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Sam blames the fact that they'd been narrowing in on their family demon for his own lack of perception. That, and the fact that they'd honestly been too busy running for their lives, hiding, fighting, running again, for Dean to do much of anything else.
The demon is dead, now, and Dad's on his way to a Tibetan monastery--Dean's jaw had dropped, but Sam had just nodded understandingly--and as the bruises and burns fade, the days stretch long. It's mid-September in northern California, and the nights are cool enough that when Sam sits on the hood of the Impala outside their motel room to look at the stars, he has to wear a jacket. He looks at the night sky a lot, these days, after so long staring into shadows, waiting for a killer who shunned the light. Mostly he thinks about music and food and girls and movies, anything to distract himself from what's right in front of him. He feels strange and hollow and quiet most of the time, and more often than not he wakes up somewhere besides his own bed.
Dean doesn't seem to mind, not even when Sam's ass leaves a little dent in the hood of the car after he falls asleep there one night. But Dean's a little different now, slower and more careful about things even though the skin on his arms is coming back pink and new with health, treated with holy water and aloe to counter the burns he ignored while pulling Sam off the ceiling. Sam doesn't think about that either, but sometimes he catches Dean scratching gently at wrist or elbow, and he can't look away.
The first post-demon move Dean makes is a printout, left in the crumple of Sam's blankets on the bed, lying there innocently like it just happened to fall from the sky. Sam picks it up curiously, then snorts, biting his lip to hold back the smile. Inconisitencies Exist Within Grading System! the headline trumpets from the printout of the Stanford student paper. Sam reads it through carefully, grinning a little at things he recognizes and places he knows the name of, then wads it up and tosses it out.
Dean hasn't ever really been all that complimentary about Stanford. Sam doesn't think much of it.
They spend their days watching television, walking around--Dean insists Sam needs to keep his damaged muscles moving and flexible, and Sam concedes the point--going to movies, wasting time. It's like being in limbo, somewhere in Marin County, and it's very strange. He's never been in one place this long, not since Jess died, and it's strange to realize that in two and a half weeks, he's become a regular at the diner down the street, and the guy tending bar at the Beacon knows Dean by name. They've been there long enough that Sam has been able to do laundry twice, at the same laundromat. So weird.
"You know, Sam," Dean says, in that super-casual voice he uses when he's not being casual at all, "I've been hearing some nasty things about that school of yours. Sexual harassment in grad school, all kinds of things."
Sam glances at him, surprised. Usually they talk about football and cars on their walks, and Dean makes fun of Sam mercilessly for his limp. "Dude, that was a long time ago, and anyway, it's getting handled." He watches Dean shrug, still casual.
"If you were a chick you'd be burning your bra, Sam, don't think I don't know it." The glance he gets then is pure vintage Dean, wicked as sin. "Just thought your inner girl should be aware."
"Dude!" Sam smacks his shoulder. "Fuck off, I would not be burning my bra." He can't believe he's saying it, even as it comes out of his mouth, and Dean's cackle confirms his mistake in even having this conversation.
"You totally would. You'd stop shaving, too, because it'd be some kind of ladies' rights thing--" With a hoot of laughter, Dean dances away from Sam's reaching hand, easy to do now that Sam's got a gimp and doesn't want to hit him someplace sore. "You'd be the ugliest chick ever."
Settling back, hands back in pockets, Sam smirks back at him. "At least I don't look like a chick already, like someone I know with a real pretty face..."
"Don't be jealous, Sam." Dean's all sympathy, now, slinging an arm around Sam and batting those absurd eyelashes at him. "It's not your fault I got all the good looks."
"Funny how you got all the stupid with it," Sam growls, and once they've reached the point where he's calling Dean stupid and Dean's calling him bitch, he knows Dean's won this one.
***
Moving Sam's Stanford sweatshirt out of the way so he can sit at the table and surf for porn on Sam's computer--Sam has asked and asked him not to, and has finally given up--Dean mutters, "grade inflation, Sammy, I'm telling you, you're getting gypped."
***
Sam finally, finally twigs that something funny is going on when Dean insists on laying in bed with him, channel-surfing before sleep, and goes on a ten-minute diatribe about how college actually makes you dumber. At first he's tempted to be pissed, figuring it's just the latest in their endless game of "I'm smarter," but he's derailed by the way Dean's shoulder is snagged up against his own, by the sleepy nonconfrontation in Dean's voice, by the increasingly powerful gasps of laughter that keep trying to escape as Dean's arguments get wilder and wilder.
"Books," Dean finally proclaims, "everyone knows that reading books is bad for you. Keeps you from thinking on your own--" and then he's cut off, because Sam can't help it, he's bending over and clutching at his stomach as he explodes in helpless laughter.
"Okay," and there's a little sheepishness in Dean's voice, when Sam can finally hear him again. "Okay, that was maybe not totally true."
"You think?" Sam's grinning at him, still confused but terribly amused, and loving Dean's embarrassed eye roll and slouch.
"Whatever, it's not like you were listening to me anyway."
"Was so."
"Was not. Hey." Dean's hand locks around his elbow as he tries to slide off the bed. "Where you going?"
"Um, to take a LEAK, if that's okay with you?" Sam can feel his eyebrows climbing up his forehead. What the fuck?
"Oh, yeah, cool." He's released and moves away with just a shrug. "Hey, come back, though, you hear me? It's getting too cold for you to sleep on the car or by the pool."
The fact that Dean knows where Sam has been sleeping is no surprise whatsoever. And even Sam will admit that sleeping at his brother's side, a protective arm heavy over his waist and Dean's breath soft in his ear, is a comfort so deep that it soothes places inside he didn't even know were raw.
***
"Why are we in a law office?" Sam thinks it's appropriate to ask, since as far as he knows they aren't in any legal trouble (at the moment), and Dean looks a little out of place in his battered boots and jacket, in the chrome and glass lobby. Sam doesn't look much better himself, he knows.
"Thought you might like to meet some lawyers," Dean answers, finally, stretching down into a chair with that totally exasperating smile. "See the kind of people you're going to be working with for the rest of your life. Be prepared, Dad always says." Dean waves a finger at the sleek modern door. "Go on, check out the ambulance chasers. I bet they're nice."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Sam grits out, staring at him, before turning and storming out of the lobby. Fuck Dean, anyway.
"What?" Dean catches up with him before he's half a block away. "Come on, Sam, those are your people in there."
"Shut up," Sam growls at him. "Just shut the fuck up, or I will fucking hit you in the face."
It's almost a shock when Dean complies.
***
Sam hasn't had a nightmare since they sent the demon screaming back to hell, but Dean has more than made up for his lack. He doesn't talk or cry out or anything, but once in a while, sometimes even once a night, he'll snap from deep sleep to totally rigid and aware, eyes huge and open and fixed, before he sighs and rolls over and goes back to sleep. Sam feels like apologizing for all the times he had nightmares before, because it's really starting to freak him out, and at least he doesn't have to worry that Dean's nightmares will come true.
He doesn't think he does, anyway. Dean won't talk about them, of course, just brushes Sam away with a curt "dude, quit it, get off me," when Sam tries to help.
The last few days have been strange, off-balance, like they're hanging at the edge of some big thing that Sam can't see yet. Dean is cranky and uncommunicative, and watches Sam rub his salve into the angry red scar running the length of his hip with a brooding, closed-off face that even Sam doesn't try to breach. It's getting better, Sam knows, better every day, like Dean's arms and the healed cut across Sam's belly and Dean's cracked ribs. Pretty soon they'll be healed up enough to move on, and Sam can see Dean knowing it, and can hear the way they don't talk about it, as loud as any conversation Sam's ever overheard. He doesn't want to think about it. He can't see any further than tomorrow.
When Dean finally snaps, it's that beautifully familiar half-whine half-plea, hands tight on the back of Sam's chair, peeking at the laptop where Sam's pulled up admissions deadlines for Stanford Law.
"C'mon, Sam, law school?" He flings himself onto the opposite chair, disbelief and outrage in every line of his body. "You're so much better than that. Come on."
"Dean." Sam's in no mood. He's already missed the deadline for fall admissions, and the feeling of relief he recognized at the discovery is deeply disturbing. "Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm just saying, and I am totally within my rights as a big brother here, that you would be completely freakin' wasted on law school." Dean tips forward, intense, intent. "Think about it. Stuck in a dusty old room with dusty old books, or out in the world doing stuff, helping people."
"Lawyers help people too." Sam can feel his jaw set. "It's not like I'm gonna be a criminal defense lawyer here, y'know. I'm not running out to try to get Manson or OJ or whoever aquitted, I'm not gonna be that kind of lawyer."
Dean's up and pacing now. "You shouldn't be any kind of lawyer. You're like, like, you'd be a wolf or something, don't laugh at me, you dick, you'd be like a wolf in with a flock of sheep or something. And what happens when you get some case and you know it's one of ours? Something we should be doing something about?"
"Then I call you," Sam points out, totally reasonably to his mind, still not sure why he's arguing this. "I call and say, hey, Dean, there's something supernatural here, and if you're not hunting anymore you can at least point me at someone who is."
"...If I'm not hunting anymore," Dean mutters, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Look. Don't go back to school, all right? Bottom line." And that really IS Dean laying it on the line, Sam realizes with something like shock. He's got that tense tight look around his eyes, mouth set, face pale, Dean really means it.
"Why not?" Sam watches him carefully. "It's my dream. Always has been." He's testing, now, watching Dean's face as he struggles, watching the small flinch of his eyelids, the shuttering of his face, the way his eyes change when he gives up.
"Yeah." Back to the chair, now, moving like an old man for the first time. Dean nods once he's settled. "Yeah, it has been. And you're gonna be a kickass lawyer, Sam, that's for damn sure."
"You know what? Fuck you, and fuck this cryptic bullshit." Sam's on his feet before he even knows it, standing over Dean, shouting into his shocked face, staring into eyes gone moss-green in the low light. "What the fuck, Dean? Talk to me, for once in your stupid moron idiot life, fucking say what you're thinking, okay? I swear to you, your dick will not fall off."
There's a pause, like Dean can't believe what Sam just said, like Sam can't believe it either, and then Dean's face is cracking, crumbling with laughter, and Sam can't help but join in. It stops as abruptly as it started, but something's eased, and Sam slumps down on the bed, elbows on knees and chin in hand, staring at his brother.
"Will you just tell me?"
Dean sighs. "I hate this shit," he complains accusingly, as if this is all somehow Sam's fault. "All this...whatever, dude." He visibly braces himself. "Look. Stay with me. We're a good team, we do all right, we're making a difference." He's looking at a spot about a foot over Sam's right shoulder, face tense.
"Why?" Sam knows it's probably like baiting the tiger, but he really does want to know. Dean's furious look confirms the former, but he actually answers, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief.
"I just told you, assmunch. We're a good team. You're good at this, so on and so forth."
"You could get another job," Sam points out, taking his life in his hands, and he's not disappointed when he suddenly has a whole lot of Dean right up in his face, practically spitting he's so mad.
"No, I could NOT get another job, SAM, because I don't know how to do anything else. I can't, okay, and I cannot do this alone. I need you."
It hangs there in the room like a thousand pounds of elephant that just stepped out of the closet, the truth of it ringing echoes in Sam's ears. He's reaching for Dean before he knows it, knotting his hands in that soft old shirt and tugging him down into an awkward sprawl on the bed, so that they're touching.
"I can't either," he breathes into Dean's shoulder, hiding his face from the truth even as he speaks it and realizes it for the first time. "I thought I could but I can't, not now, maybe I never could. I'm not going anywhere, Dean."
That breathless little bark of laughter Dean gives when he's truly relieved is the best thing Sam's ever heard. And he thinks maybe Dean kisses his head in there somewhere, but he's too lightheaded and dizzy to think about it much, what with the loss of his lifelong dream and all. He's maybe mourning a little, maybe in shock, maybe just too overwhelmed to be much of anything, but he feels his lips twitch into a helpless smile when Dean grabs him closer.
"That's good. That's real good. Stanford sucks, anyway."
And now, to bed. Sweet dreams, all.