A/N 1: If I update an existing story, it'll be on this site. (Just because it's easier...) New stories (and there's a couple) will be (and are) at my website: www(dot)maureenlougen(dot)com(slash)supernaturalfanfiction

A/N2: This story is set Season 5 Christmas

The air was cold, the picnic table that was placed - oddly - on the narrow concrete porch right outside their motel room was cold, Sam's coffee was cold, and the whiskey in his coffee was just as bitter as the thoughts in his head.

Didn't Christmas just suck?

He'd been sitting out here, on the picnic tabletop, well, he didn't know how long. Long enough for the dusk to dawn security light to fizzle out as the sun finally came up. Long enough for the cold to leach through his jacket and start him shivering where he sat. Long enough for his bare fingers to go numb, holding onto the piece of paper he'd pulled out of Dad's journal.

Long enough to have made up his mind how he wanted - how he didn't want - to spend the rest of the day.

They were just across the state line from South Dakota, just a morning's drive from Bobby's, with maybe lunch thrown in for good measure, and Bobby was expecting them. It'd been more of a last minute 'pity invite' when Bobby found out how close they were, it sure wasn't a 'can't wait to see you' invite, but Sam'd rather sit here until his butt froze to the picnic table than spend the day anywhere and with anybody but Dean and only Dean.

Now, he had to get Dean to understand, if not agree.

He took another sip of his cold, doctored coffee and heard the alarm go off on the crappy little motel clock radio inside the room. Dean would be getting up now. He'd be getting up and Sam was going to have to explain not wanting to go to Bobby's. Not today.

He poured more whiskey into his coffee from the flask that sat next to him and gulped it down.

After a few minutes, he heard the door behind him open, felt the momentary blast of warm air reach his cold hands and then disappear, felt Dean come stand beside him.

"Hey."

"Hey." Sam answered without looking up. At least Dean hadn't said, 'Merry Christmas'.

"You get any sleep?" Dean asked. Sam lifted his head to give a doctored answer, and saw his obviously unused bed through the half opened door.

"Guess not."

"Hmmm."

Dean walked around and sat on the picnic table next to Sam. He looked at but didn't mention the flask.

"Whatcha got there?" He asked of the paper in Sam's hand.

"Uhh -" Sam flapped it up and down once or twice. "It's - uh - the first exorcism I learned." He held it where Dean could see it. "Dad wrote it out phonetically for me. I just - it fell out of Dad's journal and I just -"

He just wanted to touch something that Dad had given to him.

"Yeah." Dean said, even though Sam hadn't really explained. Then they didn't move and they didn't say anything for a few long minutes. Dean reached around Sam to snag the flask of whiskey.

"How's your finger?" He asked, the open flask halfway to his mouth.

"My finger?"

"The one you smashed last Christmas, the one Auntie Claus ripped the nail out of the year before that. I'm figuring you're due for an amputation this year. A splinter at the very least."

Sam gave a glance at his finger, but there was nothing remarkable there. He shrugged.

"Fine. I guess. No splinters. No nothing."

Dean kind of shrugged and nodded an agreement.

"So - what're we doing out here? In the freezing cold."

Sam looked out at the desolate landscape. Across the empty road from them was an abandoned strip mall, with windows cracked and missing and boarded up. Next to the motel was a diner that was closed for the holiday, of course. Scattered elsewhere up and down the road were two junkyards, a pawn shop, and overgrown empty fields. This had to be the crappiest motel at the end of the crappiest road in the crappiest town on the crappiest day.

And Sam in the crappiest mood.

"I don't want to go to Bobby's." Sam said, but it came out so softly, Dean leaned in closer to Sam while he was saying it. "Not today."

"Um - okay." Dean said. "Why?"

"There's nothing to celebrate. Not this year. Especially not this year."

"Well, yeah, but - it's not like we're going to celebrate. We're just going 'cause we're close enough. Bobby's not gonna have a tree or anything. No fancy holiday dinner. You know, unless you count three nearly matching plates and cups as fancy."

Sam huffed a little laugh at that, but only a little.

"But we'll be there, on Christmas. That means something. And it feels like - it'll feel like - I just can't. Not today. Not this year."

"Okay." Dean said again, but Sam could hear the disappointment.

"Tomorrow." Sam said. "Tomorrow, any day that isn't today." But there was still Dean's disappointment. He didn't deserve a crappy Christmas. "I mean - just drop me off at a motel, anywhere close to Bobby's. I'll come there tomorrow. You don't have to not go. Just - just - I just can't go there today."

Dean didn't say anything. Sam wished he would say something. But he sat there, they both just sat there for a few minutes, not saying anything.

"How about we just take a slow drive there, stop for dinner, go to a movie. Get to Bobby's after midnight." Dean said, after a while. "After midnight won't be Christmas anymore."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Do what?" Dean asked. "Spend the day with my brother? Yeah, real sacrifice there."

Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the night of no sleep. Maybe it was being with the brother who did nothing but sacrifice for him. Sam felt overwhelmed with relief and affection.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, well –" Dean said and Sam could hear the awkwardness. "You're welcome." He reached over and emptied the little that was left in the flask into Sam's coffee cup, then stood up from the table.

"I'll get ready and we can hunt up someplace to get you a breakfast you can't drink. Unless you want to sleep your way through this Christmas."

"Might not be a bad idea." Sam muttered.

Dean was opening the motel room door, but he turned back and gave Sam that once over, that long glance up and down that was like Dean deconstructing Sam and rebuilding him back up, trying to get the most intense possible look into what was going on with him.

"Wanna just stay another day here? Go get some breakfast, rent some videos, hang out?"

Sam needed all of four seconds to think about it. Instead of a day on the road, avoiding Christmas reminders and other unhappy people with nowhere to be, it'd be just a day of them, him and Dean, and whatever takeout was still open today.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Dean shrugged that away.

"Better than having you snoring all over the inside of my car."

Then he was gone back into the motel room and Sam finished his whiskey-laced-with-coffee. He might just survive this day after all.

The end.