Title: Do You Believe in Magic?
Characters: Dean & Sam Winchester
Genre: H/C, Family, humor
Word Count: 10,174
Warnings/Spoilers: General spoilers for Season 10, all episodes (except 10.11, now; this was finished except for a beta reading before it aired)
Summary: Normal people get a cake, balloons, maybe a new cell phone for their birthday. Dean Winchester gets a panic room. Oh, and an Xbox, because apparently Sam's become an eBay sniper.

A/N & Disclaimer: Written for this prompt on LJ's recent hoodie_time meme:
Sam is nothing if not prepared. It's not that Sam doesn't trust Dean to fight the MOC, he just knows how strong addiction can be ... And he's not chaining Dean up in the bunker's dungeon again. So he quietly renovates a room in the bunker in case Dean has a relapse and needs to be kept away from others and safe from himself until they find a cure. Somehow it makes Sam feel a little less helpless...The process of padding walls and finding furniture Dean can't use against himself or others is painful - but it's Sam's turn to take care of Dean, and he's going to do it right.

Sam, Dean, and everything else in their messed-up but lovable world do not belong to me.

Sam's always been intrigued by magic.

Dean can still remember when the kid was no more than four years old, stuck in the middle of a blistering hot state in the Southwest. The sticky, sweltering leather of the Impala's back seat and a grimy, fussy four-year-old had made vivid sensory memories on his eight-year-old consciousness. He had, however, succeeded in entertaining Sam for three straight hours by refusing to show him how he made a quarter "disappear" into thin air.

"'S magic, Sammy," he'd informed the little squirt patiently, as tiny hands rooted through empty jacket and then pants pockets in eager search of the missing coin.

Sam's skepticism had been healthy even at that age, but after unsuccessfully turning what portions of the car he could reach inside out, to the point that John's threats to pull the vehicle over went from amused to thunderous, Sam's awestruck belief in his brother's "magic" ability began to wane considerably.

Dean finally took pity on the kid and "pulled" the quarter out of the mop of curls behind his little brother's ear.

Now, it's those same wide, shocked hazel eyes that greet him through the purple smog as he skids around the corner into what had been a perfectly functional laboratory in a disused underground wing of the Bunker. The ground has stopped shaking, but it's still hard to keep his gun sight steady when he's hacking up what feels like both lungs and a portion of his spleen.

"What. The hell, Sam."

"Um." The culprit in question hacks wetly into his sleeve – is that a feather? – and flaps a towel in front of the antiquated hazard alarm, which is wailing a cheerful DANGER DANGER DANGER at the top of its mechanical voice.

Finally, "I can explain?" Sam offers feebly.

Safety re-engaged, the gun disappears into the back of his jeans, and he closes his eyes for a second, willing the throbbing in his arm – pulsating in time with his racing heart and blood pressure, courtesy of one Sam Winchester – to subside.

Something cold and gloppy drips onto his head.

Don't look up at the ceiling, don't look up at the ceiling, don't look up at the ceiling…

He shouldn't have looked up at the ceiling.

"Sam!"

Sam's always going to be remembered in the Men of Letters for accidentally creating a magical substance that ate its way through the first-level sewage pipes no one knew existed until that moment.

Sam's always been too interested in dead languages.

The summer after Sam started junior high school Dean had suggested, only half-joking, that they enter the little geek in Jeopardy's Kids Week to pay off their credit card debt en masse (and then hit up Vegas on what was left over, amiright?). Needless to say, John was not enthusiastic, but he's got no doubt Sammy would have mopped the floor with those precious little nerds.

Because, really – what kid reads the dictionary for fun?

But he'll never forget the time just after they began hunting together, only weeks after he took Sam from Stanford, when a banishing rite didn't work on the vengeful spirit they were supposed to be cleansing from an ancient Victorian house. Dean had been lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs for a few seconds, contemplating the wisdom of playing possum and wondering which one of the three Sams on the landing above was the real one, when he saw all three dodge flying spindles from the crumbling banister – and then suddenly the ritual was being yelled again, with a few words changed this time around.

And damned if it didn't work – spirit banished, just like that. Poof.

"Remembered reading in the files that the guy was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder," Sam huffed out, hauling Dean's arm over his shoulders and struggling to their combined, if shaky, feet. "Had to use plural pronouns to get through to him and banish the spirit for good, not singular pronouns like the default ritual has…"

"Sush a geek, Sammy," he remembers slurring proudly, before the triple vision had become none at all for the next few hours…

It's no doubt that same love of language which he suspects he can blame for this current fiasco, based on the embarrassment currently turning Sam's face a My Little Pony shade of pink.

Dean holds his phone up in front of the mirror, points to it with the index finger of his other hand. Sam winces, pinching the bridge of his nose in anticipation of what's to come.

"Wanna explain to me why I just got a text from a certain angel saying, and I quote, 'Please inform your brother that Enochian is not a language which lends itself to ritualistic experimentation.'"

"Yeah, about that…"

Dean smirks, eyebrows twitching. "Oh, it gets better. 'Also, I believe he has just accidentally rendered himself incapable of summoning assistance.'"

Sam looks like he wants to crawl into a hole and die at this point.

"'Speak the following phrase while directly in front of the object in question and the effects should be negated.' And dear god, he really did sign that with an angel smiley face," he snorts, grinning at his brother's disgruntled expression.

"Dean, come on, man!"

His lips twitch despite the well-founded irritation at the fact that his brother has somehow managed to accomplish something completely new to them – and something he should never have been able to do, messing around with Enochian invocations. Seriously, Sam needs to find a new hobby; between researching the Mark of Cain twelve hours a day and whatever this is, the guy is barely even sleeping. It's perfectly acceptable for Dean to become a walking zombie; the more dormant the Mark stays, the better – but it's Not Okay for Sam to be.

"Ok, princess, keep your panties on." He glances back down at the phone, and then back to his brother, clearing his throat.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall –"

"Dean, I will put ExLax in your coffee tomorrow!"

" – Who can't pronounce Enochian at all?"

"I will sell your Zeppelin vinyls on eBay and replace them with N'SYNC posters!"

Dean only continues, gleefully staring directly into the mirror. "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary? Bl –"

"I will drive straight out to the dog park and let every freaking chihuahua in the place pee all over your steering wheel. Hand on dad's journal, I will."

Dean's teasing screeches to a disgusted halt, and he glares at the Sam-reflection. "Not funny, dude."

His brother's dismal puppy eyes only stare forlornly back at him.

"Ergh, you're pathetic," he mumbles, glancing back at the phone with a sigh. After silently mouthing the pronunciation once to ensure he has it correct (he's not going to make the same mistake Sam did), he speaks the incantation aloud.

No sooner have the harsh monosyllables of Enochian left his tongue than the mirror flashes blindingly, and after he lowers his arm from his eyes his brother is back in three-dimensional form, looking a little abashed but none the worse for wear.

"Thanks," Sam mutters, and scurries into the hallway before he can be asked any questions.

Dean rolls his eyes and then returns to the kitchen, where he has found that chopping a few heads of lettuce into tiny shreds with a large cleaver is oddly satisfying.

Sam's always spent too much time in front of the mirror with that stupid hair anyway; serves him right.

Sam's always been a little clueless when it comes to physical construction skills.

Not that the guy's weak, by any stretch; Dean will be the first one to admit there's no way he'd take Sam on in a wrestling competition unless they're allowed to fight dirty. But Dean's always had the skill set for carpentry, mechanics, anything involving working with his hands – Sam just never had the knack.

Oh, the kid tried, sure. John made sure they could both change a tire before they turned ten, and Sam could swing a hammer as well as the next boy his age. But Dean still remembers the time he tried to teach a sixteen-year-old Sammy how to lay drywall, one summer when he was working with a construction crew and remodeling rooms at the crap motel they were staying at in exchange for free nights. Kid ended up almost putting two nails through his hand and actually putting one through his sneaker, in addition to inhaling enough dust (how that happened when Dean made sure he had a mask on, he still doesn't know) that two weeks later he ended up with walking pneumonia.

Now, decades later, Dean's pleasantly surprised to find that his mechanical skills, at least, have finally transferred to his little brother. Enough water has gone over that particular dam that they can talk about certain topics without flaming darts being hurled, and he finds out at some point that Sam did maintenance and plumbing work while Dean was in Purgatory.

What do you know, the kid finally learned how to fix a heater without short-circuiting his own brain, at least.

Sam's supposed new abilities don't extend to actual construction skills, however, at least to Dean's knowledge; and so it's with some alarm that he turns back from an aborted supply run to find the main common room empty of his brother (who had appeared ten minutes ago to be firmly entrenched for the long haul; his mountain of research is still in exactly the same spot on the table) and in the distance what sounds suspiciously like…power tools?

God help them all if Sammy somehow got hold of a buzz-saw.

The grinding reverberation stops, and he pauses as footsteps return his direction. In a moment Sam appears in the doorway, starting in surprise to see him back so soon. The look of dismay and guilt that flashes across his face incriminates him even before he opens his mouth; the kid never has been able to really lie well to his older brother.

Dean offers a hesitant olive branch. "Forgot my wallet."

"Right…" Sam stalls, ripping off a pair of hilarious orange safety goggles as if the motion will be fast enough that Dean can't see them.

"So…" He pockets the wallet and snags a bottle of Gatorade from the mini-fridge while he's at it. "You remodeling something?"

"Uh. Not. Well, no."

He raises his eyebrows over the rim of the bottle as he drinks.

Sam rakes a hand through his hair. "I'm…uh…replacing that door! The one to the electrical room," he finally says, hesitant.

Dean's amusement vanishes like smoke in the night. He hasn't gone down that wing, that part of the Bunker, since That Night so many months ago. Nothing like the memory of literally chopping a door down in order to hunt your baby brother like a wounded animal, to make you want to avoid a place. He figured Sam had either just left it an empty hole or replaced it a while back; but if he waited until now, that's his business.

The Mark on his arm stabs hot and angry at the memory – not of his actions that night, but of being thwarted in his final one.

Thank God.

"Thanks, Sam."

Sam nods, awkwardly.

Dean swallows the rest of the Gatorade, wishes fervently for the tenth time this week that it was something much stronger, and turns to head back out. Partway up the steps, he pauses, turns back.

"Do you even know how to hang a door?" he asks incredulously.

Sam looks properly affronted, though his upward glance is pretty shifty.

Dean smirks. "You put the hinges on backward the first time, didn't you."

"Shut up."

"Dude, you have an unhealthy relationship with a laptop. YouTube. YouTube has videos for everything."

"Dean, I said shut up."

"You want me to pick up some cheese to go with that whine while I'm out?"

(Sam's always been a little sensitive about things he's not perfect at.)

Sam's always been stupidly insistent on wanting financial independence.

Dean still has in his possession – will never ever tell anyone where (one of Bobby's old storage lockups buried in Idaho) – a small envelope containing a heart-shaped, slightly battered mess of red glitter and a silver wrapper, the remains of a card and candy bar that a six-year-old Sam had brought home from school one Valentine's Day weekend when John Winchester had been buried so deep in research he barely emerged to drive them to and from school.

Ms. Peterson saz you give Valentimes to the peeple you love so hear Dean, had been scrawled inside with all the shaky care of first-grade penmanship, and Dean knew the little squirt had fed the creepy cat lady in room seven's four cats all week while she was out of town in order to earn the two dollars to buy the candy bar.

Sam's birthday the previous November, Dean had just stolen a box of HoHos from the gas station down the road.

That's the difference between them. Sam has always instinctively hated the dishonest means they use to get by, even if he knows the necessity of them. Now, credit scams are how they have to live; even after both Frank and Charlie wiping their existence from all records on the internet, Sam still doesn't feel safe in trying to create real lives for them just yet. Someday, and he knows Sam is quietly working on it, someday they'll have alternate identities set up, records and papers and all, in readiness for if they ever need to go off the hunting grid. But for now, they live like they always have – fraud and the occasional odd job for quick and dirty cash.

But Dean knows that Sam hates the credit scams, the hustling, the whole shebang – so it doesn't really shock him when he's going through emails one morning before Sam's done pouring sugar and spice and everything foo-foo into that stuff he calls coffee, and sees that apparently Sam's set them up with an eBay and a linked account.

"Dude, you better not be fooling around on here buying more crap we don't need," he yells over one shoulder in the general direction of the kitchen.

He hears a muffled curse and knows he's startled his brother, but Sam calls back readily enough. "You know you can get parts for the 'Pala on there for like half the price that jerk over in Lebanon has been screwing you over for?"

Okay, so Sam might be on to something with this honest transaction crap.

It's a few days later, however, that he wanders into a wing of the Bunker that he hasn't really explored much and futzes around until he suddenly encounters his brother (of course Sam has already probably explored and mapped the whole Bunker, the freak) in a small storage room, busily taking pictures on his phone of what looks like random pieces of junk.

"Dude. Why the montage."

Sam jumps, more than just a little, and Dean immediately takes a step back; it's pretty shadowy in here, and he's wearing a red shirt today, just as he was on That Night. Neither of them need any flashbacks or latent PTSD flare-ups and yes, he did a lot of research on the topic immediately afterwards, so sue him, thank you very much.

The Mark burning on his arm flares bright and clear at the remembrance, burning a fiery streak under his shirt; he's surprised it's not smoking right through the flannel.

After swallowing visibly, Sam clears his throat and the air between them, then gestures to the items lined up on the table. Nothing particularly supernatural, it doesn't look like.

"Some of this stuff is getting a pretty good price on eBay, Dean. If it's not supernatural, just antique, and we're never going to use it, we might as well sell it. We're literally sitting on a fortune, man."

He's not seen Sam's eyes dance with excitement like this in a long time; boy's got his geek on but serious. And if spending four hours listing random crap on the internet for some poor sucker to spend his money on will make him happy, and make Dean not have to listen to what Bad People they are for pulling yet another credit card scam, well that's a win/win/win for everybody.

"Yeeeeah. Go for it, Einstein," he drawls, clapping his brother on the shoulder. "And keep an eye out for one of those Keurig things."

Sam glances up from the camera for a moment, eyes serious. "There's some really, really old spell books on there too, Dean, and some lore manuscripts I've never even heard of, not even when I was searching for a way to break your deal all those years ago," he says quietly. "They'll take a fortune to buy, way more than any credit card we could ever get approved for."

Of course the kid's brain would still be working on Dean's demonic scar tissue problem 24/7. The warmth he feels at the thought cancels out the fire burning in his arm. For the moment.

"Good thing there's still one Man of Letters living who knows how to get rid of this load of junk then," he replies, grinning. "So, if I was to help you come up with stuff to sell, what kind of crap should I be looking for while I'm digging?"

Fifteen minutes of dissertation on antiques and a set of glazed eyes later, he's kind of sorry he asked.

Sam's always been a little obsessed with the power of the internet, but Dean thinks he's rapidly becoming an eBay mogul.

Sam's always been a killjoy at celebrating holidays.

Although, in fairness, neither of them feels like celebrating any this year. Halloween for them is basically sharing six bags of assorted candy (Sam, the wuss, copped out after one measly bag of Skittles) and blowing through a Mythbusters marathon that Dean was awesome enough to DVR the week before. Thanksgiving they're in Portland cleansing an asylum of a particularly nasty poltergeist on top of a rogue vampire nest hidden in the west wing, and while they are certainly thankful to be alive and relatively well afterwards neither of them feel like doing more than toasting each other's continued health with their drive-thru coffee as they head for home.

Christmas is a wash, because Dean's having a Bad Week. They're starting to categorize them like that now, unfortunately, like he's a freaking head case or something. After four days of moodiness and throwing things and teeth-grinding control over the increasing desire for some blood-shed – any bloodshed! – he finally snaps, and takes a swing at Sam on Christmas Eve over something so stupid he can't even remember why they were arguing in the first place.

He does, however, remember freaking out immediately afterwards, and how the knowledge of what he'd just done is enough to extinguish the flames.

He tosses every weapon he has out into the hallway, and then locks himself in his room for two days after calling Cas to come make sure he hasn't broken Sammy's nose, or worse.

The day after next he emerges, pale and shaky, and collapses at the closest library table, puts his head in his hands.

A plate clunks down in front of him, the familiar smell of pumpkin and spices bringing back memories of cheap holiday suppers in even cheaper motels in years gone by. He peeks out between shaking fingers, then freezes like a scared animal when a strong hand comes down on his shoulder with infinite gentleness.

"Not the healthiest breakfast, but some idiot decided he wasn't going to stick around for dinner on Christmas," Sam says calmly.

He doesn't say anything, just watches as Sam takes a seat nearby, hands curled around a coffee mug. Its twin gets pushed his direction, and he reaches out slowly to take the steaming cup. At least it doesn't look like he got a good hit in; there's a slight discolored bruise on the underside of his brother's left jawline, but no more damage than that. He had either pulled his punch, or Sam had seen it coming and gotten out of the way. Neither is acceptable, but at this point he'll take any silver lining he can get.

Sam's hand comes down on his wrist, unknowingly just below the fiery brand that threatens more danger than he knows. Dean flinches, but the desire for blood has retreated under the weight of terror, the fear of what he might have done in recent days.

"New rules," Sam says, and while his tone is gentle his eyes are two sharp points of steel. "Next time you lock yourself in somewhere you answer your freaking phone, or I will break the door down."

"Fair enough," he mutters.

"And two," Sam tugs firmly, regaining his attention, "you have to tell me if it gets that bad, Dean. You can't just – just go boiling like a pressure cooker, pretending to be fine but getting worse and worse until you explode on somebody! What if that had been a civilian? What if you hadn't still had the control to pull your punches?"

He yanks his arm free as the Mark flares into a firework of burning sparks, defending instinctively against the words.

"That bad? That bad, Sam?" He shoves the pie plate away in a burst of anger so hot, so sudden, it surprises even him. "It's always that bad, Sam! I'm telling you now, it's that bad!"

Sam's eyes widen, both at the outburst and at that admission, far more than he's been willing to admit until now. Now, it's in the open – Sam knows how far gone he is. How he's losing the fight for control, no matter how much his brother wants to say he believes Dean can do it.

Now Sam knows, really knows, they're running out of time.

He slumps back in his seat, suddenly drained, head in his hands. "I don't know what else to do, Sammy," he murmurs, the words muffled into his palms.

He hears Sam's soft exhale into the stillness that follows. "You've been totally honest with me, Dean," he says softly. "That's a start. You can do this."

If it weren't for the brand eating like acid at his arm, he might just start laughing hysterically at the stupid, stupid blind trust his brother seems to still have, after so many years of being proven wrong.

Sam's always been just a little biased where Dean is concerned.

Sam's always been pretty bad at keeping secrets.

Dean's birthday is coming up at the end of January. Huzzah. When you've still lived more years in Hell than you have up top, putting another notch in that particular bed-post doesn't really mean that much, and he hasn't honestly given it any thought whatsoever other than the brief flash of wry amusement he gets when he opens an email which cheerfully reminds him to stop in at his local Biggerson's for his "Free! Birthday! Sundae!"

(Like he's going to step foot in one for the next decade, especially to eat something with processed sugar in it. Corn syrup has a long shelf life, and who knows how many restaurants were infected by Dick Roman's stupid-juice before they took him out.)

But Sammy, bless his little sentimental heart, has obviously remembered, because for the last two weeks he's been acting weird. Er. Weirder than usual, that is. While it's never been uncommon to find Sam sacked out over a pile of ledgers and scattered parchment on one of the library tables, for the last week or so he's more than once caught the kid nodding off in other places around the Bunker.

"You sleepin' okay?" he asks from around a piece of toast (also crap, this; since when is birdseed supposed to be on bread crust?), on the fourth day that he has to act fast in order to prevent Sam from taking a faceplant into his cornflakes.

Sam straightens up with a guilty blink, launches into some mumbling line of bull about having taken antihistamines to deal with the dust he's stirring up in the Men of Letters storage rooms, and how they always make him drowsy, blah blah blah, more made-up technobabble, blah blah blah.

Kid never has been able to lie on the spot to his own brother.

And it only gets worse as the weeks pass. January had rolled in frigid and bleak, and now barrels onward with gray tenacity matched only by Dean's increasing restlessness. The Mark is starting to burn again with need, and his temper is growing shorter and shorter. Sam keeps disappearing for hours on end, and he wonders if his brother knows how it's probably just a matter of hours until something satiates or else overpowers the Mark's desire for blood. Dean will snap, it's only a matter of time; and heaven help whoever happens to be in his path when he does.

Whatever Sam's plotting, he can only hope it's enough of a distraction.

Four days before his birthday, he decides to amuse himself by doing some cooking – something he hasn't bothered with in quite a while. Maybe he'll make soup or something; that takes some skill, and some time, and it's good comfort food for winter months. If nothing else, it will fill a few hours' time, and satisfy Sam's whackadoo craving for vegetables three meals a day.

It's only after he has all the vegetables laid out in neat rows on the counter and is looking to proceed to the next step, that he realizes.

Sam has removed every knife from the kitchen.

And the blades from the food processor.

And those from the blender, apparently.

Sam obviously isn't as unobservant as he thought.

Instead of the gratitude he knows he should feel (because there has been more than one instance in the last few weeks he's seriously considered if just amputating his arm would remove the Mark, or if it would just migrate to a different part of his body), instead there is only that now-familiar, seething anger that boils through his veins, starting in his arm and working its way through his heart, stabbing shards of dark glass into his very soul. A black, roiling rage that Sam would dare to treat him like an infant, child-proofing his own kitchen, without even telling him what he was doing –

The piercing crash of glass shattering is what brings him back to the present, clears the red haze from his vision.

Okay, this is getting more and more chilling, because he literally, legitimately does not remember throwing the blender jar at the wall.

What if that had been a person?

From a distant corridor he hears a door slam, a concerned voice tentatively calling his name.

Panicked, he snatches up his keys and runs the other direction, toward the garage.

Through no real fault of his own, it's almost a week later before he makes it back. The day after he splits, getting halfway across Kansas by nightfall because he needs to think, and in order to do that he needs to just drive aimlessly, an epic snowstorm all but buries him in a backwoods town near the Nebraska border. His baby is a gorgeous, reliable gal, but a high-maintenance lady all the way; no chance in hell she'll make it on roads that are getting snowed in again as quickly as they're being plowed.

Due to a complete lack of wallet (he'd left too quickly) and also lack of confidence in his ability to be near people, he ends up squatting in a surprisingly new farmhouse sporting a posted foreclosure notice on the outskirts of town, one containing a wood fireplace in which the flue – miracle of miracles – hasn't been clogged up by animals nesting. No electricity, but Baby always carries an emergency kit; and so with an Arctic sleeping bag and a camp light, after getting a fire lit he thinks he'll spend the night fairly uneventfully.

Looking back now, he can see that in keeping with typical Winchester luck, he had definitely chosen the wrong farmhouse in which to squat; because both that night and the three following he spent dodging an angry spirit and trying to figure out what object in the house it could be attached to. Sam's research showed that the only occupants of the house had all died in the house fire some fifteen years ago, when it burned to the ground – which explained why the basement appeared decades old but the house itself was still fairly modern-looking. (Also explaining why no one would stay in it for very long.)

Finally, he was able to locate little Laurie's first baby tooth, which had apparently been kept by Grandma in a scrapbook, stored in a box in the basement - and which had fallen out and then somehow gotten wedged into a crack in the mortar between two cinder blocks.

Seriously, the Winchester luck. If the creepy child-ghost hadn't continually kept throwing him headfirst at that exact spot he might never have found it.

So it was six days after his abrupt departure when he finally returned to the Men of Letters Bunker, exhausted from a lack of sleep but somewhat relieved to have burned off a lot of nervous, destructive energy by continually tussling with a cranky ghost night after night.

Sam meets him at the door of the garage corridor. He looks like he hasn't slept any more than Dean has for the last week.

God, they are both so screwed.

"You okay?" he asks wearily.

Sam blinks. "Uh, yeah. Not the one who was getting tossed around by a pissed-off twelve-year-old for the last week."

"Yeah, well." They step into the well-lit corridors of the Bunker, and the memory of why he'd left immediately flashes back, igniting the spark of burning rage again. He tamps down on it firmly, fist clenched against the burn.

Sam exhales in a long sigh as they walk down the corridor, oddly out of sync. "They're in the weapons duffel, you know," he offers conversationally.

"Come again?"

"The sharp objects, the lack of which evidently pissed you off enough that you trashed the kitchen and then took off without letting me know where you were for twelve hours?"

There's no reproach in the tone, only genuine hurt, and that cuts deeper than anger would have – and it deflates Dean's fury faster than a pin in a balloon.

"Sammy…"

"They're in the weapons duffel, which is locked in the Bunker armory, other than a few weapons we use regularly, which are in my room," Sam continues, eyes firmly looking ahead and not at him. "All you had to do was ask, Dean. I'm not trying to – to be your parole officer here or something."

Dean snorts, lips twisting bitterly. "Pretty sad that you kinda need to be."

A large hand thwaps him upside the head. "Idiot. I didn't take them because I'm afraid you're going to knife me in my sleep or something, Dean."

"No?"

"No. Jesus, Dean, I just…I know you, okay? I know how you think. And if you did something stupid because you thought that taking yourself out, eliminating the threat, would be the best option –"

"It might be, Sam," he points out.

Sam rakes both hands through his hair. "I'm not even going to debate that with you, man. But don't you get it – if you did do something stupid, and try to eliminate yourself as the threat in the heat of the moment…we'd be right back where we started all those months ago."

He stops walking, halted in his tracks by that sudden realization. Sam's right, of course; if he did try, in the heat of a rash decision, to try and take himself out properly but failed – the Mark would just bring him back again as a demon. And, he thinks with a sudden chilled shudder, that this time there's no amount of blood cure that could really bring him back from touching that darkness again.

Sam's always been one step ahead of him when it comes to gut instinct, and for that he's grateful.

Sam's always been pretty impressive at remembering birthdays.

Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep does much to quench the fire burning through his veins, and at breakfast Sam has forgiven him enough to make a smartass comment about wishing he could make a smoothie but oh wait, we don't have a blender anymore. Ice thus broken, they spend the rest of the morning buried again in researching any and all lore on the Mark of Cain.

Of the three books Sam paid far too much for on eBay, one is completely hokey, and the other two highly interesting from a hunting perspective but there's not a scrap or hint of a clue regarding the brand on his arm.

Sam finally utters a wordless groan and bangs his head down onto his folded arms, in a childlike gesture of frustration Dean probably hasn't seen in a decade. Oddly enough, it makes him smile for the first time in a week.

"C'mon man, take a break," he mumbles, stretching his arms over his head.

"I can't help but think we're still missing the obvious, Dean." Sam's eyes peek out warily from under his hair. "The river ends at the source –"

"If you suggest one more time that you try to find a way to make even a peephole into the Cage to so much as chat with Lucifer, I might just kill you myself," he says evenly.

"The Mark came straight from him, Dean. He is the source."

"And if getting to him or letting him out is the only way to get it off me then I will learn to live with it. Period. End of story."

His brother's forehead creases, but he obviously knows better than to have this argument again, for the fifth time in as many weeks. Then his pocket buzzes, and he pulls his phone out to see a series of text messages from Heaven's only-angel-who-has-discovered-how-to-install-the-emoji-keyboard.

I understand that social convention dictates apologies are necessary in situations such as this. I was engaged in a minor angelic dispute in the Southern Hemisphere at the time, so please accept mine.

Happy Belated Birth Day, Dean.

(This, followed by an entire string of what looks like every emoji in existence that can possibly be related to a party or birthday, including four pieces of cake, seven balloons, and an angel emoticon.)

Sam peers over his shoulder and then snorts a laugh right into his ear before moving a few paces away to stretch the kinks out of his back. "I should teach him how to use Twitter," he says, grinning.

"Oh my god, don't you dare."

"Speaking of, though." Sam's voice has changed, sounding more unsure, almost shy. A hand reaches up to grip the back of his neck, a nervous habit Dean doubts he even knows he has. "I…uh, have something for you."

"Yeah?" He half-turns in his chair. "You bake me a cake while I was gone, Betty?"

Sam favors him with a withering bitchface and then leaves the library. After staring after him for a second, it occurs to him that he was supposed to follow and he catches up in the hallway branching off toward the unexplored regions of the Bunker.

"So whatcha get me, Sammy? Huh?" Frowning when Sam doesn't immediately rise to the bait, he offers a sharp elbow instead.

"Geez, Dean!" Sam scowls as he stumbles into the wall, but even the reaction looks a little forced. If he didn't know better, Dean would almost swear the kid looks…nervous.

Bizarre.

They pass through the corridors Dean knows hold storage rooms, each categorized and only half of them explored by anyone past the 1950s, and go deeper into the Bunker, places he has only been once or twice but obviously Sam knows very well. They finally pause in front of an archway where another corridor branches off, and Sam glances at him.

He raises an eyebrow expectantly.

"This is going to feel a little weird," is all the explanation he gets, before Sam walks through the archway, motioning for him to follow.

Ooookay.

He steps forward, and immediately twitches as every hair on his body stands on end. He's been electrocuted before, so he knows what it feels like – and this isn't it, but it's similar, an icy hot current of energy, flowing over and around him, invisible but very, very real.

And then it's gone, just like that.

"What the –"

"It's a blood-ward spell," Sam says from behind him, watching in amusement as he edges back toward the archway, reaching out a curious hand to see where the invisible barrier begins.

"A what now?"

"A variation on an ancient Enochian warding ritual; only in this case, one based on blood. Meaning when the spell is cast, the only people then permitted past the barrier are those with the same blood as the one who cast the spell."

Dean stares at his brother, concern growing in the back of his mind. That sounds suspiciously like Sam's been screwing around with blood magic, the most dangerous of all magicks in existence. But Sam's not an idiot, so he tables that for now.

Just for now.

"What if we both got possessed and holed up down here and, say, another hunter needed to get down here to take us out?"

"There's an Enochian counter-spell," Sam explains calmly. "Cas already has it, and there's a backup copy on my laptop that can be accessed remotely by any competent hacker."

"Dude." He's impressed, no doubt about that, and it shows on his face.

Sam blushes slightly. "That's not what I wanted to show you really," he mumbles, scuttling on down the corridor.

Somewhat more warily, Dean follows. He catches up outside a nondescript steel door, unique only in that it sits flush against the floor, ceiling, and every edge – airtight, he's guessing, and there is no window or any visible markings to distinguish it from the others in the hall.

Sam has gone from looking twitchy to outright pee-his-pants nervous. Dean frowns, tries to still his fidgeting by grabbing his shoulders.

"Dude, what is wrong with you?"

"Look, promise me you won't be mad," Sam says suddenly, hands gesturing nervously at the door.

Uh, ok. "Should I be?" he asks doubtfully.

"I don't know." Sam looks away, dropping his gaze. "I don't ever know, any more," he adds quietly.

Fair enough.

"Yeah, I deserve that," he sighs, taking a step back. "Sammy, I got no idea what you're doing but I can promise if I didn't get mad at you rupturing sewer pipes up in the Letters' laboratory a while back then I'm not gonna blow my stack over whatever you did in here."

Some of the tension eases out of his brother's features, as he grins in rueful embarrassment. He finally clears his throat loudly. "Right. Well. It's unlocked, so…be my guest, Dean."

A decade ago, he'd be checking above his head for a pail of water, but unfortunately those carefree, childish days are long gone; he has no idea what to expect when he enters the room, and is braced for basically any potentially embarrassing prank or gag gift his little brother could have come up with for his birthday, in an effort to get their minds off the Mark burning away at what's left of his soul.

What he finds within, however…

…is astonishing.

He takes another few steps inside, turns in a slow circle with his hands hidden in his pockets so Sam can't see them shake. His eyes can't stop looking, flickering eagerly over every detail.

At first glance the walls are a peaceful shade of blue-gray; but on closer examination he can see that they are carefully padded. Initially he bristles at the idea that he's being treated like a mental patient, but then he remembers the shattered blender, and how two weeks ago he punched a concrete wall in his room so that he didn't take his anger out on Sam over something stupid – and that's actually probably a good idea. They're long past being able to kid themselves over this. He'll be lucky if his examination doesn't reveal a straightjacket to match the walls.

There's a queen-sized air bed along one wall piled with pillows and a heavy down comforter; no boxsprings, no metal frame; nothing he can form into a weapon, but still comfortable, and there are D-rings screwed tightly into the floor at the four corners, loudly indicating restraints can be attached if needed but aren't going to be brought out until necessary. Other than this bed, the room is void of furniture, but beside the bed is a small stack of books, on top of which is a simple black leather photo album, which upon inspection appears to hold copies of every picture he has (he thought) well hidden in his own bedroom. Sam's very good.

He rolls his eyes fondly at the sight of a yoga mat and meditation mat rolled up neatly next to an upright punching bag and set of boxing gloves in one corner. In the opposite, a privacy screen hides a small toilet and sink. And in the fourth corner, behind what upon closer inspection appears to be bulletproof glass, is some kind of…TV-slash-video-game-console-thing. At least the TV part is behind glass, the rest is sitting on a small stand off to the side.

He doesn't realize he's said this aloud until he hears the light laughter from the doorway. "The console is called an X-Box 360, Dean. Yes, you can watch TV on it, I've got it hooked up for that. But it's more than that, something to keep us distracted at least if we ever do have to be holed up in here for an extended period of time.

"What's so special about this one?" he asks, because honestly they all look the same to him.

"It's completely wireless," Sam replies quietly.

Ah. So it can be put behind glass in case he goes nuclear, and so that there aren't any controller cords that can be used to strangle anyone.

"I thought that since some studies have shown that prolonged exposure to graphic video games can have an effect on the mind, that maybe this would help, if the urge to kill something gets too strong," Sam ventures with surprising candidness, indicating several games already stacked beside the console. He turns faintly green as he continues, but he does continue. "These are supposed to be the most realistic ones on the market as far as…level of gore, I guess. It's not the healthiest way to deal, but all things considered it's worth a try, at least."

Damn, Sammy's done his research.

After three more rotations he finally is turned back toward the door again, where his six-foot-four brother has somehow managed to appear hunched to half that, uncertain and hopeful.

"You got me a panic room."

"Uh." Sam nervously shifts his weight to the other foot. "Maybe?"

"You got me a panic room, for my birthday."

"Is that…cool?"

He glances backward for a second, and then spins back around, grinning so wide his eyes crinkle. "Dude, it's awesome."

Sam's face suddenly lights up brighter than the sun, and he looks all of five years old again.

-0-

"So when you blew up the laboratory –"

"I was practicing magic, yes, Dean. This room is protected by six different warding spells both to keep you in, and everything else out."

He snickers, popping another pretzel into his mouth. "Not very good at it, huh."

Hazel eyes roll tolerantly toward the devil's trap-adorned ceiling. "That's why they call it practicing, Dean."

He shoots his brother a pointed look. "What kind of magic, exactly, are we talking about?"

Sam sighs. "Protection spells and warding spells, mainly. Most of it's too much of a gray area for me to even think about attempting until I have time to dissect Magnus's studies and figure out what I can really use without violating my own ethical code. So just those for now, other than two very specific spells for use in emergencies."

"Which are?"

Sam looks uncomfortable. "Can we talk about that later?" he asks quietly.

"They're to take me down, worst case scenario. Aren't they."

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly?"

"Do we have to do this now?"

It's the pleading that finally gets through to him, that and the fact that there's still so much to learn about this Room of Awesome and he doesn't want to jeopardize their truce yet. He lets the subject drop, and waves a pretzel-filled hand around at the room in general.

"So when you got stuck in that mirror?"

Sam grins at the memory. He hops to his feet, reaches down to pull Dean to his from off the meditation mat (which is not a sufficient cushion, Dean takes note of for the future) and then gestures toward the door. Dean watches as he speaks an unfamiliar string of harsh syllables – Enochian, that much he recognizes, but not any phrases he's familiar with in their limited repertoire.

Immediately, the area around the door lights up blue with previously invisible, extremely intricate Enochian sigils.

"There's an old Enochian incantation to bind a demon to its vessel, and one to conceal a human from an angel, the whole carving-into-the-ribs thing being part of that. I was trying to amalgamate both of those incantations into one that could both bind and conceal demon and human," Sam explained. "Unfortunately I ended up apparently reciting an Enochian ritual that binds a human to the nearest inanimate object instead. Which happened to be a mirror."

Dean tries not to laugh, because really it's freaking amazing what Sam's done; but he can't quite muffle the snort into a hasty cough.

"Jerk." Sam elbows him tolerantly. "Anyway, I did finally manage it with some help from Cas and an old incantation archive I found buried in one of the Letters' storage rooms. These symbols should, if I'm right, both bind a demon to its vessel but also hide that vessel from angelic interference."

Dean frowns. "What's the point of –"

"Dean, if you do end up going dark side, do you think I'm really going to let Cas 'throw you into the sun'?"

Jaw tightening, he folds his arms protectively across his chest. "Somebody has a big mouth."

Sam ignores him. "And, I want to make sure your soul stays firmly in your body; we never did figure out what Abaddon's game was with soul armies. Because demon you was still you, a demonic binding spell will keep your soul bound to your body while you remain in this room, no matter what other magic, ritual, or attack is cast on the Bunker. The angelic concealment portion will keep any angel from locating you should Cas – or anyone else for that matter – get the stupid idea to put a supernatural bounty on your head."

Dean stares at his little brother, somewhat awe-struck at the amount of planning Sam has been putting into this.

"This room is a supernatural fortress, Dean," Sam continues, obviously warming to his topic. "It's the single room that sits at the perfect heart of the Bunker – I found the blueprints for this place, by the way, if you want to see them – and it's far enough underground that no demon I've ever met has the juice to break through that many levels of warding. Not even an archangel can get through the amount of angelic warding I've added along with the others; I can modify it when Cas needs to visit but nothing else is getting through here.

"Besides the runes and sigils you see on the walls and over the doorway, the hall is protected as you already walked through by a blood warding spell, in addition to two supernatural tripwires; anything demonic or angelic makes it past the sigils in the hall it will trip the secondary warding spells and the place goes into lockdown. That door is magnetically sealed, and also protected by a blood sigil put on and then warded so as to be invisible; only you or I can touch the door itself, and you can only open it from the outside, not the inside."

"Jesus, Sammy. What kinda fire have you been you playing with," he murmurs, staring at the intricate runes carved along the edges of the doorway.

"I had to do something." The words are so quiet, he barely hears them.

Dean makes a broken noise of disbelief in his throat. "You could've thrown an air mattress, demonic handcuffs and a freakin' Bible in here and called it quits, Sam, and no one would blame you. Hell, that'd be way better than we ever gave anybody else. Why all this when we've got a perfectly good dungeon, anyway?"

Shoulders slumped a little, Sam gestures toward the small storage cube beside the "bathroom" privacy screen, and after a questioning look Dean wanders over and takes a look.

"Dude," he laughs in surprise. "Where on earth did you get this?"

Sam smiles crookedly, a sad little twitch. "Do you remember the last time you saw it?"

Dean looks down at the faded red and blue blanket, worn almost through the Superman logo in places and fraying along the corners from being tied into too many impromptu capes as children. How it had survived their childhood, he'll never know – they kept it in the Impala for a while just because it was still one of the softest blankets they had, and they used it for emergencies.

But the last time he saw it…

"Sorry, man, I don't," he sighs, knowing he's probably failed some crucial test.

Sam doesn't comment, only still has that same sad smile. "Not surprised; you were kinda otherwise occupied."

"With what?"

"Me."

Dean glances back down at the tattered relic. "When was that?"

Sam glances reflexively up at the devil's trap painted overhead, and a barely-perceivable shudder works its way through him. "Second detox from demon blood," he says, the words dropping like lead into the stillness.

Dean freezes, hands wrapped in the soft fleece; until that moment, he really hadn't drawn the parallels that his brother obviously had.

"You're forgetting I know exactly what it's like to be 'jonesing for a fix,' is I think how you put it," Sam continues matter-of-factly. "And what it's like to know you're going to say yes even though you really don't want to, not deep down. Not in your soul. Let's call it what it is, bro. I know what it's like to be an addict."

Aw, Sam…

"And unfortunately, I know what it's like to be shoved into a panic room, chained up like an animal, and left there, screaming for help that never came," Sam continues, in the same gentle tone of voice; but the words slice deeply, even if they're well deserved.

"God, Sammy, we screwed that up so bad, Bobby and me…mostly me…" He exhales shakily, fists clenched in the blanket.

"Maybe." Sam shrugs. "But it's not like I was innocent, dude. And anyway, that second time…maybe it wasn't a big deal to you, but it was to me."

"What was?"

"You didn't leave me in there alone that time," his brother says simply. "Once I'd stopped levitating things and you could come in without chancing getting clobbered with anything not nailed down, you just sat there in the corner, waiting for me to wear myself out so you could step in."

Dean barely remembers that, although the two bottles of whiskey he'd had that night after the encounter with Famine probably were to blame.

"That whole first night, you ended up sleeping with a pillow and that stupid old blanket on the floor right beside that cot I was tied to. I was half out of my head but I knew you were there, Dean. That made all the difference, y'know? And when it was finally over, that's the first thing I remember seeing – that blanket, because you'd given it to me sometime in the night after I'd finally stopped being sick. "

Sam's eyes glint with either unshed tears or determination, Dean's not sure which – maybe both; kid's entitled, regardless. "So I had to do what I could. I'm not going to let you do this alone, Dean – none of it. I've been down this road; I know what it's like. And I can help you, if you let me."

"Ughhhh, enough with the eyes already." He tosses the blanket at Sam's stupid head to hide his stupid face. Also how close he is to hugging his stupid everything.

"How much did this crap cost anyway?"

Sam's gracious enough to give him the out, for now at least. "Why do you think I've become an almost professional eBay dealer?" his brother asks wryly, folding the blanket onto the air bed.

Dean shakes his head, looks around at the room again. "This really is awesome, Sam," he says earnestly. Sam looks embarrassed, but pleased. "The only thing…Sammy, you still need a kill switch. Tell me you have one, and this will be perfect."

Sam looks him in the eye, unflinching. "I have two."

Dean blinks. "Two?"

"Two, because I've not been able to test the first one fully and I don't know how successful it would be anyway against a Mark that basically predates all written language."

Dean flops down on the air bed, grinning as it bounces under his weight. "You feel safe in telling me what they are?"

Sam shrugs as he lowers himself to the floor. Long legs curled up under him, he rests his chin in one hand thoughtfully. "Knowing about them isn't going to help you avoid them if the time comes, so I guess I can. You've been honest with me, it's only fair I do the same."

Dean props himself up on his elbows, smile vanishing, because he can see this is painful for Sam to talk about. "You don't have to –" he begins.

"I've mastered Magnus's mind-control spell," Sam blurts out, which effectively shuts Dean up faster than a physical gag would have.

That's…a little dark, for Sam.

"Okay," he ventures cautiously. "That's…good, Sam. Creepy McSpellmaster made me pick up the Blade in the first place, maybe you can make me drop it. If it really works that well –"

"I tested it on two people," Sam adds flatly, painfully. As if he's trying to get the words out before he loses his nerve. "It works."

That's…not as good.

"Sam…"

"I didn't make them do anything bad, Dean," Sam continues, though he's refusing to meet his brother's eyes. "The one guy was harassing this girl in line at the store in front of me…I needed to test the spell anyway…so I said it, and then made him apologize and leave."

Dean wants to smack his head against the wall. Only Sam would feel bad about that.

"And then I needed to make sure it wasn't just a fluke and that it would work to drain a stronger willpower, so I…" Sam swallows, then continues. "I tried it on Cas."

The Mark flares up with a boiling surge of anger, which he quells with an effort, possibly made easier by the room they're in. "Did it work?" he asks, too calmly.

"You got a belated birthday text, didn't you?"

Lips pursed, he closes his eyes for a moment, tries to take in the ramifications of this new knowledge.

"Have you ever used it on me?"

"No."

"You lyin' to me?"

"No, Dean."

"You plannin' on using it on anybody else?"

"Absolutely not."

In that at least, he can see that Sam's telling the truth. Exhaling in a long rush of breath, he rolls back over and shakes off the cloud of doubt.

"Freakin' hate witches, you know that," he mutters, scowling.

Sam has the grace to look slightly abashed.

"Honestly I'm not sure it would work on you, Dean, which is why I have a secondary failsafe. You're the strongest person I know, man. I just don't think a spell could drain your will entirely, no matter who was casting it."

"You never do things halfway, do you, Sam." He scrubs both hands over his face, and then lets it go; heaven and hell both know he's stepped over so many lines in recent months there's no way he's going to condemn someone else for their choices. And besides, he's the one who's forced Sam to dig deeper and come up darker in their efforts to fight this thing, so he has to bear part of the blame.

(Also, and while he intends to make sure they do tell Cas what Sam did, it's by no means anywhere near the caliber of tearing down a freaking wall in his little brother's head, so he can't feel too angry on the angel's behalf, if they really want to start being both judge and jury.)

"So what's the second kill switch? Is it guaranteed?"

"100%. Completely foolproof." Sam looks at him with such assurance, such total confidence, that it sparks hope inside him as well.

"Okay, geek boy, lay it on me."

"Easy enough. Worst case scenario, you go nuclear, totally dark side – what are you going to do first? Eliminate the biggest threat, which would be me. Which is what I'll be counting on."

Dean tries not to remember how good the hammer had felt in his hand, the ecstatic high of fiery rage singing through his veins, throbbing to the siren tune of bloodlust. "Not encouraging me here, Sammy."

Sam's lips curve up at the corner in a half-smile. "I've finally found the spell Dorothy told us about when we first met her, Dean. It was buried in one of the original Oz manuscripts, in a footnote that didn't make it to publishing."

Great, more witchy crap. "What spell is that again?"

"Basically, Dorothy found a spell that bound her and the Wicked Witch's souls together and then trapped them forever in the nearest curse-proof receptacle. Until someone came along and let them both out, that is," Sam says softly.

Dean bolts upright. "Oh hell no."

"You get no say in this, Dean," Sam snaps, eyes flashing with sudden fire, raising his voice for the first time all day. "If you do go past that point of no return, and there is no other option –"

"Then you let Cas kill me!"

"I'll do nothing of the kind," Sam retorts with heat. "Just because we haven't found a solution yet doesn't mean we or someone else in our future never will – and I am not. giving. up. on. you!"

The staccato words are accented by a hand grabbing his shirt for emphasis, shaking him like a terrier despite the fact that Sam's still just kneeling on the floor in front of him.

"So if you go down, big brother, you're taking me with you."

Sam's not being melodramatic – he's not seen the kid this serious in years, not since those months that Dean's Deal was coming due.

"Sammy, you –" He shakes his head, helpless. "That's insane. You just can't, man."

Sam leans into his personal space, all six-odd-feet of intimidating, crazy as hell, slightly witchy but kickass little brother.

"Then you'd better keep fighting, Dean, so I don't have to."

-0-

Sam's always had enough faith for the both of them.

And despite everything the universe has decided to throw at them, that ends up being magic enough.