a l o n e . i . f e a r . t h e . t i d e

Alone I Fear the Tide
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG

Summary: In which Sam and Dean share a summer house, even though it's winter, investigate some odd disappearances, and have pie.

Spoilers: Through Devil's Trap; no season 2 spoilers, spec only.

Notes: Thanks to amberlynne and leadensky for handholding, and to luzdeestrellas for betaing above and beyond. All remaining errors are mine. Title from Tom McRae. Post-Devil's Trap, spec only, no s2 spoilers.

Date: September 24, 2006

The house is small, cold, and damp, originally built as a summer getaway for rich people from Manhattan, not really meant to be lived in between October and May, despite telltale signs of recent refurbishing. But Dean still doesn't have the energy to deal with motel living, though he'd deny it if Sam brought it up, and it's a place they can stay rent-free for a while.

Dean doesn't really have the energy to drive cross-country yet, either, but it hasn't kept him from trying. They just stop earlier and start later, and if Dean is still sometimes pale beneath his freckles and frayed around the edges, he's better than he was three months ago, two weeks ago, yesterday. Step by step, Sam tells himself, because Dean wants to take them three at a time, and someone has to make sure he doesn't.

The house belongs to a friend of a friend, one of the many in the network of hunters Sam's never met and hasn't ever heard named, but there is salt eating away at the wood on the threshold and runes carved into the wood of the door, so he knows it's safe.

Dean drops his bag on the floor in front of the closet and flips on the lights, which gleam warm yellow-orange in the gloomy February evening. He closes his eyes and leans against the wall, and Sam thinks maybe they should have come straight here and then he could have gone shopping by himself afterwards.

"Dean--"

Dean's eyes snap open, startlingly green in his wan face. "I'm fine." His mouth twists for a moment, then, "Well, let's get this shit put away." He kicks his duffel. "I wonder if they have cable."

Sam sighs and starts unpacking, too tired to resent slipping into old habits. The familiar motions are soothing. This is what he knows, what he's good at, and right now it's as close to normal as he's going to get.

When Sam unpacked in his first dorm room at Stanford, he was hyperaware that everything he owned was in his duffel bag, and that once unpacked, it would not need to be repacked again until May. It was the longest he'd be living in one place since the year Dean broke his wrist (not even in a hunting accident--he'd been playing baseball and slid headfirst into second base like an idiot; that was the end of after-school sports for both of them) and they'd stayed with Pastor Jim for four months.

Sam had liked the stability of it then, and he liked it now; while everyone else around him buzzed with the anxiety of being away from home for the first time, he felt the excitement of actually having a home that wasn't rentable by the hour. He tried hard not to think about the fact that come May, he wouldn't have any other place to go, and instead concentrated on arranging his stuff. For the first time, the drawers in the battered old dresser were all his, and the top shelf of the closet, too. He reveled in the freedom to spread out, arrange everything how he wanted it, instead of with the military precision Dad had always demanded from them, even as kids.

His side of the room was always neater than his roommate's, though. He could only stand a certain low level of chaos before he started to feel itchy, as if his skin didn't fit right. As if he wasn't safe. He still needed to have everything in order so he could find it even half-asleep in the dark, even though the whole point of coming to Stanford was to avoid ever again having to stumble out of bed with a gun in his hand and come up firing.

It was just easier to keep everything neatly in order if it started out that way. Sam never did find a system that worked better for him than Dad's (with a few minor modifications), and he'd tried quite a few. He chose not to think about that, either.

He sets his shaving kit on the toilet tank, and Dean's next to it, working methodically the way Dad taught them. He sometimes feels as if he has done nothing but pack and unpack in a series of forgettable motel and dorm rooms, and life is slipping by while he does.

The bathroom is done in aqua and sea foam, colors Dean would mock him for knowing the names of, and all of Dean's medications fit neatly into the spacious medicine chest, hidden behind a mirror that shows him a face he sometimes doesn't recognize, eyes haunted and heavy, ringed with dark circles that all the sleep in the world might not banish. The faucet is shaped like a mermaid, and the water is rusty at first, but it warms and clears when he lets it run for a couple of minutes. He washes his face, pretends he can wash the weariness away.

When he comes out of the bathroom, he finds Dean fiddling with the television in the living room. The cable is hooked up and working, which is a surprise, because Sam would have thought they'd have it turned off in the off-season.

Dean shakes his head. "The house has been winterized, and thank fucking God, because I really wasn't looking forward to bundling for heat tonight."

Sam thinks about saying something about the waitress at the diner they'd stopped in for lunch, the checkout girl in Stop and Shop, a hundred other girls Dean has charmed and forgotten because he knows there will always be a hundred more wherever he goes, and how happy any of them would have been to bundle with him. Instead, he says, "You lit the pilot?"

"No, I'm just going to use the power of my mind to set things on fire. Oh wait, that's you." He snickers, and Sam's glad at least one of them is amused. "Yes, I lit the pilot. The boiler room is in the basement." He slumps into the easy chair, remote in hand, and says, "Bitch, get me a beer."

Sam smacks the back of his head lightly. "Get it yourself." Dean flips him off but doesn't get up. Neither of them mentions that they didn't buy any beer. Dean had looked longingly at it in the supermarket, but grabbed a case of bottled water instead. He's still on pain medication, though he tries to go without it as often as possible. Sam pretends he doesn't notice for as long as he can before he pulls the little plastic bottles out of his bag and forces the pills on Dean with whatever's left in his cup of coffee. Sam's still walking carefully around him, trying to find the balance between hovering and pulling away, still afraid he'll break again, and that next time, nothing will fix him.

"You know, there was actually a time when MTV played videos," Dean says after a long silence.

"So I've heard."

"Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth." Dean runs through the channels, commenting on things occasionally. Finally, he settles on SportsCenter, familiar enough that they don't need to pay any attention to it, and says, "So what do we know?"

"Several women have gone missing in the past few months--four since November. Two were related--married to brothers. The husbands all claim their wives just left, but Dad thinks it's something. It's not the first time groups of women have disappeared from the area. Seems to happen in cycles of seven years--women disappear from November through May. No signs of violence, but they never turn up anywhere else, alive or dead." He's said all this before, but it's possible Dean was asleep when he did; he doesn't remember. He can't distinguish one day from the next lately, everything a big blur since the night of the accident, and sometimes when he's in the driver's seat with only the Impala's high beams lighting the road ahead, he thinks he's still there, in the mangled wreck of the car, with Dean bleeding out in the backseat and Dad simmering with rage and pain in the front.

"Such a small town," Dean says, reminding him that time has, in fact, moved on, and they've moved with it, "someone's bound to have noticed something."

Sam shakes his head to clear it. "Yeah. The women who've disappeared have all been locals, folks who live here all year round."

Dean nods. "There was a Subway in the strip mall about a mile back. We can grab dinner, do some poking around."

Sam knows better than to ask if Dean's up to it, though he's tempted. Instead, he just says, "Okay. But I'm driving."

The fact that Dean doesn't argue for more than a minute tells Sam how tired he is. He considers picking up the phone, calling Dad, telling him this can wait, that Dean needs the rest--no, that he needs the rest, so he'll bear the brunt of Dad's disapproval, and maybe Dean will get a charge out of doing his mother hen thing. He doesn't, though, not yet. Not until they know more about what they're dealing with.

Sam had just fallen into bed, exhausted after a long night of studying, when his cell phone rang. His roommate woke up and scowled when he didn't answer right away, but he didn't recognize the number and that usually only meant one thing.

The phone continued to ring shrilly, so he flipped it open with an annoyed huff. "What?"

He could hear breathing, and the low hum of music in the background--the throb of bass and drum like the beat of Dean's heart.

"What?" he asked again, voice low and less annoyed now.

"That how they answer the phone in college, Sammy? Kinda rude, if you ask me."

"Fuck you."

"Only if you ask nicely."

"Dean." He let his irritation seep around the edges of the word, short and sharp.

His roommate pulled his pillow over his head, and Sam flipped him off absently, unsure who was annoying him more.

"What?"

"You called me."

"Oh, that's right, I did."

"Dean."

"Pop quiz, geek boy. Do you know what today is?"

Econ test tomorrow, he thought, and then lunch with that cute girl he'd met at the bar, and his birthday in a few weeks. He couldn't think beyond that--finals and summer loomed and he wanted to ignore them both for as long as possible. He started to doze, the sound of Dean's breathing soft in his ear, comforting.

"April eleventh," Dean barked when Sam didn't respond.

"Okay..."

"Son of a bitch. You really don't remember." He sounded angry. Sam tensed automatically at the familiar tone.

"I'm sorry, Dean, I really don't," he said, not sounding sorry at all, sick of all the little tests he could never pass, the lessons he never wanted to learn.

"Sure, fine, whatever. I guess there's no reason you should, huh? Nothing but school could possibly be important to Sam Winchester." And then he hung up before Sam had a chance to hang up on him, which just pissed Sam off more. He tossed the phone onto the night table, rolled over, and tried to get some sleep.

He was halfway through the test the next morning, writing an essay on the relationship between inflation and unemployment, when it hit him. Mom's birthday.

After class, he had Dean's phone ringing in his ear before he realized there was nothing he could say.

"Sam?"

He didn't say anything, letting his silence speak for him. That was all he had of their mother--silence and absence and threadbare, secondhand memories from Dean.

"Fuck you, too, Sam." The line went dead, and Sam forced himself not to feel guilty when he met up with Jess for lunch.

Subway is lit with flickering fluorescent lights and staffed by bored teenagers wearing Fall Out Boy t-shirts (Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust, muttering about kids today and their crappy music, and Sam has to bite back a laugh) and too much eyeliner around their dark eyes. They look enough alike to be related, and yeah, they admit to being cousins when asked, and local.

"You know anything about these missing women?" Dean asks before Sam can stop him, make him take a less blunt tack. "Notice anything weird before they disappeared?"

"You cops?"

"Not exactly."

The two boys exchange glances and then, "They didn't disappear, they left."

"What?"

"They left."

"That's it? They just left?" Dean sounds skeptical, and Sam knows that Dean will never understand leaving, though he understands being left like a pro. "Left their families--their kids--behind?"

"It happens," one of the boys says. "People leave. You love them, and they love you, but sometimes they can't stay. Sometimes, they're not meant to stay."

"If you love somebody, set them free," the other one says, nodding.

Dean looks at him, incredulous. "Dude, I cannot believe you're quoting song lyrics at me. This is serious. If something happened, if these women are hurt or in danger or--"

"They're not." The Sting fan shakes his head. "They left because they couldn't stay. That's just how it is."

"Sure," Sam says, more to Dean than to the boys, "people leave, but sometimes they come back."

Both boys shrug. Someone else walks in and Sam figures they've learned everything they can from these two kids.

"That's bullshit, Sammy. They couldn't stay? What the hell is that?"

"Dean, you've left women from Tallahassee to Seattle because you couldn't stay."

Dean shrugs, shoulders hunching into his jacket, and looks away. "That's different."

Sam snorts, skeptical. "Really?"

"I never make any promises. I never--"

"Lie? You lie all the time, Dean. Every day, in every single way, you lie."

"Not about that." Sam can see the muscle in his jaw tighten.

"Dean--"

"I don't say I'm gonna stick around and then run out when things don't go my way."

He climbs into the car and pulls the door shut with more force than necessary. Sam sighs, wondering if they're always going to take one step back for every two steps forward.

When Sam first got the acceptance letter to Stanford, he couldn't believe it. He spent a long time just staring at it, running his fingers along the fine weave of the heavy bond paper, the school name embossed at the top in red the color of fresh blood. This was the prize, the goal, the don't-even-think-about-it, it-will-never-happen dream he'd had for as long as he'd understood what the word "college" meant, so much beyond a bunch of buildings and a football team.

He spent weeks scripting the conversation. Sometimes, he allowed himself to believe Dean would be excited, proud, happy for him. He knew that would never happen, though, that Dean would just sneer at the whole concept, mock him for wanting to be normal. Tell him there was no way he could go, when the truth was, as far as Sam was concerned, there was no way he couldn't go, and not even Dean was going to stand in his way.

He decided, in the end, to keep it a secret even from Dean. It wouldn't be the first secret he'd kept from him, but it would be the biggest, and the hardest to hold.

He graduated number three in his class, walked across that stage in his stupid maroon robe and stupid mortarboard hat, and accepted a roll of paper that wasn't even his real diploma, and when he heard Dean's distinctive whoop over the polite applause, he swallowed hard and blinked back the sting of tears.

They went to the nice Italian restaurant in the business district for lunch, Dean and Dad both in collared shirts and loosened ties, jackets slung over the backs of their wrought iron chairs. Dean drank enough espresso to float an ocean liner and went home with the waitress's phone number, already having arranged to meet her later. Dad smiled, put one heavy hand on Sam's shoulder, and squeezed, and Sam allowed himself to bask in the glow of his pride for those few moments, mainly because he knew it'd never happen again once he told Dad he was leaving.

Later, as he was getting ready for bed that night, their last in this town, Dean came in and sat down on the end of the bed.

"Congratulations on Stanford," he said while Sam was pulling his t-shirt over his head.

For a second, Sam felt like he was drowning. He couldn't find the armholes in the shirt, couldn't push his head through the neck hole, couldn't get enough air.

"Christ, Sammy. How did you even manage to graduate high school if you still can't dress yourself?" He felt Dean's warm fingers brush his skin as Dean yanked the shirt down.

"Fuck you, Dean." He thrust out his chin, defiant, and hoped Dean would get distracted.

"Yeah, yeah, that's what all the girls say."

"Whatever."

Dean didn't step back, just stood in Sam's space and looked up at him (and that would never get old, as far as Sam was concerned; it made all the awkwardness and growing pains worth it, just to see Dean have to tilt his head up to meet Sam's eyes), lips puckered in thought for a moment. Sam could smell the waitress's perfume on his skin.

"When were you gonna tell me?"

"How--"

"Rosalie wanted me to pass on her congratulations."

"Rosalie--Oh, the waitress."

"Yeah, the waitress. Girl's got a great ass." Dean licked his lips. "Said you tutored her younger sister." Only Dean could make it sound dirty. "All of which is beside the point. The point is, Sammy, you got into Stanford, and you didn't share the news."

"I didn't think you'd care."

Something flashed in Dean's eyes, too quick for Sam to figure out what it was. "Right," he said, drawing the word out like a knife over skin. "Because I've never taken an interest in my little brother's education before."

Sam shoved at him, but not hard, and Dean didn't budge. "I didn't want to have this conversation." Since Dean didn't move, Sam did, turning to face the now-empty closet, cataloguing the familiar cracks in the yellow paint, the buckle in the center of carpet. "I didn't want you to tell me I couldn't go."

"You know you can't go," Dean said, exasperated. "You don't need me to tell you that."

"Exactly."

"Small town like this, everybody's in everyone else's business," Dean says when Sam gets in the car, all business, as if they haven't just been fighting. "We should be able to find out more in the morning."

Sam nods, takes a bite, and grimaces. "You know, I always think these heroes are going to be better than they are, and they always, always suck."

"It's the bread," Dean answers. "It smells so good, it fools you into coming back and trying again. Nothing but a come on before the big disappointment."

"Familiar with that experience, huh?" Sam asks, but before Dean can answer, one of the boys comes out of Subway and after a furtive glance around the parking lot, sidles up to the car. Sam rolls down his window.

"Hey," says the kid.

Sam puts on his best listening face. "Hey."

"If you want to know what happened, talk to Caitlin."

"Caitlin?"

"Yeah."

"She have a last name?" Dean asks, but the kid is already rushing back into the store. "Caitlin," he repeats.

"That's what the kid said."

Dean grunts, takes another bite of his hero, and talks with his mouth full. "We can check it out in the morning, after we see the grieving husbands."

The first bereft husband slams the door in their face, and the second does the same.

Sam rings the bell and when the door swings open, he hopes they have better luck this time. "James McGuigan?"

The guy looks about Dad's age, maybe older. Definitely greyer, and his hands are large and gnarled, curled around the edge of the door. "Yeah?"

"We've been hired to look into your wife's disappearance--"

"I didn't hire you."

"No, sir, by a third party."

"There may be an inheritance involved--" Dean starts.

"Ain't no inheritance involved. Ain't no disappearance, neither. Moira just up and left. Always knew she would one day. Didn't think it'd be so soon, though."

"How long were you married?" Dean asks.

"Twenty-eight years."

Sam and Dean exchange a glance, and Dean gives an almost imperceptible shrug. "What about the others? Did they just up and leave, too?"

McGuigan stares out beyond them, like he can see something on the horizon they can't. "Yeah. They did."

And then he slams the door.

That's starting to feel familiar.

"Mr. McGuigan, we spoke with your brother." Sam says.

"Yeah, he called me." The second Mr. McGuigan--Donald, according to Sam's research--looks at them warily. "We generally don't like outsiders to know our business," he says. "People come for the summer, act like this is their town, and then leave their messes behind to go back to the real world."

"We don't mean to intrude," Sam says, "but--"

"We just want to make sure your wife and your sister-in-law haven't been hurt," Dean continues, "and that no one else is in danger."

"I see." He gives them the once over and Sam wonders what exactly it is he sees, and then he invites them in. The house is very similar to the one they're staying in, though the furniture is older and the appliances are that ugly green that was popular in the seventies.

"What can you tell us about your wife's disappearance?" Dean asks. "Did you notice anything strange beforehand, any odd occurrences or--"

"Have you been to the beach?" McGuigan interrupts. "It's seal season."

Sam looks over at Dean, who gives him the same barely-there shrug and widening of eyes that means he doesn't know either. "I didn't realize seals had a season," Sam says.

"Oh, yeah. They give tours and everything out at Montauk."

Dean gets up, wanders around the paneled living room, moving more easily than he has been, some of the dangerous prowl back in his walk.

"Is this your wife, Mr. McGuigan?" he asks, fingers hovering over a framed picture standing on the piano in the corner.

McGuigan and Sam join him. "That's Brigid, yeah."

"She's quite a looker," Dean says, and Sam elbows him in the ribs, though it's true. The woman is slim and pretty, with long dark hair and eyes that look almost black in the photograph, taken at some formal occasion--she and McGuigan are standing with their arms around each other, behind a pair of teenagers who look just like their mother, a girl and a boy.

"That she is," McGuigan says with quiet pride. He doesn't speak of her in past tense, though she's been gone for almost four months. "That's Donald Jr." He doesn't identify the girl.

"Your daughter?" Sam asks.

"Caitlin," he says shortly. "We no longer speak."

Sam can feel the awkwardness on his skin, oppressive as humidity, and has a sudden pang of empathy for the disowned Caitlin McGuigan, who apparently holds the answers to their questions.

"Mind if I use your bathroom?" Dean asks, after the moment is strained to the breaking point.

McGuigan nods, jaw tight. "It's right at the top of the stairs."

Sam doubts the EMF will pick up anything, but they have to check. Dean heads upstairs, and it doesn't look like he's laboring at all. Some of the tension Sam's been carrying around in his shoulders since Dean checked out of the rehab center before finishing physical therapy eases.

There are other pictures on the piano, and Sam picks one of them up, disturbing the light coating of dust on the wood, particles floating in the air like fairy dust he knows doesn't really exist. "It's Brigid's," McGuigan says, fingers trailing along the dark wood. "She loves to sing."

"And this is your brother's family?" Sam asks, picking up another picture. The James McGuigan in it looks ten years younger, tanned and smiling, his hair still bright red. The woman is also dark-haired and dark-eyed, and all four of her children take after her. "Did you and James marry sisters?"

McGuigan shifts uncomfortably. "Looks that way," he says. "The kids are taking it hard."

"Of course," Sam says, trying to come up with some platitude and failing for once.

Dean comes down the stairs shaking his head and motioning for Sam to wrap it up.

"If you can think of anything," Sam says, "anything that seemed odd or unusual around or just before the disappearance, just let us know." He pulls out a card, scribbles his phone number on it. "We'll be around for a few days, investigating."

Dean's already out the door when McGuigan says, "If you see Caitlin--" but then he shakes his head.

"I will, Mr. McGuigan. Thank you for your time."

"Anything?" Sam asks as they head back to the car.

Dean walks to the driver's side, long years of habit unbroken by the recent switch in their positions. Dean is even more possessive of the Impala now that she's been rebuilt, but it's only recently that he's been able to drive for any length of time. "Traces. Something was there, but it's been gone a while." He gives a small shrug and slips behind the wheel before Sam can protest. Sam watches him carefully, but can't see any sign of discomfort or exhaustion. He eases the Impala into motion, notices Sam watching him.

"What?"

"Nothing." Sam shifts, caught. "You're moving better."

"You been checking out my ass, Sammy?"

Sam snorts, chooses not to rise to the bait, mostly because he knows it will fluster Dean. "I've always got your six, Dean. You know that." He says it easily, as if it's actually true, as if he wants it to be true in the same way Dean does. Maybe he does, now. He hasn't thought about it lately. He doesn't really think about it now.

Surprised pleasure flashes across Dean's face before he can stop it. "I know," he mutters, looking away, and Sam is grateful for that. "So I guess we're going to see Caitlin McGuigan, huh?"

"Seems like the smart move, yeah."

"Lunch first?" Dean's already pulling into the East Cove Diner parking lot. Dean's renewed interest in food is so recent that Sam doesn't point out that they should probably put the job first.

They've caught the tail end of the lunch rush--four or five tables still have occupants. As they wait for the hostess to seat them, Sam flips through the brochures in the rack near the door--whale watching, seal watching. He turns to Dean. "You want to go see the lighthouse?" He waves the glossy paper featuring a picturesque lighthouse and a phantom ship at Dean.

"Is it haunted?"

"Brochure says there's a ghost ship."

"Montauk Point, right?"

"Yeah."

Dean shakes his head. "That bastard was banished years ago. Just a story for tourists now."

"Still..." The historical aspects are just as interesting as the supernatural ones. More, maybe, if the ghost ship is gone.

Dean shrugs a shoulder. "If you want to go, Sammy, we'll go." He takes a brochure. "It's pretty cool how they saved the beach from erosion."

Sam is grateful the hostess arrives before Dean can get going on the remarkable achievements of modern engineering. She has the same dark hair and eyes as the boys in Subway, and the women in the McGuigan family photographs.

"You should go see the seals," she says, nodding at the brochure Sam is still holding.

"That's what we keep hearing," Dean says, flashing a smile that makes her smile and flush in response.

She leads them to a booth, chattering away. "My cousin is a guide on the tour. I could probably hook you up."

"I bet you could," Dean says. It never fails to amaze and amuse (and sometimes annoy) Sam how Dean can make nearly anything sound dirty.

"Peggy's your waitress today. She'll be with you in a minute," she says. "My name's Sherry, if you need anything."

"Thanks," Dean says, and Sam can see him smiling before he raises the menu to hide his face.

They order coffee and burgers and cheese fries, and Sam tries not to think about his cholesterol, tries not to think about Dean dying before his arteries are clogged enough to cause trouble. Tries not to remember all the hours spent sitting next to his bed in the hospital, listening to doctors talking about doing everything that could be done, and how time and Dean's own body and will would have to do the rest.

Dean's in the corner of the booth, jacket dark against the faded red pleather. He leans against the cool frosted glass of the window, eyes closed as he sips his coffee, looking content to be out of the chilly February wind, looking like he's actually had a decent night's sleep for the first time in a long time, and Sam decides the house was a good idea.

Next time they talk to Dad, Sam will tell him. Maybe he'll actually initiate the call himself. They'd put aside their arguments those first few weeks in the hospital, when everything with Dean was touch and go, and the slightest exertion exhausted both of them. The truce has lingered, though the longer Dad remains in rehab, the tetchier he gets, and Sam knows they'll be up in each other's faces soon enough. He's grateful they're both still alive to get on each other's nerves, but he wishes Dad could learn to compromise, find some common ground with him. He wishes Dean didn't get caught in the middle every time.

While Dean's communing with his coffee, Sam takes his turn at charming Peggy the waitress. With her big plastic earrings and bottle blonde hair, Sam feels like he's known her, or some version of her, his whole life, so it's not hard.

"We were here last summer, and I met a girl," he says. "But she doesn't live where she did then, and I was hoping to find her." Peggy nods and hums encouragement. "Her name's Caitlin McGuigan."

"It's been hard on the kids, what happened to the McGuigans," Peggy says, cocking her hip and tapping her pen against her lips. "But they were always greedy, the McGuigan boys, thinking the rules didn't apply to them. Can't blame her for doing what she did." She shakes her head and sucks her teeth. "Caitlin's been staying with the Walshes, over on Shinnecock Avenue."

"Thanks."

"Girl could use a friend," she says with a shrug. She comes back with two slices of coconut cream pie and sets them on the table with a wink.

"We didn't order--" he starts and she laughs.

"On the house."

Dean beams at her, and Sam shakes his head, laughing.

"What?" Dean says. He points his fork at Sam. "Free pie never gets old."

"There it is, ladies and gentlemen," Sam murmurs, "the wit and wisdom of Dean Winchester."

"Hey, if you don't want your pie--"

Sam snatches his plate away and finishes his pie before Dean can infringe on it with his fork. "I didn't say that."

And it feels familiar, comfortable, normal to bicker like this with Dean. He still doesn't know why it's not enough, why he can't take the free pie and the endless cups of strong diner coffee and the steady stream of people who need help, and make some kind of life out of them the way Dean has, why he needs that intangible more. He can feel the frown between his eyebrows and forces himself to stop thinking.

"You can have some of mine, if you want."

And the thing is, Dean means it. He would give up his pie if Sam wanted it, and he'd probably even be happy about it, if it made Sam happy. Sam could get upset about it, because it doesn't seem fair, but he's trying to accept and appreciate everything Dean does for him, even while he bitches about it, because Dean's actions have always spoken louder than his words.

"It's just pie, dude," Dean says. "No need to get all emo."

"Shut up." But there's no bite in it, and Dean smirks in response.

At the register, Sherry is all blushes and smiles, but for Sam this time. "Peggy says you're friends with Caitlin?" she says as she rings them up, voice rising at the end of the sentence.

"Yeah," he answers, smiling back. "I'd really like to talk to her."

"Then you should definitely go see the seals. She works as a guide." She hands him his change. "I told you I could hook you up."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asks as they head out on Montauk Highway.

"I think so, Brain, but lederhosen make my calves look fat," Dean answers, managing to keep a straight face for ten seconds before they both burst into hysterical giggles. It feels good to laugh like that, like they used to when they were kids and the stupidest things could set them off, especially when they were punchy from long rides through the night from one dusty nowhere town to the next.

Then Dean cranks the Judas Priest up and presses the gas pedal down, and the Impala roars as she eats up the miles, traffic light and steady around them, leafless trees and brown grass spotted with the grey remains of a recent snowstorm slipping by. Sam can't imagine what this road must be like in the summer, cars bumper to bumper in the heat and humidity, thousands of people all trying to escape to the same place, which is no escape at all.

They traveled a lot the summer after Sam graduated high school. With no reason to stay in one place, it was hunt after hunt, motel after motel. He collected postcards from each place they stopped, but had no one to send them to. (Later, he would use them to write notes he never sent, first to Dean, then to Jess. They were all lost in the fire.)

Dean glowed under the pace Dad set, strong and confident and coming into his own as a hunter, as a man.

Sam felt stifled, and only the thought that he would be leaving at the end of August, that he would have nine months free of hunting once he got to Stanford, got him through.

He pocketed his share of the winnings when he and Dean tag-teamed unsuspecting farmers and frat boys and everyone in between--he preferred nine-ball, but in bars, everyone always wanted to play eight-ball, and he had the unlucky habit of scratching at the eight ball, and even Dean couldn't always turn that to their advantage. Dad said it taught them humility, which didn't sit well with either of them. Sam worked on it that summer, Dean hovering over him, muttering about English and physics, comparing kissing a sweet spot on the cue ball to going down on a girl.

"Do I need to tell you how to do that, too, Sammy?" he said, and Sam blushed crimson, trying not to think about lying between Marcy Wilson's thighs beneath the bleachers at the football field a few nights before graduation, her legs draped over his shoulders as he licked and sucked, trying to figure out by the sounds she made if he was doing it right.

"No," he answered, and Dean looked startled for a second before he started laughing.

"Who was she, Sammy? Come on, you can tell your big brother about the girl who popped your cherry."

Sam gritted his teeth and counted down the days, which seemed to pass all too slowly while he was waiting for his freedom. He didn't bring it up--the fight he and Dad had had over the cost of his applications was the last one he wanted to have on the subject until he was actually ready to leave. He bit his tongue and tried to follow orders the way Dean did, the perfect little soldier in the Winchester army.

They were in Oklahoma the night Dad banged into their room and said, "Pack it up, boys, we've got a nest of harpies in West Virginia to take care of."

Dean was up and moving around almost before Dad had finished speaking, but Sam just put his book down and crossed his arms.

"I'm not going."

Dad turned to look at him. "What?"

Dean shook his head, tried to catch his eye, and Sam could practically hear him saying, Don't do it, Sammy. This isn't the time. But Dean always said that, and Sam knew that if Dean had his way, the time for this conversation was never.

"I said, I'm not going." He swung his legs off the bed so he could stand. His height was one of the few advantages he had when arguing with his father, and he was going to use it. "I'm leaving for Stanford at the end of the week."

"Sammy--" Dean said, but Dad overrode him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sam."

"I'm not."

"Just how do you think you're going to live once you get out there?"

"I can get a job. I can work."

"Doing what?" Dad interrupted.

"I can be normal," Sam continued, ignoring him as if he hadn't spoken. "I don't have to be part of the Winchester Hunt and Freak Show anymore, and I'm not going to be."

"Sammy," Dean said again, but Sam couldn't look at him, couldn't listen, couldn't take the pleading in his voice.

"Think real hard about what you're doing, Sammy. You really gonna walk away from this? You know what's out there--"

"I don't care! Do you hear me, Dad? I don't give a flying fuck about it. Let someone else deal with it, at least for the next four years. God, Dad, this is my life. My future. Why are a bunch of strangers more important to you than your own son?"

"Bullshit, Sam." Sam's jaw tightened in irritation. He could set his watch by Dean's defense of Dad. It made him sick sometimes, the way Dean bent over backwards for Dad's approval. "Nothing is more important to Dad than keeping you safe."

"Safe." He snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, he wants to keep me safe by sending me into a nest of harpies. How is that safe? What about normal? What about happy?"

Dad stepped right to him, toe-to-toe, challenge and anger in his eyes. "What about the thing that killed your mother?"

"What about it?" Sam answered, refusing for once to let this, the oldest threat, the oldest promise he could remember, cow him into behaving. "It's been eighteen years, Dad. Eighteen years of living like tramps, of risking everything, of fighting evil, and for what?"

"We save a lot of people," Dean said, but they both ignored him.

"Mom's not coming back." Dad flinched at that, and he didn't even want to see Dean's expression. "The dead aren't supposed to come back, and when they do, we send them back to hell. So excuse me if I don't think your revenge is worth giving up the chance to have something normal, something safe, something I want."

"You walk out that door, Sammy, don't bother coming back."

"Dad, no--" Dean started, but again, they ignored him.

"That's what you really want, isn't it?" Sam said, ignoring the sharp ache in his chest and the chill racing over his skin. "Just you and Dean and your stupid two-man army fighting evil." He grabbed his duffel bag, started shoving his clothes into it, paying no attention to what was clean or dirty, or even what was his or Dean's. "Well, that's fine by me." He zipped up his bag, glad for once that he didn't have a lot of stuff, that he could carry it all with him when he walked away.

Dean grabbed his arm. "Sam, don't do this."

Sam shook him off, didn't even turn to look at him, because he knew if he looked at Dean, he wouldn't be able to walk away.

He was about a mile down the road, thumb stuck out half-heartedly--there wasn't likely to be anyone along this road at this hour--when he heard the rumble of a familiar engine.

"Get in," Dean said.

"I'm not going back."

Dean didn't look at him. "I know." His jaw clenched tight around the words.

The stars were hidden by heavy black clouds, the reflection of the lone streetlight gleamed on the polished hood of the Impala, and the air smelled of ozone and dampness--it would rain soon.

"Dean--"

"Get in the car, Sammy."

"Dean--"

"Get. In. The. Car." He'd never heard Dean use that tone before, his voice so deep it sounded as if it were coming from somewhere within the Impala's engine. Sam got in the car. His mouth was full of words, ready to argue, but all Dean said was, "You think I was gonna let you walk all the way to the bus station? It's not safe."

Of course. Dean's obsession with his safety was yet another thing he wanted to get away from, though he could never, ever tell Dean that.

They were silent the rest of the ride. Dean didn't even put on any music, which was weird. It started to rain, and Sam was grateful he wasn't still out on the road, walking. The sound of the windshield wipers broke the silence, the rhythmic sweep of rubber over wet glass a familiar lullaby from a life spent on the road.

And then they were there, the bus station lights shining dimly through the rain and the darkness.

Dean's hand on his knee stopped him before he could get out of the car. "Take care of yourself. And call me when you get there."

"Sure. Whatever."

"Sam--"

He huffed, exasperated. He wanted this over, before it got too hard to actually leave. "What, Dean?"

"Give him some time; he'll cool down."

"I doubt it." He slammed the car door shut, shouldered his bag, and pushed his way into the bus station without looking back.

*

"Earth to Sammy, come in, Sammy." Dean's hand is on his knee and he swats it away.

They pull into the visitors' center parking lot, which is empty except for an old maroon Ford Escort that's seen better days, parked in the far corner. The building is locked up--the last tour was at two--and he thinks maybe they should have waited until tomorrow, but Dean is already out of the car and at the trunk.

A year ago, Sam would have asked if it was necessary, if Dean really thought this girl was a threat, but now he knows anyone and everyone can be a threat under certain circumstances, and even though he's pretty sure this girl isn't dangerous to them (or to anyone else), he takes the gun Dean hands him and slips it into his waistband, and then zips up his coat.

The wind is whipping pretty fiercely and the sun is heading west, and they can see two women with inky black hair walking along the shore. One wears a puffy white parka, jeans, and boots, while the other wears a long black dress that flutters in the wind and streams out behind her like her hair, so that it's hard to tell where her hair ends and the dress begins.

The tourists are gone, but the seals are there, frolicking around them, closer than Sam would have expected of such wild creatures, and the women move among them without fear, as if greeting old friends. They are sleek and muscular, making noise that sounds like laughter. They remind Sam of Dean, and the thought of Dean's embarrassment at being told that almost makes him say something, but then the wind carries the sound of laughter--human laughter--to them, and it all clicks together in Sam's head.

He and Dean head down the hill towards the water, marsh grass giving way to white sand. The path twists and curves, and they lose sight of the women for a few moments. Dean picks up the pace, though he never looks like he's in a hurry, taking the lead, as always, and unlike Sam, he has his gun in his hand, held low and hidden by his thigh, but ready if needed.

When they arrive on the beach, the woman in the dress is gone, and only the girl in the white parka remains.

"Caitlin?" he asks, and she looks up, startled. Up close, her eyes are soft and brown, bright with tears she's blinking away, nothing like the glassy, impenetrable black he's half-afraid of seeing on everyone he meets these days.

She clears her throat. "I'm afraid you've missed the tour--" she says.

"Was that your Mom?" Dean asks, slipping the gun into his waistband. He's obviously come to the same conclusion Sam has. His voice is gentle, which doesn't surprise Sam, though Caitlin seems taken aback.

"Uh." Her gaze darts between them, and she laughs nervously, the looks out at the seals, which have begun to swim away. "What?"

"We're just--" Dean stops, looks at Sam, which does surprise him.

"We were investigating your mother's disappearance," Sam says, "and we wanted to make sure nothing... bad had happened."

"Oh." She reaches up, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, though the wind just blows it free again. "No, nothing bad. What makes you think--"

"It's our...job to find out," he says. "If it's nothing bad--if it's been going on for a long time, why--"

She swallows hard. "Why did my father stop speaking to me?"

"Yeah, I--" Sam stops, unsure, because that's not really any of his business.

She stares out at the ocean. The tide's coming in, the water creeping closer to their boots with each set of waves. "I found the skins, locked away up in the attic," she says, and her voice is rough but steady. "They'd had a deal, my parents, and every year, my mother would ask if she could go home, and every year my father would say, no, Brigid, not yet, please, one more year." She sniffs, rubs at her eyes with the backs of her hands. "DJ and I would hear them arguing, and then she would go down to the water and cry.

"Once I knew," she jerks her chin at the seals, "I knew it was time to let her go." She wraps her arms around herself, making herself small, like she's trying to find comfort in it. Sam knows the feeling.

"Okay," Dean says, and again, "okay." He reaches out, tucks her hair behind her ear, and then shoves his hands in his pockets awkwardly, as if he can't believe what he's just done, and half-turns away, so he's facing the water, too. He hunches against the wind, and Sam wonders again how someone so strong can look so frail.

"And the others?" Sam asks.

"Once I'd let her go, it didn't seem right to make the others stay, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

A gull wheels overhead, waiting to see if they're going to drop any food. Its cry and the crash of the waves are the only sounds for a few minutes.

Finally, Dean says, "Do the others come back, too?" and there's something so young and sad in his voice that Sam thinks his heart is going to break.

"I don't know," Caitlin says, and she sounds just as miserable as Dean.

They walk Caitlin to her car, Dean quiet and awkward in a way he's usually not around women, except when they're crying and there's nothing left for him to kill to make it better. Sam puts a hand on her shoulder, wishes he could reassure her.

"Give your dad time," he says finally. "He'll come around."

She sniffs and shrugs. "Thanks," she says, but she doesn't sound convinced, and he understands that.

They watch her drive away, and after she's gone, they sit in silence in the car for a few minutes. Dean finally starts it up and eases out onto the highway. He doesn't turn on the radio, and Sam is grateful for the silence, even if it means he has to hear his own thoughts.

"You know, it was only for four years. Hell, it wasn't even a full four years. I was going to come back during the summers."

"What?" Dean says, as if he hasn't been listening, though his hands are tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white with tension.

"When I left for Stanford." Sam pushes a hand through his hair, shakes his head. "It was a temporary thing, Dean. Until Dad made it permanent." Dean glances at him, eager to hear and desperate to cover that up, to avoid any show of weakness or emotion whatsoever. "I was always planning to see you again."

"Oh," Dean says, as if that had never occurred to him, which it probably hadn't. Dean doesn't do anything halfway, and isn't much for compromises--it's part of what Sam finds so exhilarating and yet so stifling about being around him.

"Yeah." He flips the visor down, since they're heading into the blazing orange sunset, and pops a cassette into the tape deck. The lumbering sound of Metallica fills the silence, and for the first time in months, Sam lets himself relax.

end

***

Notes: "But lederhosen make my calves look fat" is from Pinky and the Brain. You really can go on seal watching walks at Montauk Point from November to May, though everything else in the story is fictional; I doubt there are any captive selkie wives running around East Quogue.

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Disclaimer: All Supernatural characters belong to Eric Kripke, etc. This piece of fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.