Disclaimer: I don't own it. But, oh wow, if I did…

Author'sRant: So, fourth Clothesline fic! Who'da thunk it? Anyway, before we kick off, I'd like to explain the title, because I'm weird like that.

Pas de trois is French (clearly) and is actually the name for a ballet dance with three dancers. Wikipedia can explain the finer details to you.

However, the reason I used it as the title for this fic (beyond the rather obvious digit) is because its also the name of a rather brilliant piece of music by Icehouse, which you must all listen to because its nifty and old-school and actually makes me think of BladeRunner.

In fact, y'know what? Just listen to Icehouse full stop. Some of the good ones are Paradise Lost (clapping!), Walls, Great Southern Land, Street Café and Don't Believe Anymore.

Now, ONWARDS!

Pas De Trois

Can't Help Myself
One

It hits him, a solid blow to his chest, every time he wakes up these days.

You have two brothers. One of them is dying.

And then again, a second impact in a bittersweet effort to heal the first.

You have two brothers. One of them has never met you.

Sam blinks slowly at the motel's water damaged ceiling, and takes stock as he listens with half an ear to the clock radio playing beside his bed and the sounds of Dean going about brushing his teeth. He sits up when he hears the expected – and obnoxious – gargle-and-spit finale, scrubbing his hair back and picking sleep from his eyes.

Dean emerges from the bathroom and the pair of them perform a silent changing of the guard; Sam heading in and hunting down his toothbrush and shaving kit while Dean finishes dressing and packs.

Attacking his pre-molars, he registers that its one of those mornings; one of the focused, near silent ones where the mission is very clear, and even for Dean, there is no time for banter, no time for play, or even the gallows humour that Sam is beginning to dread. Later, maybe after a quick breakfast and reorientation on the road, things will loosen up and they'll come out of their respective shells, pried open by Dean's music and Sam giving directions when they hit a spread of back roads.

Or maybe it'll be sooner. Maybe it'll be…

"Dean," he shouts around a mouthful of minty foam, "phone's going!"

Dean sticks his head around the bathroom door, Sam's cell in hand. He hasn't answered it.

"What is this crap?" his brother demands, the phone filling the bathroom with Dani California.

"Its not crap," Sam slurs around his toothpaste, then gives up and spits. "It's the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Give it."

Dean hands the phone over between thumb and forefinger as though RHCP might be contagious and Sam answers without bothering to check the number. He's got a feeling he knows who it is anyway.

And sure enough…

"I'm having a total moment, Sam."

Sam grins, exchanging the expression with his brother before Dean goes back to packing. "Morning, Peggy."

"No, really," she insists, "a total, total moment."

Sam closes the door to the bathroom, looking for a little privacy. "What'd Marty do now?"

"He tried to write is what happened," she growls. "I had the dialogue perfect – perfect, Sam – and then he goes and puts his big fat B-movie foot in it."

"What was it this time? Fart jokes?"

"Chauvinist crap about a woman's aim with a shotgun being about as good as her driving."

Sam grins. "Take him to a firing range and prove him wrong." He knows for a fact she can.

"Don't tempt me," she snarls. "Is it too much to ask to land a job with someone who has even a smidgen of talent and isn't a douche bag? I mean really?"

"Might be pushing you're luck there, Peg. It's Hollywood, after all."

"I'm not picky!" she exclaims. "I'd settle for one! Talented douche bag or talentless nice-guy – I don't mind, just not the double neg, for the love of God! I'm trying to rescue a movie here!"

Sam smiles as he wipes the last of the toothpaste from his face and starts applying shaving gel. "And I have full confidence that you'll do it," he tells her.

"We'll see," she mutters darkly. "Anyway, how're you guys doing?"

In all honesty, Sam would rather talk about Peggy's crusade to rescue Hell Hazers II from B-gradedom, but part of the girl's self-assumed role since she met them seems to include Winchester emotional upkeep as well as feeding them and putting an occasional roof over their heads. And really, there's no denying Peggy Patcher; her mother raised her to be a force of nature when she's roused.

"We're okay," he tells her, pausing as he wets his razor.

"Sam."

"We are! Look, we're not even two days out from Windom. Dean's been…he's been focused, but nothing off the charts. The sooner we get there…"

"The better he'll be, I know."

There's something in her tone that makes him pause, putting down his razor. "Peggy? You know what we had to go right then, right?"

"Well, yeah. Sam, if I found out I had a brother – well, another one, although really six is enough to be going on with – I'd be across the globe if that was where he was. I get it, honey, really, I do."

She hesitates for a second, and he knows she'll be pacing in her kitchen, biting her lip. He pictures the scene in his head; the light streaming through her big living room windows, her cat winding around her pale legs, a mug steaming on the bench beside her, filling the room with the scent of tea and honey. Maybe she's still in her pajamas this early, curly dark hair flat on one side of her head and fluffy on the other.

Sam smiles, but it fades when she speaks again.

"And I know…I know you feel like you need to get there now. That he needs to be protected…"

Sam abandons shaving and sits on the edge of the bath, wiping the gel from his jaw, sighing as he does so. "We're cursed, Peggy. Our family is just…we're…it's like we're magnets for supernatural disasters. Freaks love to fuck with us. And after all that's happened, I think Dean's terrified that if we don't get there now something will go wrong. Something will happen to Adam, and Kate."

"Sam, you can't believe that," Peggy says softly. "You're not cursed. No, no, I don't believe that."

She sounds so determined. Like sheer force of belief will keep away the bad things, the bad endings. If that worked, Sam thinks, his mother never would've burnt up on the ceiling of his nursery. His mother had believed in angels…

"I'm not seeing any other explanation, sweetheart," he murmurs, the endearment slipping unbidden across his tongue.

There's a sort of mutual intake of breath, and then it's gently ignored. Now is not the time… it's never the time.

"Well," she tells him instead, "just because you can't see it, Samwise, doesn't mean its not there. There are still mysteries in the world, you know."

He knows.

A white elephant towering over him in a yellow field, the sky endless and dark overhead.

"I know you…"

"Yes, you do."

Sam smiles, knowing she'll hear it in his voice.

"Yeah," he murmurs, "I guess there are."