Dean keeps looking at his face.

"Right," Sam says, and he picks up the fork, pulls a chunk of pie out from the middle, and puts it in his mouth.

It's all very quick, all very perfunctory, until Sam starts to chew. He makes a sound, a deep rumble that's half way between whimper and grunt, and all pleasure. His eyes flick up to Dean, and go wide, and the makes the sound again before he puts the fork back into the pie for more. "This is really good," he says, before filling his mouth again.

Dean can't breathe. He doesn't need to, but he can't. There's something about the sounds Sam makes that vibrate right inside Dean, twisting him up, and he can't take his eyes off Sam's lips as he drags his tongue across the lower one, as he drags the fork from between them.

"Now the apple," Dean says, when Sam finishes the pecan pie. He pushes it toward him, and swallows hard, as this time, Sam keeps his eyes on Dean's face as he digs in. They keep eye contact the whole time, and Sam's totally hamming it up, exaggerating every expression of pleasure and taste.

"I can't eat any more," Sam says, when the apple's all gone and there's bits and pieces of chocolate and cherry on the plates in front of him. His lips are stained with cherry filling, and under the table, his legs are spread wide.

So are Dean's. His jeans are far too tight now, and he's got no idea how's he's going to get out of here without it showing.

Sam sinks back in his seat, slides down in it. His hand goes to his belly, disappearing over the edge of the table. "Jesus, Dean," he says. "I hope that was good for you, because I feel like I'm going to explode."

Dean makes a strangled noise, nods as he chews on his lower lip. His eyes track the length of Sam's arm, settles on the point where it disappears underneath the table, notes the way it moves. Dean tips his head to the side, as if it might afford him the ability to see below.

Sam clears his throat. There's a streak of color across each cheek again, and he's sucked his lower lip into his mouth. "Dean," he says, and gives his head the slightest shake. "I—"

Dean mimics the movement, then nods and looks away. "Yeah. See, Sammy? I shouldn't be here. Maybe we should just let it happen."

Sam sits up abruptly. The table shakes beneath them. "No," he says, short and sharp and definite. "No."

It's wrong, really wrong, the way he's looking at his brother lately. Dean shakes his head again, looks down at the floor. "Thanks," he says. "For the pie. I didn't mean— It wasn't supposed to—"

"It's fine," Sam says. Just as sharp, just as definite. "Dean, I—"

Flo swans by the table and drops the check. She gives them a pointed look, and then leaves.

"Okay then," Sam says, and slides out from the booth, snagging the check in two fingers as he heads to the counter. Dean takes a few moments, and then heads for the door.

He blinks in the brighter light outside, and it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. Then he stares, at the bare piece of street in front of the diner.

"Dean," Sam says, as his feet hit the pavement behind him. "Dean. Where's the car?"