It starts with the simple mistake of ordering Sam's favorite dinner rather then his own.

After that it just gets worse.

He blares AC/DC to annoy Sam, but his brother doesn't care. He's not there.

He rents a room with two twin beds. Then spends the night with tears rolling down his eyes as he stares at the empty bed.

He hunts a pack of a werewolf's, thinking his back protected as it always was before, he turns to shoot. It's when the excruciating pain of claws ripping down his back does it really hit him.

Sam was gone. He was alone. The system was broken.

He cries in the hospital, the nurse thinks it's from the pain. She's ups his morphine, it doesn't help. The pains still there, still digging it's way into his soul.

He's twelve hours away from California when his gets that voice mail from his father. He's happy he now at lest has an excuse for showing up on his brother's doorsteps.

When Dean gets his partner back it doesn't go back to normal at first.

Things are awkward for a time, but they soon finds them falling back into their old patterns, old habits. Because after all they are just that, 'Partner's' and it's only normal that should go back to the way it was.

But when Dean orders Sam's meal and he's there to enjoy it.

When he screams along with Blue Oyster Cult, Sam yells at him.

When they hunt, Dean knows his back is protected.

He knows that and that simple fact and it brings him endless peace.

He's got his partner, in every sense of the word, back.

When they stop for the night, there's still an empty bed but it no longer brings Dean to tears.

Instead of the tears and pain, he finds the warmth of his brother's body as potent as ever.