A Hard Day's Night

Dean Winchester hates witches. The malevolent bitches are always trying to call up demons so they can kiss their ass and get rewarded or trap and treat reapers like Fido or, you know, curse him and his huge, nerdy brother into doing freaky shit—usually with each other. (Really, how fucked-up is that?) But what Dean really hates? (Besides hellhounds and Sam's bitch-faces?) Warlocks. Scratch that. He hates warlocks who think they're necromancers. Why Jarvis Melon thinks killing and raising hot chicks so they can do bank jobs up and down Route 66 is such a great idea, Dean doesn't know.

Apparently, neither does Sam.

However, what Sam does know is that the sun just went down about an hour ago and they finally caught up to Mr. Tax Accountant turned Master of Undead Puppets. It's just too bad they rolled up on him plying his unholy trade: i.e. trying to add more black sheep to his flock. A lot more. Seriously, Warren County Cemetery's starting to look a lot like a goddamn Romero movie and Sam's not liking this shit. Not one bit. No, sir. (Dean's the one who always enjoyed horror flicks, which Sam never understood, because—hello!—their lives are one huge gore fest.)

Standing by the parked Impala on the graveyard's narrow, gravel strip road with undead females slowly weaving their way around tombstones toward them, Sam's holding two stakes and feeling severely under armed. Nervously licking his lips, he says while staring at the approaching rotten lynch mob, "Dean, I think we might have a problem here."

Really, because there's, like, more than twenty walkers and he's only packing so much wood. Besides, with so many open graves, there's no telling which zombie belongs where. It's not like they've got any spare time to play any guessing games, because Sam likes his flesh. He doesn't feel like parting with any of it just yet.

However, Dean's not so uptight about the whole fucked-up situation and he begs to differ. Greatly.

"Heh," he laughs all bent inside his baby's opened caboose, "that's what you think."

Dean's amused and highly arrogant tone makes Sam suddenly forget mortal peril is just a shuffling their way. Briefly. The moment he looks over, his nervous fear is replaced with a huff and bitch-face #23, because he narrowly misses dropping a stake and catching the shotgun Dean idly tosses his way. He already knows it's not loaded with rocksalt, because he already knows what Dean has in mind. Holy shit. Did he just watch him put a grenade in his pocket? …Yes. Why, yes, he did.

"Are you serious?" Sam questions, because, yeah, he really hopes Dean isn't, but something tells him that he's pretty much fucked.

Unfortunately for his incredulous brother, Dean is. Loading his own weapon with regular buckshot casings, oh, he so is.

"What's the matter, Sam?" he asks all easy like as he slips on a vertical strip of leather holding twenty slots of extra rounds. However, his shadowed features crack an almost gleeful smile as he looks up. "Haven't you ever wanted to play Dawn of the Dead?"

"No, Dean. I haven't," Sam deadpans as his crazy brother hands him his own shelled sash. (Where the hell has he been hiding these anyway?) "I'm pretty sure only insane people think the way you do. Man, seriously, sometimes you worry me."

Sam's bitchy attitude is apparently contagious, because Dean's suddenly irritated as he straps a machete to his back. Handing its sheathed twin to the brother harshing his squee, Dean gruffly complains, "Come on, Sam! You gotta learn ta' live a little, man. I mean, hello, horde of zombies! Shit like this doesn't exactly just drop into a guy's lap every day, you know."

"Thank God," Sam pointedly replies, like, yeah, his stupid brother should already know this. Why doesn't Dean already know this? However, he's stuck with another question as the first pus-bag shambles into shooting distance. "So, what's our game plan?"

"We cut through these bitches, corner their leader, shoot him in the kneecap for making me drive halfway across the goddamn country after his ass, tie him up and call it in. Fucker's at least wanted for murder even though they have no idea he's behind the robberies, because he's been playing Charlie to his undead angels," Dean says with a shrug. Idea sounds pretty sound to him. Sam's got no grand schemes of his own. So, he just nods, willing to go along with it. And, yeah, the guy at least deserves a flesh wound for sicking so many walking corpses on them.

"Just remember, Sam," Dean says as he shuts the trunk. Sam hears the shit-eating grin in Dean's voice as he raises his own sawed-off and looks down its sight at the four foot tall chick missing half her jaw. "You know what they say, gotta aim for the head."

A trigger is pulled and chunks of lanky hair and cranial mass flies everywhere, most of it ending up a mere foot away from the Impala. Sam's just thankful that none of it got on his clothes or his shoes. However, Dean's not so happy with the close call.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Dean chastises with eyes wide and brows raised. He's already moving away from the Impala, cutting a curve to the far right. "Shoot 'em away from the car! Away from damn the car!"

"Alright, alright," Sam grumbles, jogging away from the one true woman in Dean's life, because, yeah, dried, fetid blood is pretty hard to scrub off the ol' paint job and Sam doesn't feel like getting stuck with that particular duty later. Seriously, stuff's worse than tree sap. He should know. One night, after another undead stake and bake, he parked under a tree at a motel once and Dean almost had an aneurism the next day. He was left scrubbing off undead parts and what Dean refers to as tree sploogein the bitter chill of a November afternoon. With it being the ass end of October, he'd rather not go through that again.

However, all thoughts of soap and wax jobs are pushed out of his mind as he cuts his own curve to the left and runs with his lone gun blazing. After blowing away his fifth zombie and with adrenaline pumping through his system, Sam's starting to feel that usual hunter high. He's even kind of glad to see that Mr. Warlock is still steadily raising more reanimated fodder for him and his brother to rip apart. (Jesus, that son of a bitch is fast.) And, wow, yeah, he totally isn't fucked-up in the head for wanting to draw out the fight. No, really.

Just then, Sam stops in his tracks, because a group of seven walkers in his path explodes into a spectacular shower of blood, guts, and body parts. To Sam, it almost looks like a firework bursting bright and shiny in the night. (Dean's loud, manic cackling is coming from somewhere off to the far right and, yeah, that grenade he saw earlier just totally got used.) Unfortunately, it's not the Fourth of July and Sam's not feeling up to celebrating. Why? Because that explosion might have looked cool, but it was way too close and it really doesn't feel all that great having God knows what raining down all over on him from the sky. Jesus Christ! Is that an ear on his shoulder?

"Dean!" Sam barks loud and pissed as hell. He's flicking the ear off his bloodied person, before flinging disgusting smelling whatever from his face. That shit was totally uncalled for.

The, "Sorry, Sam! My bad!" he hears doesn't sound repentant at all and only serves to make him even angrier.

"Just head for Melon, Dean! Stop dicking around!" Sam yells back. Clothes and hair sticking to him and stinking to high heaven, he thinks it's high time to call it a night. Dean does too, apparently, because for once he's not arguing with his blood-covered, huge, little brother.

But he does grumble, "Friggin' save your ass and you're all 'oh, look at me, I got chunks of intestine on my shirt.' Friggin' whiny, little girl…"

Sam's sitting on a bunch of stained, stolen motel towels that Dean's placed all over his side of the Impala's bench seat. He'd say he's tired, but the truth is it's only a quarter to ten and he's still pumped from the hunt that's now thankfully over. Just like Dean said, they'd cut a swath right to Jarvis Melon, got him to surrender and tied his ass to a tree. (Sam mostly ran around as a distraction and took out all of the remaining undead.) The only real deviation from the plan was that the weeping and pleading warlock got a 9-mil casing in the leg, instead of the shotgun wound to the kneecap that Dean had been so jonesing for. Sam hadn't thought it would be too prudent to leave the guy bleeding out from a stump instead of a flesh wound when the cops arrived. Sitting there in that bench seat, though, he's on the cusp of second guessing his decision.

"Hey," Dean calls, pulling Sam out of his brooding. "Next town we come to, wanna stop in and grab a few beers?"

Sam slides eyes to his brother, saying pointedly, "Only if you stop in and grab a place I can shower first. You know, been saying that for the last fifty miles."

Dean shrugs like the suggestion is no big deal now. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Should be far enough away from the crime scene for the night."

Feeling disgusted in his own skin, Sam silently fumes all the way up until Dean pulls off the highway, pulls into a Motel 6 and finally unlocks the door to their room with the tarnished room key he was given. Then he's too busy making a beeline for the bathroom, leaving Dean to bring in all their gear. As he showers, hating the way the complimentary bar of soap is so freaking small in his huge hands, Sam actually takes a second to think back to when he had tried to run away from the life. He can't help the thought that, if he succeeded, there wouldn't be precious moments like this where he's covered in disgusting filth and grime.

But that disparaging thought soon flows out and away from him like the brownish-red water now circling the drain at his toes, because, through the clear, plastic shower curtain, he's looking toward the bathroom's open door. To be more precise, he's staring at Dean, whose lying back on their bed and probably watching late night TV while waiting for him to get out of the shower. Yes,their bed. His brother never asks for two queens anymore. It's just extra money paid that they kind of need. Besides, they always end up sleeping on one single mattress anyway during the night now.

The new arrangement isn't really a sexual thing, although, yeah, they kind of do that now too. (Sam would tell you that that part of their 'relationship that isn't a relationship'—Dean's words— was all a natural progression of their fucked-up codependency that started when they were kids, while Dean would bluster and shout things like: fucking Sasquatch seducer and shit came out of left field.) But the reality is that the simple act of just sleeping with one of their arms wrapped around the other helpes to ease the various nightmares that always plagues both of their dreams.

Besides, to Sam, if it helps Dean to not take up the bottle as much as he used to, well, that was just another reason to get all cuddly at night ... even if his brother still likes to bitch and moan about the 'unnecessary extra touching.' (Sam equates Dean's religious loud-mouthed objections to such things as him playing hard to get. Secretly, Sam kind of finds such things cute, but he'll take that fact to the grave, thank you very much.)

"Sam, hurry the hell up! Kind of want a drink, you know? And you better not be beating off in there, bitch!"

"Wha—? Dude, you can see through the damn shower curtain! And just for that, I'm taking all the damn hot water you jerk!"

Yeah, new 'relationship'or not, his brother is still a huge fucking jackass sometimes.

The first thing Dean does as he comes out of the bar's cramped, smelly bathroom is notice the silence. Most of the establishment's patrons' mouths are closed and their heads are turned, collectively watching some kind of spectacle going on in the front of the bar as the jukebox continues to play a twangy country tune in the far corner. Sensing something's wrong, Dean's hawk-like gaze peers through the low lighting, clearly looking for his target. Almost instantly, his too-green eyes zoom in on the tall image of his brother. Sam's on his feet, their little, round table filled with a few empty bottles and two half full ones at his side.

Quickly assessing the scene, Dean sees Sam's hands up in surrender, his patented let's-just-talk-this-over attitude written all over his face. A flick of his gaze and Dean's seeing that his brother's surrounded by a group of big, burly, flannel-wearing fucks, who look like circling redneck predators out for their next kill. Dean also notices some bawdy, painted-up chick with too much ass and not enough tits standing off to the side. The bitch was eyeing the scene with amused interest, especially Sam. Dean's whirling brain is already putting two-and-two together when he hears Sam speak up. He may or may not be pissed that some bitch tried to talk up what was his. (May or may not because Dean's not really got time for that right now.)

"Look, like I said," he hears Sam say in slow deliberate tones, "She started talking to me. I was only trying to be nice. Seriously, I didn't mean anyth—"

A loud bark pierces through the thick, smoke-filled air like a leather whip cracking against cold stone. Dean sees that the dude it came from is just as tall as his gargantuan brother, but twenty pounds heavier—mostly fat. "Through hearin' your gums flappin,' boy! It's high time me and ma' posse showed ya' jus' what happens when ya' go messing with things that don't belong to ya'!"

"Oh, hell no," is the curse that slips from Dean's tingly lips, the three shots of hard Jack still lingering on his heated breath. Someone's about to try and put the hurt on his baby brother and shit like that just don't abide. Never has. Never will.

Dean's already cutting through the crowd like a thrown knife aimed at a beating heart. By the time Sam ducks the first fist sent his way, Dean's knuckles are already punching through a bearded face.

Cartridge sickly crunches beneath his fist and spatters of blood paint his curled fingers red, but Dean's too hyped, too in the fucking zone to give a damn. Adrenaline pumps throughout his system and blood pounds in his ears, no matter the amount of alcohol he's ingested, Dean's mind is crystal fucking clear. He's something akin to a stealthy, agile panther, all hard muscle and superior reflexes, as he dodges and sweeps a leg out from under the first guy that comes swinging his way. The guy loses his footing with the missed blow and Dean grabs him by the back of his neck, planting the bastard's face into their table with all the strength a hardcore hunter has. It turns out to be a whole hell of a lot.

The piece of wood actually cracks in half. Half-filled beer bottles and empty shot glasses crash to the floor. They break into jagged fragments that Dean tramples to tiny, little pieces under foot. There's no time to bemoan the loss of cheap liquor, because another guy is bearing down on Dean. No matter, though, because Dean's hands are already up with a challenging snarl curling on his lips. As they clash—a fist to the side of a face, a knee to the side of a kidney—Dean spares a quick glance to his side, checking on Sam. As he does so, he gets a fist in the side of his face and a split lip for good measure, but Dean's not too angry about it. Not when he saw that Sam's totally holding his own. Not that Dean was worried or ever doubted him, of course. He just ... felt like checking up on him. …Yeah.

Anyway, as Dean wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and turns back to his foe, a few feet away, Sam's doing him proud. He's showing his Winchester genes as he turns another table—occupied by a startled couple—to splinters with the dead weight of hick. Then Sam's elbowing another opponent that comes rushing from behind in the stomach like he had eyes in the back of his head. Glancing over at him again, Dean's kind of impressed and, yeah, ok, maybe he found that kind of hot too. Sue him. But, a knee in his own stomach causes him to double over and once again concentrate on his own battle just as Sam chucks some scrawny douchebag in the air by the seat of his pants; the guy ends up going over the water-slicked bar.

Vaguely, Dean finds it sort of funny how, if that fine ass bartender had been two seconds too late from sliding to the side, she too would have gone down with the airborne thug. Fortunately for her, she seems to have pretty good reflexes; almost like impromptu brawls in her establishment are everyday occurrences. Hell, for all Dean knows, they might be.

However, once again, Dean's swiftly brought back to his own situation. Some lucky bastard's snuck up behind him. The lucky fuck's even managed to get him locked in a bear hug with his crooked-teethed crony ready to wail away on his handicapped ass. (How many of these bastards are there?) But, just as the guy rushes forward with his eager fist raised, Dean's leaning back into his captor, kicking his legs up. His frontal assailant takes both of Dean's steel-toed boots in the gut. And, just as his cell phone starts ringing in his back pocket, Dean's leaning forward again, before slamming his head back into sensitive lips, teeth, nose, and eyes.

The moment he feels the guy behind him let go, Dean turns—fist cocked—ready to take a large piece of bloody revenge right out of the hillbilly's already abused face.

The dirty coward, however, has the nerve to recoil all trembling like a shaking leaf in the wind. The guy's yellow-bellied expression makes Dean's stomach roil. Seriously, what the fuck? You don't start something you can't finish, buddy! But, after looking around, noticing that Sam's easily dealing with the last two guys still standing, Dean decides: what the hell? Yeah, ok, enough is enough. Besides, he's suddenly exhausted and definitely feeling his age. Stopping, hunching over and panting like hell, he gives the universal sign for wait with a raised hand. Finally catching enough breaths to speak, he looks up and hoarsely manages to indicate the pile of comatose bodies mixed in with the broken chaos around them.

"Take care … of these bastards," he breathily growls to the wide-eyed guy now too afraid to attack. After another few blown out breaths, Dean rights himself while flipping out his still ringing phone. "You go … do that. I got a … call to take."

"You boys take care of that idjit raising hell and knocking over banks?" Bobby grumbles into Dean's ear.

Still trying to catch his breath and running a bloodied hand back through his messed up hair, Dean takes a few seconds to reply. (Jesus, getting old sucks.) When he does, he does it with a nod that he suddenly remembers the caller can't see. "Yeah," he says. "Problem solved. Sam and I were just in the middle of having a few celebratory drinks."

"Been drinkin'?" Bobby huffs out, sounding more than a little skeptical. "Sounds more like you two idjits been runnin' a marathon or somethin.'"

"More like cage fightin'," Dean replies wearily. Fortunately, he feels his heartbeat beginning to regulate. "Anyway, jobs done. You callin' 'cause you've got somethin' else for us? Or are you callin' just to hear my lovely voice?" Quickly, Dean adds with a smile as he watches a finished Sam brush back his sweaty hair. "Cause I know how awesome and all I am, Bobby, but you ain't gotta miss me that much, man. S'not healthy."

As Bobby tells Dean exactly where he can stick his humor, a sweaty Sam's walking around moaning bodies toward the bar. Laying down the entire contents of his wallet on the stained counter—35 dollars and some change—he looks up, brushing back his shoulder-length hair with a flushed face and an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about the mess," he tells the forty-something, blonde bartender who's looking at him with new respect in her kohl-lined eyes.

"No need for apologies here, honey," she tells him, feeling highly amused and just the right side of aroused. "Dodge and his gang's had that beatin' comin' for years. 'Sides, the place's insured."—A wink—"Only thing I'm sorry 'bout is that now you two boys ain't gonna be stayin' on another night." Sam's brows disappeared into his sweat-laced hairline as she purrs, after a slow lick of her ruby lips, "Would've loved to've showed you both the wilder side of things. Still will if you ever roll back through here again. Ya' here?"

Even though he's in a 'relationship but not a relationship'with Dean, Sam's still swallowing over a huge lump in his throat as he numbly nods and gives her a, "Yes, Ma'am," in return.

"Alrighty then," the kindly Cougar tells him, nodding at the bar's exit. "You boys go on and get out of here. I'll give ya' 'bout ten minutes before I gotta call this in to the Sheriff. Them's the rules and all. Anyway, it'll be in both of our best interests if your cute little buns are long gone before Dodge wakes up and the police get here."

"Thanks. Really, and sorry again about the mess," Sam says with a genuine smile. Lady was nicer than most bartenders he and Dean had encountered. Then he's turning away and heading for his chatty brother when he hears the older woman's parting reply from behind.

"Take care of yourselves and next time you come through you call me Missy!"

Pocketing his phone, Dean looks from the leering bartender to Sam. "Dude, did she just—?"

Not able to hide his grin in the slightest, Sam heads past his dumfounded brother, straight for the door and the cool night air. "Yeah. Yeah, she did."

Flashing teeth and waggling his brows at their new admirer, Dean says, "Awesome," before trailing after Sam with info on their next moves. "Hey, we gotta shag ass back to the motel and grab our shit. Guess what? There's a missing hunter we gotta check on that was last seen about four towns over. Some place called Barrett."

"Great," Sam says while heading over to the parked Impala. "Just when I thought I could finally get some sleep."

In the car and on the road, Sam doesn't actually notice Dean's busted lip until they're taking the corner that leads to their motel. Under the streetlights they pass, he can see the damage more clearly. Automatically, his hand comes up and his thumb brushes the corner of Dean's mouth. He makes like he's checking the damage, even though he's really not. It's kind of messed up that he feels a warm glow at the fact that his brother got a little messed up on his behalf, but the feelings there and Dean's not pulling away.

"What?" Dean turns to him all put-upon that Sam's touching him, even though he's not doing a damn thing to stop him.

Knowing that Dean's just putting up his usual front, Sam just smiles and shakes his head with his hand still on his brother's face. Once again, he finds Dean's antics cute … and, yeah, he's totally ashamed for even thinking it. …But still.

"Nothing," he says, before leaning over and pressing a small kiss on the unharmed portion of Dean's lips. Dean lets him, even though he's only got eyes for the road at the moment. (Hey, nobody crashes his baby, especially not him!) Sam knows this and he doesn't mind. It's just the way they are anyway.

Comfortably easing back into his side of the vehicle, once again, Sam realizes, like in the shower, that his younger self's efforts to run away from the hunting life were always futile at best. They were, because, instead of running away, he knows now that he should have been running for home. Sam's'home' is in the Impala with Dean, the guy who always manages to frustrate the crap out of him and drive him completely bonkers yet clearly loves him more than anyone else ever could.

Even though all the shit they've been through and some of the bad blood they'd had running between them, Sam's still thankful as hell to have Dean by his side. He still remembers all the other special kidsthat he'd met that Azezel had tried to turn all those years ago. None of them had their own personal Dean and a small part of Sam thinks that—good or bad—that's why he's the only one still breathing ... even though, ok, yeah, he's died more times than they have. But Dean always found a way to bring him back and, no matter what, he's grateful.

"Hey, you alright?" Dean asks, because he just pulled into the motel parking lot and his brother hasn't moved an inch.

Coming back to himself, Sam let out a, "Yeah, man. Sorry, just spaced out for a second there, but I'm fine."

Getting out of the car, Dean says all casual like, "Good, 'cause I was thinkin' 'bout a roll in the hay before we move on. You know, kinda' still wired from the fight and all."

Sam can't help himself. He really can't. He means it to come across pissed, but his words are hampered by his amusement. "Dude, you are about as romantic as a dead squirrel. Seriously, man, you need to work on your game."

Dean scowls as he opens the door. "Whatever. Just get your ass in here and take your pants off. Remember, we still gotta shag ass before the cops show."

Sam's grumbling things like, "Why the hell do I put up with you again?" and "What the fuck do I even see in you?" before Dean shuts the door and grabs his arm. When Dean pulls him into his chest, puts his hands on his hips and slow rocks their close bodies to music only he can hear with that stupid, half-lidded, arrogant grin of his, yeah, Sam's remembering all the answers to his previous questions. …Until Dean says, "Don't mind treatin' you like a girl when you act like one, Sammy. Now lose the clothes and spread 'em, bitch."

Yeah, Dean's fucking lucky that Sam loves him alright, because, instead of being a single shade of disgruntled while undoing his pants with brooding silence, Sam would so have put his Sasquatch-sized shoe up his ass … and fucking twisted if he didn't. Oh, yeah, you best believe it. (Secretly, Dean loves that pouty look on Sam's face as he moodily does as he's told. But, yeah, he's taking that shit to the grave.)

"Dean, you are such an ass."

"Yeah, but I'm an ass that loves to own your ass and you know you friggin' love it."

It's a testament to their fucked up 'relationship that isn't a relationship' that Dean saying those words while squeezing Sam's newly bared cheek only makes his brother-turned-lover smile. …And, yeah, ok, makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What can he say? Dean's sort of grown on him like a tumor, sort of like a malignant melanoma that's spread throughout his body and now he's in his heart. …Sam's just glad that he never tried to cut him out at the start. Nope. There's no cure for what ails him and, you know what? Sam's alright with that…

"He—Hey! Dean, you're not doing that shit dry! What the fuck, man? Go get the damn lube!"

"Dude, we're out. Deal with it."

…or maybe not.

~Fin