"This has got to be the skeeziest motel we've ever set foot in," Sam proclaimed.

Dropping his duffel bag down on a nearby table, Dean sniffed disapprovingly. A very strong scent of booze, vomit, and sex hung in the air, and he hated to think that they were all left behind by the last guest. "Smells like a skunk died of a whiskey overdose," he murmured. Seeing the full-sized bed in the middle of the room, Dean groaned. "Oh, what the-… didn't we tell the guy two twins?"

"We don't have to worry about anything," Sam told him, watching a cockroach squeeze under the space beneath the door and escape into nature. "I don't want to sleep on that bed. It'd probably be more sanitary in the backseat of the Impala."

"Don't go badmouthing my baby by comparing it to this dump," Dean said sharply, sitting down on a chair. Surprised by the way his seat wobbled, he grabbed onto the edge of the table to keep from falling and jumped back up. Wiping the seat of his pants as though not believing he had touched anything in this room, he remarked, "I'd rather stay in the Bates Motel. At least they had a classy atmosphere."

"And the corpse of a little old lady rotting away in one of the rooms," Sam murmured. "Look, we have no idea where that demon's disappeared to, and Bobby said he's going to hit us up with some good info in the morning, okay? So we can either drive aimlessly until we get the call, or we can get a decent night's sleep. Your choice."

"Oh, don't tell me that, Sam," Dean said warningly, already grabbing for his duffel. "Because I've got no problem at all with cruising around the interstate with Metallica blaring out the speakers. Let's hightail it."

Sam grabbed the duffel bag away from Dean. Speaking very carefully as though his brother were a four-year-old, he explained, "The snowstorm's getting worse and visibility is nearly down to zero. We already paid for the room, so I suggest we both pass out for a few hours until we know for sure that the mileage we're putting on that car is being used towards the case. Does that make sense?"

Never one to enjoy being castigated, Dean gave Sam an amused look and muttered, "Ooh, Sammy's getting all commanding. I like it. Tell ya what, princess, since you're calling the shots, you can take the bed. I'll just take the backseat. Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll find somebody in the parking lot who'll want to keep me company."

"It's below freezing out there, Dean," Sam told him tiredly. "Come on, this place isn't any worse than the dives Dad would take us to when we were kids. I'll sleep better if I know you're not freezing your ass off outside."

"Aw, Sam, I'm touched."

"Well, who else can drive like enough of a maniac to constantly get us to where we need to go in time?"

Against his better judgment, Dean watched as Sam took off his jacket and unpacked his things. There was something about the place that put him off, but then again, he had been driving for twelve hours straight and was running on nothing but a coffee and a piece of cherry pie. The thing they had been chasing was actually giving them a chase, which both invigorated and irritated Dean. The thrill of the hunt wasn't quite so thrilling when you've been on the road without any substantial food or showers for the better part of three days.

Pulling back the bedspread as though he was waiting for something to wriggle out of it, Sam let out something that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief. "What?" Dean asked, stepping in besides him.

"I was looking for stains."

"Stains?"

"Stains."

It took Dean's weary mind a minute, but he finally flinched and shoved Sam away. "Your mind's officially in the gutter, Sammy. That's what you get for hanging around me 24/7."

"It wouldn't be that farfetched," Sam replied, turning down the sheets. "We're next door to a liquor store and a video rental place that seems to specialize in adult entertainment. And did you see that maid we passed by on the way to the room? She looked so out of it that I wouldn't be surprised if a dead rat could go unnoticed in the middle of the bathroom."

Dean had just stepped into the bathroom and turned on the light as Sam finished his statement. Turning to his brother, he narrowed his eyes and said, "Dude. Seriously. Don't say things like that."

"What, you're afraid of rats?"

"No," Dean shot back, disappearing into the bathroom, "I'd just rather not think about stepping in one on my way to take a leak."

Sam chuckled as he began to undress. Glancing back at the bed and deciding that Dean had been having a particularly rough couple of days, he called, "Hey, the bed looks fairly comfortable. You were saying something about a crick in your neck, so I'll take this little… couch-like thing over here."

"Oh no you don't," Dean called back over the flush of the toilet. "The mattress is probably loaded with bedbugs. My ass is too pretty to get chewed up by some ugly creepy-crawly."

"Dean, you do realize that bedbugs can live in sofa cushions too, right?" Judging by the stretch of silence from the bathroom, Dean was not privy to that information. This led Sam to laugh once again as he folded his trousers and neatly put them in his bag.

Emerging from the bathroom and wiping his hands dry with a washcloth, Dean gave Sam a considering look. "Well, short of us sharing the bed and the risk of becoming a succulent midnight snack for some six-legged freak, I say we handle this with a good, old fashioned coin toss."

Sam hardly let the words leave Dean's mouth before he sunk into the bed and muttered, "Forget it. I'll take the bed."

"Hey," Dean said, walking towards Sam and obviously thinking that he somehow got the worse deal, "how come?"

"Well, one," Sam replied, gathering up the extra pillow, "because I'm exhausted and was standing right next to it. Two, because that poor excuse for a sofa probably won't even accommodate half of me. And three, because my ass is too pretty for any bedbugs to want to ruin it."

Catching the pillow that Sam tossed him, Dean gave him a sour expression. "Oh, funny man, huh?" Throwing the dampened washcloth at Sam's face, he headed towards the loveseat by the wall and remarked, "Sleep tight, Jumbo. And I hope the bedbugs take you back to their lair and make a buffet table out of you."

Tossing the small towel onto the nightstand, Sam smirked and lay back on the pillow. He fell asleep almost instantly.

The same, however, couldn't be said for Dean.

Tossing and turning, he cringed every time he had an itch, wondering if something was crawling over him. He initially kept his jeans on, not liking the idea of possibly waking up with red welts all over his legs, but eventually wrestled them off. They fell to a crumpled heap on the floor, along with the scratchy blanket that he had retrieved from the closet.

It was so stifling in the room that sleeping in the car almost seemed like a reprieve, even with the blizzard. He got up and looked around for a thermostat or a portable heater, but couldn't seem to find one. A glance at the Sam-shaped lump underneath the bedspread told him that his brother probably didn't have similar concerns. Wiping a thin film of sweat from his forehead, Dean wondered if he was coming down with something as he sat back down on the loveseat.

He was about to lay down again when he first heard it. From behind him came a rattling sound, as though something was moving closer. Dean whirled around, but he knew he would see nothing there. The couch was lined up with the wall, so unless he was dealing with a monster shaped like a pancake, this was a sign. He knew spirits could make the air colder, but what sort of creature can make it feel like he was in an inferno?

Dean held his breath as he waited for another sign. The streetlights outside the window seemed to flicker, but he couldn't be sure if that was symbolic of supernatural activity or faulty wiring. Then again, when had anything around him or Sam ever been a result of faulty wiring?

Reaching for the knife he kept under his pillow, Dean slowly rose to his feet. He spun around again as there was another noise behind him, coming from within the walls. It sounded almost like the pop a kettle of boiling water would make. Grimacing as he thought about what kind of "boils" this thing probably had, he muttered, "You must be one ugly son of a bitch."

Whatever it was, it stemmed from behind his makeshift bed. "Sam," he called in a stern whisper. "Sammy, wake up and see the mess you put me in!" Turning, he saw that Sam didn't seem to have been at all disturbed by the various omens. "Damn it, Sam! We should've done a coin toss!"

From beneath the covers, Sam snorted. Casting him an anxious glance over his shoulder, Dean kicked the side of the mattress, jarring Sam awake. "Wha-? What? I'm up!" His hair in disarray, Sam sat up and blinked stupidly around the darkness. "Dean?"

"There's something in this room," Dean informed him, still keeping a cautious gaze towards the loveseat.

"Something?" Sam asked, getting to his feet. "Like a supernatural something or a stray chipmunk something?"

"Yeah, because I'm really going to draw my blade when Chip and Dale are up to their hilarious hi-jinks!"

"Just asking," Sam replied testily, moving towards his jacket. Withdrawing his gun, he followed Dean's stare and got ready to cover him. Dean slowly crept back to the loveseat, peering around the edges. Raising his eyebrows, Sam queried, "Lights?"

"And scare it away?"

"You're aiming on killing it, right?"

"Scare it away before I can kill it, I mean?"

Seeing Dean's jerky motion to his left when the sound started up again, Sam tilted his head. "Dean, are you sure you didn't just dream something?"

"Look at me, Sam," Dean replied heatedly, wiping his brow once again for emphasis. "I feel like I've been working out in a boiler room. The lights outside are blinking, and there's something moving in the walls. Don't go telling me you don't hear it."

"I hear it, all right," Sam professed, peering out the window. "But Dean-"

He was interrupted as Dean suddenly kicked out, sending the loveseat several feet across the floor before it stopped with a thump at the corner. "Ha, there, look!" Dean exclaimed. "That shadow! It moved into the wall."

"The shadow of the couch?"

"No, of the demon thing that I-"

"Dean-"

"Sam, stop talking at me like I'm crazy!"

"You're not crazy," Sam stated, lowering his gun. "You're exhausted and confused, and you smell like a junkyard, but you're pretty sane. At least, as sane as anyone in this family can be."

Lightheaded, Dean turned his bewildered gaze to Sam. The rattling in the walls seemed to be getting louder, and he was burning up. He couldn't understand why Sam just stood there calmly, giving him a slight smile as Dean stood there in battle-mode. "Care to enlighten me about what's so entertaining, huh?"

Sam uttered a laugh before walking towards a table lamp. As he flicked it on, Dean realized that he was still gripping the knife tightly. Something was going on here. Something weird, something disquieting … and whatever it was, Dean was feeling its effects a whole lore more brutally than Sam was.

Could it be that whatever was in their motel room had… possessed Sam? Was Sam under something's influence? Dean had been forced to hurt Sam before, but he really, really wasn't looking forward to discovering whatever it was that put that infuriatingly cocky expression on his younger brother's face.

"Dean," Sam said in a steady voice. "The lights outside? Not flickering. There's a flagpole between here and the streetlamp, and the wind's billowing the flag so much that it's causing the shadows to shift. The noise in the walls? If it's not rats, I'm guessing it's part of why you're sweating like a pig."

Dean watched warily as Sam approached him. He calmed slightly when he passed him, heading instead to the wall along which the loveseat had been situated. Crouching down, he stuck out a hand to a series of vents that Dean hadn't noticed before. "You've been laying in front of the heater. That explains why I was freezing even with the covers over my head."

Still confused, Dean stumbled over his words for a moment before asking, "The ghost is in the vents? Like that time in-"

"There's no ghost, Dean!" Sam proclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly. "Put an ear to the wall and listen. That's just the sound of a noisy old radiator kicking in. My guess is, we've been on the road so long and the weather change has been so severe that you've caught some kind of bug, and you're probably slightly delirious."

"Oh, don't give me none of that crap!" Dean protested. "I'm fine! Never better."

"Fine, then," Sam said, getting up. "You were having a night terror."

"A night terror? Like, from the gho-"

"So help me God, if you say ghost one more time, I'm going to lock you in the bathroom for the rest of the night!" Putting his gun down on a table, Sam told him, "Listen, I know we've been all gung-ho about this hunting thing, but everyone's got their limit. And that limit comes when you start seeing monsters in every corner."

"They are in every corner!" Dean fired back.

"It's talk like that that robbed us of our childhoods, you know that?" Sam remarked.

"This isn't some closet monster bunk like when you were nine, okay?"

"Maybe not the closet monster, but it's still bunk," Sam maintained. "Dean, look at yourself. You didn't let me drive at all yesterday, and I can't remember the last time I saw you stuff your face. Just… crack open the window, get a bit of fresh air, and we'll trade places for the night, okay? When we wake up tomorrow, we'll get a big breakfast and then I'll drive us to wherever Bobby sends us… providing your imaginary monster doesn't flay us in our sleep, that is."

"Not funny," Dean snarled, though he was beginning to feel a little foolish. Seeing Sam's haughty smirk, Dean sulked off towards the window and opened it, nearly hoping for some kind of entity to come out of the walls and prove him right. When he saw the flagpole on the corner of the street, though, he realized that Sam was right. He hated it when Sam was right.

While the cold air did make him feel a little better, Dean immediately cringed and whirled around at the sound of Sam's startled yell. Before Sam could say anything by way of explanation, Dean had spun around and dove for the bed, lashing out with his knife. He saw it, there was no denying it: a dark shape had just fallen onto the bed after attacking his brother.

The bed made a monstrous creaking noise as Dean landed on it, but that didn't stop him. He got himself up on his elbows and held the knife out again, but he got a good look at the creature that was now scurrying towards the lamp Sam had turned on. It was a mouse. Not even a rat. It was a small brown mouse, which would probably die of a freaking heart attack after being lunged at by the biggest damned cat it ever saw.

Breathing hard, Dean dropped his knife and collapsed on the bed. The sheets were cool and felt good against his sweaty forehead, and he hoped that he wouldn't throw up. A bug. As infested as this place was, he would catch a bug. Maybe I'll be lucky, he thought to himself, and it'll be some kinda demon bug. Yeah, real lucky.

He forced himself to look up when he heard something tap against the nightstand. Sam had apparently gone to the bathroom and filled a plastic cup with water. He had set this down while he shook out two ibuprofen tablets into his hand. Dean hadn't even heard his brother go towards the first aid kit.

Approaching Dean, Sam picked up the cup and held out his hand. It took Dean a few moments, but he finally realized that Sam was offering him the aspirin. Groaning, Dean reached out for the pillow and dug his face into it. "You're worse than Dad," he proclaimed.

"For all intents and purposes," Sam replied, "I'll take that as a compliment. Now unless you want that nice zonked-out maid to have to deal with your sweaty, puke-stained sheets, it'd probably be a good idea to pop some pills and try to sleep."

"Whatever, Mom," Dean muttered, raising himself just enough to take the pills from Sam's hand. As he reached for the water, Dean noticed that Sam was giving him a strange look. He suddenly recalled one particularly cold winter when they were waiting for their father to come back from a job, and Sam had gotten sick. Dean had single-handedly taken care of him, constantly brushing his too-long hair out of his sweat- and tear-stained face. And now, over a decade later, their roles were reversed.

After washing the aspirin down his throat, Dean made a sour face and asked, "This isn't gonna be one of them cute brotherly moments, is it?"

Rolling his eyes, Sam walked away and responded, "Heaven forbid I offend your delicate masculinity."

"Nothing delicate about it, Sammy," Dean remarked, feeling a little more like himself after the cool drink of water. Finishing the drink and putting the cup on the nightstand, he glanced back at Sam, who was setting the loveseat back against the wall and being sure not to block the heater. "When you're done having a Martha Stewart moment over there, don't forget to shut off the lamp."

Resisting the urge to make a comment, Sam switched off the light as he silently wondered how he was going to sleep on something hardly long enough to accommodate his legs.

When Dean opened his eyes the next morning, he caught a glimpse of a water bug crawling on the wall above him.

"Oh, that is just nasty," he croaked. Clearing his throat, he rolled out of bed before the thing could lose its footing and fall onto his face. He still felt ill, but it was nothing a long shower and an even longer breakfast couldn't cure. And Sam had promised they'd get themselves a big breakfast.

Wondering if his brother was awake, he glanced towards the loveseat and broke out in a large grin. Sam's long body was practically shaped like a "V" and he was indeed awake. As a matter of fact, it seemed as though he had been awake for most of the night. Knowing full well that Sam was going to wake up on the grumpy side of the couch this morning, Dean cheerfully called out, "How ya feeling, Sammy?"

Shooting daggers at Dean, Sam moaned, "Like an arthritic contortionist."

"Aw, you're using big words early in the morn," Dean noted. "Can't be that bad. Besides, some of those contortionist chicks are pretty hot. I mean, the things they can do with their bodies…." He trailed off, seeing that Sam was in no mood to hear about any of his exploits. "Or so I've heard. Anyway, get a call from Bobby?"

"Not yet," Sam told him as Dean went into the bathroom to begin washing up. "Don't think I will, either. I haven't been able to sleep on this stupid thing all night, so I've been texting him for updates. The last message I got from him sounded like a threat, so I figured not to push my luck."

"Why didn't you turn on the Pay-Per-View?" Dean asked. "I was out like a light. I don't even think any of your luscious Latin ladies could've woken me up."

Hearing the shower turn on, Sam murmured, "This rotten motel only has four channels." In an even lower voice, he flinched at a spasm in his back and muttered, "And none of them have anything racier than a middle-aged weather lady."

He must have dozed off, since the next thing he knew, Dean had experimentally nudged him in the side with his foot. "What the hell, Sam? I'm showered, dressed, and ready to go, and you're lagging behind like a kid who's got to go to school on report card day." His concern only grew when Sam held out a hand, beckoning him to help him up.

"Stupid couch thing," Sam complained, a hand on his back as he slowly rose to his feet and stretched. "Next time, I don't care how tired we are, we're changing rooms if they ever try to stick us with a single bed again."

"Well, it serves you right!"

"Serves me right?" Sam asked, glaring at Dean. "Serves me right for what?"

"You were laughing at me last night!"

"Dean, you laughed at me when I broke my wrist fending off a zombie chick as you used me as bait," Sam reminded him. "Don't cast the first stone."

Dean said nothing else as Sam hobbled into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. While he was sure it would be amusing having a lurching giant for a traveling companion, he knew that Sam was the worse for wear right now. Moving over to the bed and picking up his boots to put them on before he stepped in something he'd rather not think about, Dean shot a glance at the nightstand.

A moment later, he was knocking on the bathroom door. Shirtless, Sam opened the door and peered out at his brother. "I don't even know what you can throw up, at this rate," he told Dean. Standing aside and allowing him room to step inside, he said, "Just hurry it up. My back's calling for a hot shower and I know better than to strip down in front of you."

"You say it like that," Dean said, going in and heading towards the sink, "and it makes me sound like some kind of deviant. Which wouldn't be wholly off the map, I guess, but as womanly as you are, you ain't womanly enough."

"God, and I thought it was the motel that made me feel dirty," Sam replied, an uncomfortable expression on his face. "Little did I know that it was just the DNA I share with you that makes me feel that way." Seeing what Dean was doing, he asked, "Oh come on, you couldn't get a glass of water before I decided to come in here?"

"It's not for me, Sammy," Dean stated. Turning around, he offered Sam both the cup and something he was holding in his other hand. Confused, Sam held out his hand, and Dean dropped two ibuprofen tablets into it. "Can't have you doing a better job at looking after me than I do looking after you. I'll lose my mantle of Most Awesome Big Brother Ever."

Looking down at the tablets, it took Sam a few moments before he accepted the water. "Thanks," he said quietly after he swallowed the aspirin. "I forgot to ask, you feeling better?"

"Feel like crap on a stick," Dean answered curtly. "But yeah. Feeling better. Just wasn't used to it, you know?"

"What, being sick?" Sam asked. "You're not invincible, Dean."

"Not that," Dean replied, not liking how solemn he had suddenly become. "Everyone gets sick. Driving around without a permanent address, yeah, I get sick more times than I like to think about. I just… I can't remember the last time I had somebody taking care of me. Like a mom."

He pursed his lips, not knowing how to go on, or even if he should go on at all. He and Sam rarely ever talked about their mother, and when they did, it was usually laced in with their long-awaited revenge against the yellow-eyed demon and how different their lives would have been had she still been alive. And while Sam might not know what "like a mom" meant exactly, Dean did. He could still remember her putting him to bed and laughing with him, at him. And as dysfunctional as he and Sam could be together, Dean couldn't deny that he envied his baby brother, because he had unknowingly come out just like the one woman that Dean had ever truly loved.

After several moments of deep silence that would have been awkward had it passed between anyone else other than the two brothers, Sam lightly asked, "Is this another one of your jokes about me being feminine? Because dude, just because I'm prettier…."

Dean laughed then, and started moving towards the door. "Get in the shower, Bigfoot, unless you're feeling like such a frail old man that you need help getting in. And in that case, I'll call the maid that you seem to like so much."

"She's at least twice my age."

"Could be a cougar," Dean told him. "Anyway, hurry it up. There's a Waffle House not too far away, and I wanna get me some waffles!" He was about to close the door behind him, but he glanced back at Sam. "Oh, and Sam?"

Turning away from the shower that he had just turned on, Sam glanced back at his brother. "Yeah?"

"We have another one of these cute brotherly moments again in the next twenty-four hours, and I'm gonna be really sick." He shut the door on Sam's laugh, looking back at the motel room that had been so disturbing to him just the previous night. In the sunlight, it looked downright cheery.

Moving towards the bed, he saw that one of his boots had fallen beneath the bed when he had dropped them to give the pills to Sam before he got in the shower. Kneeling down, he reached beneath the bed to grab it, only to find something else. Making a face, his fingers felt over the furry, sticky, remains of some poor creature that had probably crept into the room to die. Withdrawing his hand, he saw what looked like black and white fur sticking to his fingertips and remembered what he first said upon entering the room.

Jumping to his feet, he called out, "Sammy, hurry up! I think I need another shower!"

"What? How can you need another shower?"

"Because I'm about to puke all over myself!"

Seeing the washcloth that he had thrown at Sam the night before, Dean quickly scooped it up and wiped his fingers with it. Nauseous all over again, he moved to the loveseat and slunk down in it, clutching the pillow to his chest. Even if he could resist the urge to hack up his day-old coffee and pie, he still hoped Sam would take a quick shower.

The faster they got out of this psycho motel, the better.