"What are you doing here?" Sam asked. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother and he didn't appreciate surprise appearances.

"Dad's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Fuck. Did this have to happen now? He was happy, almost normal.

"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside," Sam said to his confused girlfriend. Once they were out of earshot, he changed his tone. "You can't just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. You need to help me find him."

Sam sighed. Dean was obviously going to still treat him like a child. This had happened before; their Dad had dropped off the map a few times when he was hunting, it was nothing new.

"Remember Amhurst? What about Clifton? He was missing then too. He's always missing and he's always fine."

"Not for this long. Now are you going to come with me or not?"

No. He wasn't going. He wasn't going to do this again, he was happy and he was going to keep it that way. He didn't want to hunt and he certainly didn't need to.

"Dean, I'm not coming with you."

"I can't do this alone," his brother said and Sam almost laughed.

"Yes you can."

"Yeah, well I don't want to."

Sam sighed again. He shouldn't be getting sucked back into it this easily.

"Who was he hunting?"

Sam watched as Dean opened the trunk of the car and pulled out some paper. He tried not to look at the discreet bulges he could see in the false bottom of the trunk, tried not to think about the weapons he knew were concealed there. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he had missed them. He'd missed the guns and the glinting knives. It had always been the knives.

"Last I heard, he was going to Jericho," Dean said, handing him some files on missing people, all male. There were ten people in total, all last seen on the same stretch of road over the last twenty years.

"That's a long time," Sam said. "What do you think, one person or multiple?"

"Dad thought it was one. He went out there three weeks ago and I haven't heard from him since," Dean replied. "Are you coming?"

"One condition," Sam said. He knew Dean was going to laugh. "I need to get back by Monday morning. I have an interview."

"A job interview? Skip it."

"It's a law school interview and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean's expression was mildly amused. He didn't need this.

"So, we got a deal or not?"

Dean waited in the car for Sam to pack. He knew he'd get him eventually but it always confused him how much persuasion it took to get Sam on board. Maybe it was just because he'd been young, but their mother's murder had never affected him as much. He didn't have the thirst for revenge, for justice. Sure, he had the bloodlust, he had that in spades, but that wasn't always enough. Finally, Sam was slipping in beside him, his bag clinking ominously as he threw it onto the back seat.

"What's in the bag?" he asked.

"If I'm doing this, I'm doing it properly," Sam replied, the corner of his mouth twitching oddly. Dean knew what that must mean.

"You kept it?" Sam had a thing for knives, he always had. He had his favourites and had often sulked when they were younger if Dean hadn't let him use the one that he wanted. On one of their hunts, they'd been tracking a man that seemed to have an even bigger passion than his brother and he'd never forget the look in Sam's eyes when they found his collection. He'd had one with an ornate wooden handle that Sam had taken a shine to and their father had let him keep it for a job well done. Since that day, Sam had refused to use anything else.

"Of course, it's gorgeous."

"But... you said you were stopping. You said you couldn't control it anymore. I just thought you'd have gotten rid of it."

"No," Sam said with a smirk. "I just haven't been using it. On anyone else."

Dean kept his eyes on the road. He wasn't rising to this. He knew that, no matter how lax his brother's morals might be in some areas, he was faithful. He was just teasing him.