EPISODE 13x14: “LIVESTRONG & PROSPER”

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Sam heard Dean grunt awake, and looked up from his laptop.

“Another nightmare?” he said across the motel room. Dean had woken up from them a few times this week.

It was an overcast summer morning outside Des Moines, Iowa. Sam was sitting at the motel room’s little table, coffee to-go cup between his forearms, answering emails. The room was smaller than their usual digs, and uglier, with a variegated maroon carpet, and an odor of mulch and Keurig machine coffee. The A/C unit was louder than a lawnmower, and it had woken Sam up more than once during the night.

“Y’all right?” Sam asked, when Dean didn’t answer.

“Yeah,” said Dean, voice dry. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands. “What time is it?”

“7:30,” said Sam. “I got coffee.” He pointed to a second cup, sitting in the holder on the table. He'd picked them up downstairs after meditating in the motel’s miserable little gym.

Dean grunted in acknowledgement and got up. Standing, he winced. “Oof,” he said, stretching his back.

“That ghost threw you around last night,” Sam commented, typing again.

“Yeah,” said Dean, stretching to the left and then the right with his knuckles digging into his lower back. “I’m getting too old for this crap. I need to get some IcyHot from the store or something.”

“I thought you hated that stuff.”

“I do.” Dean slumped down in the other chair. He winced again, making a face.

Sam glanced up. “Your back that bad?”

Dean shook his head, taking his first sip of coffee. “Foot.” He flexed his right foot.

“You hurt it in the fight?”

Dean looked down at his coffee cup. “Yeah,” he said. He drank again. “Wow. This is some godawful coffee.”

Sam’s typing slowed down. There had been something odd about the pause before he said ‘yeah.’ And the immediate coffee deflection.

Is Dean lying about how he hurt his foot?

“It was free downstairs,” Sam said.

Dean grunted.

Over the top of his laptop he eyed his brother, drinking the hideous hotel coffee. For the last few days, Sam had been trying to gauge whether it was just a mood, or if something was well and truly up. With Dean, there was usually no good way of asking. If it got bad enough, he just had to bite the bullet and ask point-blank. But that was a tricky target every time. Dean glanced up, and Sam looked away before he could see.

“You gonna get a new phone today, now that the case is done?” he said, starting to type again.

“Uh... yeah,” said Dean. “Keep forgetting.”

“I still can’t believe you just dropped it into a sewer.”

Dean laughed humorlessly. “Ha-ha. Yeah. Hilarious. That brick costs like $500.”

Sam snorted, shaking his head without looking up from his computer. “You take off from the bunker, call me from the road, tell me to come and meet you here in Iowa, because this case from Jody was ‘urgent’—and then you immediately drop your phone into a sewer, and the case turns out to be an absolutely run-of-the-mill haunted object.” He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. Hilarious isn’t the word. Ironic, maybe.”

Dean sipped his coffee. “There was nothing run-of-the-mill about those Spandex-wearing biker freaks.”

“Cyclists.”

“Whatever.”

“...So?” Sam said after a pause. “Are you getting a new phone or not?”

“Maybe.”

“What, you like being off the grid?”

Dean shrugged, making a face. “I’m getting old. Maybe I’ll become a luddite. I’ll go back to using payphones.”

“Payphones hardly exist anymore, Dean,” said Sam. “You’d be impossible to reach.”

“Who wants to get in touch with me that badly anyway?”

“I don’t know, me?” said Sam.

“But you’re with me,” said Dean.

Sam exhaled, frustrated. Was Dean just being stubborn for its own sake? Was he being genuinely weird about this? Or was he just picking a stupid little fight to pass the time?

“Dean, when I couldn’t call you yesterday, I almost got my ass kicked by that ghost.”

Dean was mid-coffee sip. He held up a finger. “Key word being ‘almost.’ I got there in time, didn’t I?”

Sam sighed again, and went back to his email. “Yeah. Whatever. I'm packed and ready to go when you are,”

But the Dean's weird, cagey mood did not pass as the morning went on. He dawdled while packing, and shot down all of Sam’s suggestions about directions. He insisted he knew the easiest way out of town, then turned onto the inbound interstate and into a mire of rush hour traffic.

Sam tried to distract himself by keeping occupied with his own work in the passenger seat—a catalog entry about the cyclists’ case, for the Men of Letters archive. But Dean kept cursing and complaining about the other drivers, hungry for a fight.

“Have you never heard of a turn signal? Hell no, I'm not letting you in, you idiot—”

“Dean—would you slow down?” Sam said, unable to take it anymore. “It's called defensive driving, not attack driving.”

“No backseat driving, navigator,” Dean said.

“I’m not—” Bzz. Sam’s phone vibrated loudly on the vinyl seat. “Stop tailgating,” he insisted, picking his phone up.

One (1) new text message from Castiel.

“What’s up?” said Dean. “Text from your girlfriend?”

“Shut up. It’s Cas. I told him we were wrapping up here. He wants to know when we’re coming back.”

“Mm.”

Sam looked up when Dean didn’t elaborate. “Well? Should I tell him tonight?”

Instead of answering, Dean muttered something and turned on his blinker, starting to shift lanes before he'd even finished checking for other cars.

“Whoa—” Sam started.

A car behind them honked angrily.

“Relax,” Dean said to the other driver, who couldn't hear him. As he shifted into the new lane, Sam’s phone buzzed again. Follow-up from Cas.

“He says Jack’s not doing great,” Sam added.

“Mm,” said Dean again, still watching his side mirror intently.

“Not worse, but not better.” Sam locked his screen. “If the seal’s too much for Jack, we’re gonna need to find another way to open that rift before Michael does.”

“We did it once. We can do it again.”

Sam made a doubtful face. “Rowena said that spell was a one-time deal.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “Rowena.” He fished for his coffee cup. “She also said she’d help us get Lucifer’s blood out of his crypt, and then ran off with it. So excuse me if I’m not really buying what she’s selling right now.” He took a sip. “Anyway, Jack might get better. Maybe he just needs some recharge time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Sam, unlocking his phone again. “So what should I tell Cas? We going back tonight?”

Dean exhaled. He accelerated, closing the already negligible gap between them and the car in front.

Sam squinted at him. Why was Dean avoiding the question? He had to ask. He just had to. He had no other choice. And then Dean would get mad. And they'd be in this car for seven more hours together. It’s too early in the day for this, too goddamn early.

“Dean.”

Dean’s head snapped to face him. “What?” he said, with an equal level of vehemence.

Sam raised his eyebrows expectantly. Give him the opening to say it himself. One last chance.

Dean just stared back at him, eyebrows also raised.

The taillights in front of them lit up red, and Sam barked, “Dean—!” almost too late. Dean slammed on the brakes, and they both pitched forward.

They bounced to a stop, feet away from the SUV’s rear fender.

Sam sighed and closed his eyes, tipping his head back on the seat.

The full, interminable day stuck in the car together stretched out before him.

“Dean, listen...” he began, with a dread he knew they both shared—but he was interrupted.

Bzz. Bzz. His phone was ringing on the seat. Call from Jody.

Dean rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat, hands firmly on the wheel. While Sam picked up, Dean rolled behind the SUV, letting it pull further ahead of them.

“Hey, Jody,” said Sam. “Dean’s here too. You’re on speaker.”

“Hey Jody,” Dean said.

“Hey Sam, hey Dean,” said Jody’s tinny voice. “Where you boys at?”

“Still outside of Des Moines,” said Sam, glancing at Dean. “We got that ghost situation sorted out.”

“Oh. Good,” said Jody. She paused. Then: “What ghost situation?”

“It was a haunted object,” Dean said, a little loudly, eyes on the road while Sam looked at him from under furrowed brows. “Trophy. What’s up, Jody? To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Jody never called him about that case, Sam realized.

“I think I got something for you in Arkansas,” she said, and they heard the sound of a clicking mouse through the phone. “Weird serial killer case. No apparent connection between the victims, but they’re all missing their eyes. And some... some other organs, sometimes.”

Dean grimaced. Sam frowned, thinking. Missing eyes? That stirred some memory, but he couldn’t place it.

“Sounds like a monster to me, but I can't place it. You ever heard of anything like that?”

Dean glanced at Sam, ‘no’ written on his face. But Sam leaned in and said— “Actually, yeah, that rings a bell,” he said. “Monster that eats the eyes... I've read about that somewhere.”

“Good,” Dean said. “We'll look into it, Jody.”

Sam looked up at him, opening his mouth to object.

“That's a relief, thank you boys,” Jody’s voice said. “That'll be a load off my mind.”

“Of course, you got it, Sheriff. Just text us the info.”

“Wait—” Sam started.

“Okay, thanks, guys.”

Jody hung up.

Sam jerked his head at Dean. “Dude.”

“What?” said Dean, turning back to the road. The SUV accelerated in front of them. “It’s a case.”

“We just finished a case.”

“So, what, you wanna go home? You got a hot date in Lebanon, Kansas tomorrow or something? Sam, this is our job. This is what we do. We don’t sit around at home, watching reruns and jerking off—”

Sam held up his hands, willing Dean to just chill. “Dean. Dean. I know. But Jack is at home, and he’s sick.”

“So? There’s nothing we can do to help with that. And he’s not getting worse.”

Sam let his hands fall in his lap and squinted at Dean. His face was frozen in a defensive grimace, directed at the taillights in front of him.

Sam stared at him, waiting.

Nothing.

“Dean,” he finally said, biting the bullet. “Is there something going on that you should talk to me about?”

“No,” Dean said. A pretty well-delivered lie. Sam rated it a 4.5 out of 5.

“Okay,” Sam said, in a voice that communicated doubt.

“Look, just drop it,” Dean said, speeding up to close the gap.

“If you're going to keep—”

“I said drop it, Sam, it's not happening!” Dean snapped, turning to him.

Sam didn't even have time to give warning before the red taillights loomed and then disappeared as the Impala’s front fender rammed the SUV’s rear with a bang as loud as a gunshot.

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“I told you,” Sam said, nervous post-shock energy translating into anger. “I told you to stop tailgating!”

“You told me?” Dean said incredulously. “You distracted me, Sam!”

“You're lucky I had a bogus insurance number to give that guy, Dean!” Sam said, furiously gesturing back in the direction where he'd driven away in his SUV. They were standing on the shoulder of the highway, breathing in exhaust as the inbound traffic rolled by slowly. “And when it comes back with nothing—” Dean swatted his words out of the air, Who cares— “And you're lucky we weren't going that fast! If the damage was worse, what would we do out here? Call AAA for roadside assistance? Right, we can't actually get roadside assistance, because our car isn't even registered. You—”

“I'm sorry, all right?” Dean said over the sound of the traffic. “I’m an idiot and a careless driver, is that what you want me to say?”

He's not even that upset, Sam thought wildly, staring at him. He should be freaking out about his car, but he's just leaning on the hood like there isn't a huge dent in the fender. Sam shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don't even... Dean. Stop. What are we doing?”

“She'll run fine,” he said. “Nothing important got damaged. We keep driving. I'll give her a facelift when we have the time.”

“When we have the—” Sam repeated incredulously. “So you don't want to go home and fix it. You want to go to Arkansas.”

“Yes.”

Sam nodded, looking out at the line of slowly passing cars. A commuter in a Toyota gawked at him. “Right.”

“You don't,” Dean surmised.

No, Sam thought. I want to be literally anywhere else but in a car you're driving. “No,” he said, still looking at the other cars. He entertained a fantasy of sticking out his thumb and hitchhiking with the tie-wearing Toyota driver. “Maybe I’ll head back home, check on Jack, and see what I can find in the library. I know I’ve heard of something that eats its victim’s eyes.”

There was a pause. Sam had put on his best deescalating voice, but sometimes that wasn’t enough.

Then Dean said, “All right.”

Sam looked at him. His brother was staring past the guardrail with a neutral expression.

“Yeah. I'm sure I can handle it on my own,” he finally said, rubbing his forehead.

Sam pushed his luck: “And you’ll get a new phone?”

“Yeah,” said Dean. He knocked on the Impala’s hood once, twice before heading to the driver’s side door. “I’ll get a new phone.”

He shut the door behind him, and Sam stared at it for another second. There was something going on with Dean. Something that was making him sloppy and erratic, making him drink more—it reminded Sam of his bad spell in the spring, like Dean was sliding back into that place. Whatever it was, it was something so big he’d sooner drive all the way to Arkansas alone, with a dented fender, than talk to Sam about it.

And Sam had no idea what it was.

After all that time searching for Mom and Jack, bringing them home, now Dean didn’t want to go back home. Maybe it had something to do with that, Sam thought. Maybe he’d fought with Mom again. Sam raised his eyebrows. That was possible—maybe even likely. When he got back home, he resolved, he’d try to ask her.

The key word being ‘try.’ She was twice as likely to avoid and deflect as Dean was, and Sam hardly knew her half as well.

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