Fic - Supernatural - The Smart Thing to Do (2/2)

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Adler doesn’t seem all that surprised.

“It’s a shame to lose someone like you, Dean,” Adler says, but he’s smiling a little despite the words.

“It’s just not a right fit for me,” Dean says.

Adler just nods like he suspected all along. It’s nearly enough to get Dean to change his mind, nearly enough to push him to stay, prove Adler wrong, cash that check and purchase a membership to the golf club Adler’s always going on about. Almost, but not quite.

When Dean slides the check across the desk toward Adler, Adler frowns and says, “What’s this?”

“I can’t take this,” Dean says.

Adler lifts the check and looks at it, smoothes the crease where Dean had folded it on his way down the hall. Eventually Adler sighs, and his mouth turns up in a smirk that’s attempting to look sad.

“Keep it,” Adler says. “For a job well done.”

Dean protests and Adler insists, and eventually Dean folds the check again and slides it into his pocket, not because he wants it or plans to cash it, but because he sees it’s the only way to end this meeting, the only way to move on. Adler nods, satisfied, and shakes Dean’s hand.

Dean’s smile feels tight as he leaves Adler’s office. His fingers touch the edge of the check in his pocket and he can’t help but feel like the meeting is unfinished somehow, like there was something else Adler had to say but decided at the last minute to give him the check instead. Dean returns to his desk, shuts the door and stares at the check, wonders if he did the right thing until 5:30 rolls around and it’s time to meet Sam.

**

Sam is still ten minutes from the office, so Dean makes a detour to his car, intending to throw his briefcase into the trunk, grab the jeans that he knows are in a bag back there, and change his clothes before they hit the road. The garage is surprisingly full for the end of the day. An office full of overachievers working 80 hours a week. Any other day, Dean would see the garage and feel guilty for leaving so early.

He hears a noise and turns to see one lone guy leaning against the north wall. Dean nods, then crosses the few aisles to his car and presses the button to unlock the hatchback. He tosses his briefcase inside, throws his suit jacket neatly over the back seat. He checks his pocket for his wallet, then grabs the jeans and locks the car back up. He can feel the wall leaner’s eyes on him, and when Dean turns, the guy doesn’t bother to look away. He’s near the stairs, probably in here trying to catch a smoke break, though usually people go down to the sidewalk for that. The guy’s brow is furrowed, like staring at some dude in a parking garage requires all of his concentration. Dean stares back for a second and when the guy doesn’t look away, doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s been caught, Dean turns and gets the hell out of there.

By the time Dean changes and gets down to street level, Sam is there, tapping his fingers against his steering wheel. He leans over and pushes the passenger side door open when he sees Dean coming.

“Hey,” Dean says, tosses his pants into the back seat.

“I got stuck at every light,” Sam grunts.

As Sam’s about to turn the corner, Dean notices the wall leaner exit the parking garage, stopping on the sidewalk to watch Sam and Dean drive away.

**

Mabel’s on painkillers for her broken hand. They try to talk to her, but she’s convinced the year is 1946 and her parents are searching for her and her father is going to beat her when he finds out she’s not at home in her room.

“So much for Mabel,” Dean sighs.

“You need to be awake for work tomorrow?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs, then shakes his head. He gave his two weeks, it’s not like they’re gonna fire him.

They keep busy until it’s time for the volunteers to pack it up, and then they’re climbing back over the fence and into their empty east wing room.

Doreen shows up at quarter to one. She’s tall, taller than Dean expects her to be. Dean pictured someone along the lines of Mabel Wright. Doreen looks nothing like Mabel.

“She’s coming,” Doreen whispers, turning to stare at Sam and Dean.

“No one is coming,” Sam says. “Janet’s gone.” But Doreen isn’t listening. Dean watches as she becomes more and more agitated, and then Dean notices the pillow she’s gripping in her hands. He’s having a hard time breathing. He’s suddenly anxious, and he pulls at the collar of his shirt. The hallway is cold, he can see his breath. He can tell that the hallway is cold but he feels flushed anyway, like he has a fever, like he can’t get enough air into his lungs.

“She suffocated Janet,” Dean manages to say. “Doreen killed Janet the same way that she was killed.”

His chest feels tight and he takes a step back, uses the wall to prop himself up.

“Doreen,” Sam tries again. “Doreen, listen to me. Janet is gone. She isn’t coming back. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Doreen ignores Sam. She’s busy staring at Dean now, clutching her pillow, her face white and her hair a tangled mass of gray. Dean closes his eyes, can’t look at her, feels his heart pounding hard in his chest, knows that any second now Janet Teals will show up and it will be the end for Dean. He isn’t ready, he isn’t –

Dean opens his eyes. Doreen is gone. It’s just Sam and Dean now, Sam dropping a carton of salt to the ground as he rushes to Dean’s side, grips Dean’s arm.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks. “What the hell just happened to you?”

Dean takes a moment to catch his breath, lets Sam check his pulse and stare at his eyes. His heart slows, the anxiety and fear gone now, and Dean swallows and says, “I’m good. I’m good.”

Sam helps Dean to his feet, hands all over him, still checking to make sure he’s all right. Eventually Dean swats Sam away, straightens his clothes, rubs a hand across his face.

“I don’t think Janet Teals killed Doreen,” Dean says, feeling a lot more like himself now.

“You don’t?”

“I think Doreen thought Janet planned to kill her. I think Doreen worried herself sick, eventually scared herself to death. And now she’s doing the same thing to other people in the home. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it.”

**

It takes them twenty minutes to get out of the nursing home and over to the cemetery. And then they’re illegally digging up their second grave in a week. They dig in silence for a while. Dean thinks about Doreen, feels sorry for her, thinks she’d probably be horrified if she had any idea what she was doing to the poor old people at Ashton. He pushes his shovel into the soil and thinks about the smug look on Adler’s round face as he pushed the bonus check back across his desk toward Dean. If Dean didn’t know better he’d say it was a look that said, ‘everything is going according to plan,’ like maybe Adler was just buttering him up because he knew it would push Dean away from Sandover. Like maybe Dean wasn’t doing such a great job after all.

“How’d you explain the nose?” Sam asks, grunting as he hefts a large shovel of dirt from Doreen’s grave.

“What?” Dean asks.

“At work. How did you explain your busted up nose?” Sam asks.

“Oh,” Dean says. “Said I had an encounter with a friend’s over excited dog.”

“Couldn’t admit the truth, huh? You don’t think the guys in the office would be impressed to hear that someone’s grandmother nearly broke your face?”

“Shut up,” Dean says.

“You know, I wasn’t actually that sore today after all the digging we did last night,” Sam says. “I expected to be hurting.”

Dean eyes Sam’s upper body and thinks about the aches and pains in his own shoulders. Dean’s in pretty good shape, but Sam’s arms are ridiculous. “Yeah,” Dean agrees eventually. “I was worried you might pull something there.”

Now it is Sam’s turn to tell Dean to shut up, accompanied by a shovel full of grave dirt thrown at Dean’s legs.

“This how you flirt with all the guys?” Dean asks, shaking his head as he kicks the dirt off his jeans.

Sam makes a face and then says, “You know, you can let that joke go any day now.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks. He makes sure to keep digging as he talks. “Not funny anymore?”

“You think it was ever funny?” Sam laughs. “I mean, I get it, Dean. I’m a good looking guy – “

“Whoa,” Dean says, dropping his shovel and holding up his hands.

Sam continues. “I just think that if we’re gonna, you know, work together like this, we should keep things cool between us. Platonic.”

Dean stares at Sam for a long moment and then opens his mouth to speak. At a loss for words, he gapes silently, before finally, squeezing his eyes shut, says, “What are you talking about?”

Sam looks at Dean with what Dean can only define as some sort of pity. Dean raises an eyebrow and Sam shrugs, goes back to digging. Dean watches him until eventually Sam says, “You just gonna stand there all night?”

**

Dean stares at the flames, watches Doreen burn. Sam sighs beside him. He’s hunched over, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. Dean glances over at him, watches Sam watch the fire.

“So I gave my two weeks,” Dean says, after another moment.

Sam starts, turning toward Dean. “You what?”

“Gave my two weeks,” Dean repeats.

Sam’s mouth is hanging open. He looks down to hide some of his surprise, kicks at a tuft of grass with his shoe. Eventually he says, “Why?”

Dean shrugs. “More time for illegally digging up corpses? I don’t know.”

Sam’s mouth turns down in an exaggerated frown while he nods and considers this.

“So Doreen Hodgkin was enough to convince you that this wasn’t a fluke?”

Dean laughs. “More like a bruised face and two nights of no sleep were enough to convince me that I can’t do both at once. Had to make a choice, you know?”

“And digging up graves with me won out over giant bonus checks, nice suits, and golfing with Adler?”

“Sure did,” Dean grins.

Sam doesn’t say anything, seems to be thinking harder than usual. He’s probably thinking back on how badly Dean reacted when Sam suggested this very thing to him just a few weeks ago. He’s probably remembering how Dean wanted nothing to do with any of it.

Dean waits patiently until finally Sam says, “Huh. Think you’re going to regret it?”

“Regretting it already,” Dean lies. He turns back to stare down into the flaming grave.

“Yeah, right,” Sam says.

They continue their watch in silence. Eventually the fire dies down, leaving a pile of ash and coals in the bottom of the hole. Sam sighs heavily and bends over to retrieve their shovels. He hands one to Dean.

“You know,” Dean says, taking the shovel from Sam. “You were more surprised that I was quitting than Adler?”

Sam pushes his shovel into the pile of dirt, grunting a little as he tosses it back into the pit. “Thought you were pretty much Adler’s golden boy.”

“He seemed almost smug about the whole thing,” Dean says. “And then he tried to convince me to keep the bonus check.”

“You gonna?” Sam asks.

Dean starts helping Sam clean up their mess. He isn’t entirely sure of the point. It’s obvious someone has been here and when the disturbed grave is discovered, some poor schmuck is probably going to have to dig the whole thing back out in order to see the damage. Still, Sam insists that it’s the right thing to do.

“Well?” Sam asks.

“What?”

“You gonna keep the check?”

Dean makes a face and lifts a large shovel full of dirt. “Of course not.”

Sam shrugs and wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “You could buy a lot of salt with that check.”

Dean snorts. “Right?”

**

Dean’s last two weeks at Sandover pass quickly. He gets all of his accounts in order, pulls together client folders, organizes everything for the next guy. He barely makes it through Tuesday, feels a little better in the afternoon when Sam calls to tell him that no one died at Ashton that night. He skips out on Tuesday night boxing and falls asleep shortly after he gets home from the office.

On Thursday after work they fill Nalgene bottles with holy water at a church two blocks from Sam’s apartment.

“This isn’t right,” Dean whispers, attempting to discreetly dip the bottle beneath the pool of water. It doesn’t really fit, hitting the sides of the basin so that it will only partially submerge. “This is so fucked up.”

“Don’t swear,” Sam hisses back. “Jesu – Geez.”

Dean tries not to laugh. Somehow they manage to get it together and get out of there before the priest returns.

Over the weekend they investigate a woman in southeast Toledo who claims that her dog has some kind of demon in him. They’re locked in the garage with the dog who wags his tail but snarls and growls and barks and generally looks like he’d rip off Dean’s head if he had the chance. He’s huge, some kind of mutt that looks like a german shepherd, a rottweiler and a pitt bull all mixed together. He pulls at his restraints as Sam reads some Latin mumbo jumbo from one of the books he’d collected from his dusty old internet contacts.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Dean asks. He thinks that locking themselves in a garage with this thing was probably not the smartest idea they’ve ever had. He looks around and grabs a broom that’s leaning against the wall, holding it in front of him like it’s some kind of shield.

Sam just keeps reading, his voice low and intense. The dog barks and jumps at them. Dean takes a step back, holds out an arm to protect Sam.

The dog lunges again and something snaps. The dog jumps, landing against Dean. Dean shouts and stumbles back, falling into Sam. Sam’s book slides across the floor out of reach. Dean, still half on Sam, reaches for his broom, ready to hit the dog with it, something. He looks up, broom wielded in his left hand, Sam’s shoulder pressed firmly against his right, ready for battle.

“Uh, Sam?” Dean says.

The garage is quiet. The dog’s stopped barking, stopped doing everything. It’s just sitting there, staring at Dean, tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth, ears perky and amiable.

“Maybe it worked?” Dean suggests. He turns back toward Sam.

Sam isn’t even looking at the dog. He’s staring up at Dean, his face all soft and funny. He looks like he’s forgotten all about the dog and the Latin and the barking.

“What – “ Dean starts, and pulls back when Sam leans up just slightly. “Are you going to kiss me?”

Sam continues to stare for a minute and then he shakes his head and shoves at Dean’s shoulder. “Of course not, asshole.”

Dean sits up and the dog stands, takes a step toward him.

“Whoa,” Dean says, holding up his hands. The dog leans in, sniffs his palms, and then slides his giant wet tongue across Dean’s right hand.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Dean says.

“It didn’t,” Sam grunts. “I didn’t finish it.”

“You didn’t finish it?”

“I don’t think the dog was possessed.”

Dean tentatively reaches out and pats the dog’s head. The dog lets him, sits back down, wags his tail.

“So what? It just really doesn’t like Latin?”

“I guess,” Sam says.

“Wish we’d figured that out before we tried the exorcism.”

Sam shoots Dean a look. “What’s funny now?”

Dean didn’t even realize he was smiling.

“Nothing,” he says. He tries to stop, but it only lasts a second before he can feel it twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Sam grabs Dean’s broom and props it back against the wall. “Come on. What?”

“You were absolutely hitting on me in that elevator,” Dean says.

Sam huffs a little. “I really wasn’t,” Sam says, and then reaches for his book and heads toward the door of the garage.

“Sure, Sammy,” Dean says. He never plans to believe Sam again.

**

By the following Wednesday Dean’s been with Sam every day and is not sick of him yet. In a way, Sam was right. Dean does feel like he knows Sam. He doesn’t always understand Sam, he’s still a little freaked out about the whole missing girlfriend and wrong life stuff, but most of the time Dean feels like he’s known Sam Wesson for years.

On Thursday Sam finally buys his gun, and that Saturday they get a 12 pack of beer and go shooting. They take it out into some fields, way outside of town, and set up empty Coke cans on a fallen log.

Dean inspects the gun while Sam pours over the inspection manual.

“You ever done this before?” Dean asks.

“Nope,” Sam says, holding out his hand for the gun.

Dean passes the gun to Sam, watches as Sam turns it over in his hand. “Ever do it in one of your dreams?”

Sam cocks the gun, aims and shoots, the sound loud in Dean’s ears. Dean watches as one of the cans falls over neatly.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I’ve dreamed about it.”

“Jesus,” Dean says. He’s a little horrified that he’s suddenly slightly aroused. He didn’t peg himself as one of those guys who gets off on guns.

Sam seems a little surprised by himself, stares down at the gun in his hand. He lifts it again, aims, and shoots the next four cans in quick succession. Dean watches as Sam reloads the gun and hands it over to Dean.

It feels strange in Dean’s hand. He finishes his beer while he watches Sam walk out to the log, his long legs taking huge steps in the tall grass. Sam repositions the cans and then turns to head back to where Dean is standing.

“Go for it,” Sam says.

Dean holds off a moment longer and then raises the gun and shoots. His first shot misses, but his second three are right on the mark, three cans down. He stops shooting and lowers the gun.

“Huh,” Sam says, leaning against the Blazer.

Dean sets the gun down on the hood of the car and reaches for another beer. He opens it and downs half the can, then hands it to Sam. Sam takes it, plucks at the tab twice before taking a sip.

“So in these dreams of yours,” Dean says, reaching for another beer. “It’s just you and me?”

Sam shrugs. “Mostly, yeah.”

“What happens?”

“Different things. We’ve killed vampires. Uh, I had one where you were holding down a demon on a plane while I exorcised it. I dreamt that we were in prison and there was this ghost. I don’t know. We kill a lot of things, mostly. Why?”

“What do you think it means?”

“What?” Sam asks. “The dreams?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “The dreams.”

“I don’t know. They’re just dreams. They don’t have to mean anything.”

“But they do mean something, right?” Dean insists. “You think they do. You and me, we wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t think your dreams meant something. We’d still be at Sandover sitting behind our desks. Sam, we might not even know each other.”

“What do you want me to say?” Sam asks. “That I’m dreaming our future or something? That I’m some kind of psychic?”

“Are you?” Dean asks. It’s weird, the idea that Sam might be psychic, but it makes sense. It makes more sense than the idea that they’re living lives that aren’t theirs, that Sam’s dreams are windows to the world they really belong to.

Sam is quiet for a moment, staring down into his beer.

“Are you?” Dean repeats.

Sam sighs, opens his empty palm and stares into it. “I don’t know,” he says. “I hope not.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Sam says. “I don’t know.”

Dean sighs, stares out across the field. It’s starting to get dark and Dean finishes the last of his beer and crunches the can a little in his hand.

“You want to get out of here? Grab some food or something?”

“Okay,” Sam nods. He trudges out across the field. Dean watches as Sam collects the cans from the ground. The sun is almost gone now and Sam mostly looks like a dark silhouette moving against the deep blue of the sky. Dean can’t stop thinking about Sam’s dreams, about their meeting at Sandover, about how easy it’s been to slip into this, how easy it is with Sam. He thinks about their afternoon in the garage with Rover, thinks about how Sam looked at him that day.
Dean thinks he’s probably had enough beer for the night.

Dean watches as Sam picks up the last of the cans. Sam stands out there for a moment, turns so that Dean's pretty sure Sam is staring back at him. After a good thirty seconds pass and Sam doesn’t move, Dean shouts, “You okay?”

Sam’s quiet, doesn’t answer, but after another moment he starts walking back toward the car.

“Did you see something out there?” Dean asks, when Sam is almost back beside him. Sam drops the bag of cans in the grass and reaches out to set a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?”

“I want you to know that I really wasn’t hitting on you in the elevator,” Sam says.

“Oh,” Dean says. “Okay, Sammy. I believe you.”

“Okay,” Sam agrees, then adds, “It’s Sam.” He doesn’t remove his hand from Dean’s shoulder.

Dean looks down at Sam’s hand, then back up at Sam, smiles and says, “What are you doing?”

And then Sam leans in and kisses him. Dean’s first instinct is to pull away and he does, just a little, but Sam follows, his hand coming up to hold Dean’s chin. His thumb slides across Dean’s cheek. Sam’s eyes are closed and Dean stares at Sam’s eyelids, at the bridge of his nose, and wonders what he’s supposed to do.

Dean’s thought about what he’d do if this happened, he’s thought about it more than he wants to admit. Dean's just never thought about what he should do if it happens like this.

When Dean imagined it, it was in the heat of some big battle, adrenaline pumping. Maybe they’re locked into close quarters somewhere, pressed together for hours and eventually Dean can’t take it anymore, pulls Sam down and kisses him. Or maybe Dean saves Sam from a vampire or a ghoul, and once the bastard is dead, Dean just can’t help himself, he kisses Sam, needs some kind of release. He imagines it’ll be a situation that he can brush away, come up with excuses to explain. In each scenario, Dean always thought it’d be him who accidentally ends up kissing Sam and scrambling for an explanation.

Sam pulls away, frowns at him.

“That was weird,” Sam says. “Sorry.”

“What?” Dean asks. He realizes that his hand is on Sam’s arm, but other than that he’s just been standing here, hasn’t moved, hasn’t kissed Sam back. Sam must think he’s horrified or disgusted, worse.

Dean thinks that the smart thing to do is probably to brush it off, act like it’s no big deal and get them out of this field. Instead he says, “I meant to kiss you back.”

“What?” Sam asks.

“I was going to – I didn’t get a chance to kiss you back. I was going to.”

“You were?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs and then says, “Yeah.”

“Oh,” Sam says. His hands have found their way into his pockets and he’s hunched over, curling in on himself in front of Dean.

“Maybe kiss me again,” Dean suggests.

“I don’t think –“

“I’ll be ready for it this time.”

“Are you sure?” Sam asks. “This is kind of weird now. And it’s getting cold out here.”

“No,” Dean says. “Come on. It can be quick.” Sam’s right. It is weird now, but Dean doesn’t want to let it go like that. Doesn’t want Sam to think that Dean is pushing him away again.

“Dean,” Sam starts, and Dean cuts him off, leans in and kisses Sam.

Sam kisses him back right away. It’s still a little weird, but kind of a nice weird. Dean can’t actually remember the last time he kissed anyone, which means that it’s obviously been far too long. He likes the feel of Sam against him, big and solid. Sam’s hands are on his face again, holding Dean’s mouth to him. They kiss like that, safe and slow, until eventually Sam’s the one to pull away for the second time.

He takes a step back and waits for Dean’s reaction. Dean thinks he should crack a joke, something, but instead he just stands there, stares back, nods. Sam leans back against the front of the Blazer and stares out into the dark.

“So did you see that in any of your dreams?” Dean asks eventually, unable to handle the awkward silence any longer.

“No,” Sam says, his laugh nervous. “I haven’t dreamed anything like that.”

“Still hungry?” Dean asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says, pushing himself away from the front of the Blazer. “Yeah, let’s go.”

**

Dean spends Sunday at the office, pulling together last minute things, cleaning out his drawers, boxing up all of his office trinkets. He tells himself that it’s stuff that has to be done, stuff that he won’t have time to do on Monday. He tells himself he’s not doing it to avoid Sam.

Sam was right, after all. They have a lot going on. It’s much easier if they just keep things platonic between them. Maybe they should save the awkward kissing for adrenaline rush post battle moments

When Dean finally leaves the office, it’s dark and his car is one of three in the garage. He’s almost to his door when he looks up to find the wall leaner watching him again, this time standing by one of the support columns.

“Hey,” Dean snaps, “Hey, buddy.” This is the third time he’s caught this guy watching him outside the building and Dean’s had enough. Three days ago he and Sam took on some kind of pet cemetery demon cat (this time Dean was pretty positive that there was something fucked up with the cat. Besides personality issues, that is). Dean still has the scratches. After demon cat, Dean thinks he can handle some constipated looking guy in a big coat. “You following me or something?”

“My name is Castiel,” the trenchcoat says as he approaches. “I can help you.”

Dean smiles and starts to turn away. “Thanks, but I’m not looking for another job right now.”

“Dean,” Castiel says, and when he reaches out and touches Dean’s right shoulder, Dean stops walking, lets the smile slip from his lips.

“Who gave you my name?” Dean asks. If the guy is some sort of recruiter, he’s probably checked up on Dean already, has probably known his name for weeks. It’s not that weird. The way he says it though, familiar, the firm hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean doesn’t like it. “Help me, how?”

“I’m going to give you an address,” Castiel says. “At the address is a woman who needs your help.”

“Help with what?” Dean asks again, but Castiel just shakes his head, rattles off the address: 15 Altmore Lane in Findlay, forty minutes south of Toledo.

Castiel repeats the address and then nods, turns to leave.

“What – wait,” Dean says. “You got a first name?”

Castiel stops, turns to stare at Dean for a minute. His eyebrows are furrowed, like he’s trying hard to remember. Or to make something up. “David,” he says eventually. “David Castiel.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“It isn’t important,” David Castiel says over his shoulder and then he disappears into the stairwell.

**

Dean intended to head home, call it an early night, but he finds himself driving to Sam’s place instead. Sam is surprised to see him, wipes his hands on his jeans and steps aside to let Dean in.

“You want pizza?” Sam asks. “It just got here.”

Dean rubs a hand over his face and then nods and says, “Okay.”

Four beers and two slices of pizza later, Dean finally gets around to telling Sam about the guy in the parking lot.

“So, some random guy has been stalking you in the parking garage and when you confronted him he gave you the address of a woman who needs our help,” Sam says, condensing Dean’s version of events down to something a bit more manageable.

“Right,” Dean confirms. He wrote down the address as soon as he returned to his car and now he slides the paper across the table toward Sam.

“What if it’s a trap?” Sam says. “I mean, how does this guy even know the kind of stuff we help with? It’s not like we have a website or an ad in the paper or something,” Sam points out. “It’s not like we’re in some kind of ghost fighting demon hunting business. We’ve only been doing this three weeks.”

Dean thinks that Sam might be onto something there, but he pushes the thought aside for the moment, says, “Who would bother to set up a trap for us? We’re no one.”

“I don’t know, Dean. I just don’t think this is a great idea. I mean, we don’t know anything about this guy.”

“So we’ll look into him,” Dean says. “We’ll look into this house. If we find anything we’ll go check it out. If we don’t, then we call the guy crazy and get on with our lives. Okay?”

Sam thinks about it for a moment, then half shrugs and says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Dean repeats and smiles into his beer. “You know, a demon hunting business isn’t really that bad an idea.”

“Yeah, right,” Sam says with a chuckle.

“Seriously,” Dean says. “Look at the Ghostfacers. They’re in it for the exposure, for the TV show, right? But say we set up a website like that. I mean, less flashy obviously, just something simple with a phone number. We can like – you know, a couple hundred dollars to get rid of a home possession, more if it’s really dangerous.”

“That’s kinda fucked up,” Sam says.

Dean shrugs. “Maybe we charge an extra fee if it turns out your dog doesn’t really have a demon inside it after all. I don’t know. You got a better idea to make money?”

“Not yet,” Sam says.

“Well let me know when you do, hot shot,” Dean finishes.

Sam rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling and things between them have lost some of the awkwardness that they’d had the night before. Sam leaves the table and grabs his laptop, settling with it on the couch.

”What did you say that guy’s name was?” Sam asks.

“David Castiel,” Dean says. He leaves the stool he’s been perched on and sits beside Sam on the couch. He sits a little too close, but Sam doesn’t bother to move away.

The internet doesn’t give them any information on David Castiel, at least not the right David Castiel. They find facebook pages and twitter accounts for David Castiels in California and Texas, but Dean is pretty positive they haven’t found the right guy.

They have better luck with the address in Findlay. The home belongs to a single mother named Dolly Sadler. Dolly was driving home from her daughter’s choir practice two months ago when she swerved to avoid a deer. Her car drove off the road, hit a ditch, flipped, and was stopped by a tree. Dolly Sadler survived, but her only child, Brenda, wasn’t as lucky.

“Guess we’re going to Findlay,” Dean says.

**

Dean’s last day at Sandover feels like the longest day of Dean’s life. Coworkers that he’s only known for a month and half stream into his office to wish him luck. The receptionist made cookies and Adler keeps grinning at him like he’s got some big secret he wishes he could share. Dean locks himself in his office in the early part of the afternoon. He stares at his empty shelves, at his desk, at Toledo stretching out outside his windows.

At three o'clock Dean slips the bonus check, now wrinkled and folded, from beneath his keyboard. He slides the paper between his fingers, tries to smooth out the wrinkles.

He doesn’t know how any of this is going to work out. He still worries about things like health insurance and money. Dean has some money saved. They’ll be fine for a while, but it won’t last. The first time one of them gets seriously hurt - and Dean can tell, they will - they’re going to have to come up with a better plan. He doesn’t know how Sam can be so sure about all of this.

A month ago, Dean never would have dreamed of actually going through with this. A month ago, Dean was perfectly sane. He knew that Sam Wesson was nuts. Now Dean is pretty sure he’s probably just as crazy. But he likes Sam, he knows Sam, and so things are a little strange right now. Dean can tell that they’ll work through it. Dean can tell that things will either move forward, or they’ll pull back, settle into the comfortable partnership they’d already started to build. Dean hopes that they’ll move forward, hopes that they’ll try to figure out what they have between them. It’ll be awkward and weird, but Dean thinks that ultimately, they'll be able to smooth out the awkward and the weird and it’ll be worth it.

Dean thinks that he should keep the check. Adler told him to keep it, after all. "For a job well done." The check could help the first time one of them breaks something, the first time they need stitches or end up in the hospital with a concussion. Keeping the bonus check would be smart.

Dean pictures the smug smile on Adler's face and rips the check into strips, tossing it into the bin.

**

Dean's hand is up to knock when Sam flings the door open, pulls Dean into a hug, and then shoves a beer into Dean’s hand. Dean stands there stunned for a second, staring at the beer.

“Congratulations,” Sam says. He’s grinning, and his whole face is involved in the grin and Dean can’t look away, finds himself smiling back as he twists the cap off the beer and takes a sip.

“Did I win the lottery?” Dean asks, raises his eyebrows.

“No,” Sam laughs. “I mean on getting out of Sandover. I told you this wasn’t a fluke.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “Yeah.”

“So you’re a free man, what are you going to do now?”

“I thought we were heading down to Findlay tomorrow,” Dean frowns.

“I meant in general,” Sam clarifies. “Not just tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “I was thinking I’d sell my apartment.”

“You’re serious?” Sam asks. “I thought you’d say Disneyland. Something cheesy like that.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean says. “I mean, in this market it won’t sell right away anyway, and if it does then great. We’ll have some extra funds. It’s the smart thing to do, right? I can get a small studio or crash with you for a while. If – I mean, if you’re okay with that idea.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah.”

Dean slides off his blazer and tosses it over the arm of Sam’s old couch. Sam reaches out a hand toward him, probably to take his jacket, and then lets it fall awkwardly back to his side. Dean watches Sam stand there, watches him fidget and try to figure out what to do with himself. He’s full of nervous energy, seems too large for his own apartment, and there’s something about the way that he shifts, the way that he finally folds his arms across his broad chest. Dean can tell there’s no going back. Sam wants to move forward with this too. With all of it.

“What?” Sam asks, and Dean realizes that he’s smiling like an idiot, holding his beer in front of him, the bottle halfway to his mouth.

“What?” Dean repeats. “Nothing.”

Eventually Sam unfolds his arms, visibly relaxes, and says, “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”

Dean reaches out and slaps Sam’s shoulder in a manly show of support. “Well, believe it, Sammy. You’re stuck with me, at least for a while.”

Sam shakes his head and looks down, tries to hide his smile. Finally he looks up and says, “You know, I think I’m okay with that.”