They thought he had ran away to some remote area of L.A. to avoid being noticed but all he had done was went back to his hotel room and locked himself in. He always ended up by the window, mind wandering free from the view it offered. Sometimes he’d roll his eyes because it was too fairy-tale ish when he thought about it. Once upon a time, there lived a handsome young Prince who had everything he wanted in this whole wide world, but the Prince was unhappy and always found himself trapped in the tallest tower in the castle.

Might as well grow a ponytail and wear high heels.

Kevin would find him, he always did. Kevin said he’d learn to read him over the years. When you want to run away, you’d always go back to the one place people wouldn’t think you’d go to, he’d said. And where would that be Kev, he’d asked. In your room, he’d replied. Intrigued by this new discovery of himself, he had asked what else had he learnt from reading him.

There are only two reasons why you wouldn’t touch Pizzas. One, you’re too nervous to eat. Two, you’re really, really upset.

I wouldn’t eat a pizza that I dropped too.

Nah, you’d still pick it up and scrap the first layer off.

Hmm, that’s true.

Now he felt like calling Kevin and updating him about his pizza eating ways. He felt like it was his responsibility to at least inform the guy. Hey Kev, I read myself today and I learnt that I couldn’t touch my pizza if I’m having demon talks.

The boxes were left unopened, drinks left untouched as everyone looked expectantly at Sam, who was studying the latest sketch Dean had insisted Nick to draw. He had a feeling Dean already knew the answer to this puzzle but he’d rather Sam see the pieces and made the conclusion himself. Perhaps that’d be easier than explaining his way?

After what felt like hours, Sam finally looked up, eyes darting towards his brother for a fleeting second, communicating again, before he found him and motioned for the pad in his hand. “You had this vision at the library just now?”

He nodded.

“I have a feeling it’s too late for this couple.” He nodded because what do you say to something like that anyway? “I’m sorry you had to see that. It stays with you for a while huh?”

“It was better when I thought they were just dreams, I’ll give you that.”

Sam had nodded and he waited, knew there was something more to this than just the need to show the sketch to Sam, knew there was a reason why Dean had caused him to lose his appetite when there were melting cheese pizzas within reach and chilled beer waiting to be guzzled down his parched throat.

“The uh, vision I had earlier,” Sam started. “Same thing, wife was killed in the kitchen room, slash wound to the stomach, no fire. Husband was taking a shower upstairs.”

His eyes widen, so was everybody else, except for Dean maybe, because he already knew this, already connected the dots.

“But the woman in your vision, she’s not dead yet is she? Your visions, they’re of the future, aren’t they?” Howie said.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, the plan is to get there before it happened.”

“And Nick’s vision, it helped,” AJ said. It felt like light bulbs were blinging everywhere around the room. “Now you know who’s doing it and how it’s done.”

“Which means we have to go ASAP,” Dean pointed out.

“Wait, what?” Now it was his turn to speak up. Sure they had to go off and save the day, but what would this mean for him? Was he supposed to go back living his life and just wait for the yellow eyed freak to come get him? What was he supposed to do then? Definitely not tell it to go fuck itself off, that might sound good in his head but saying it out loud might as well have him sign his death certificate served on a silver platter (he wasn’t sure why it had to be silver, he decided gold was too cliché anyway).

Sam was lightly massaging at his temple and shaking his head. “Dean we still have time trust me. We can leave tomorrow-”

“No Sam, we have to be on the road now, it’s going to take us some time to get there and I’ve never seen you so drained after your visions before, frankly, it’s scaring me man.”

Sam shook his head. “No, I’m fine, just a headache. I promise Nick I’ll-”

“Okay look, no offence to you dude, I like you okay? You love my car, you love my cassette tapes, in Dean’s book, you’re my favourite guy right after Sammy here, but I really think spending more time here is not good for Sam. I don’t-”

“Are you saying that your brother’s sick because he’s been around Nick too much?” Brian stepped in.

Kevin said there was a way to find out when Brian is really, really mad. The kind of mad where you don’t want to get caught in the middle of. Kevin said there was this specific tone in Brian’s voice that came with this specific glare in his eyes, they were menacing, even more intimidating than Kevin’s eyebrows but not necessarily scarier than Howie mouthing off in Spanish, but those were the signs to look out for. Right now, that voice and that glare was clear for everyone to see.

Just apparently not to Dean.

“I’m saying that he gets too much vision, which makes him sick, every time he’s around kids like him,” Dean said, rather calmly, but if one were to look into those eyes, that glare now reserved only for Brian, one would know that it was Dean’s sign to watch your steps.

“Well before you two came along, we were doing just fine without lining our windows and doors with salt. A prayer before going to bed and we could still sleep easy at night but the past few days we hardly get a wink of sleep because we were busy waiting for some creature to come knock on our door!” Brian raised his voice.

Things could get ugly and it would too, he decided.

“If Sam hadn’t had a vision of your brother having a vision, you’d be seeing him in a casket today. So I think we’ve done enough for you and your brother,” Dean dropped the bomb.

“Nick hadn’t had a vision for five days until he met you guys,” Brian spat. “So it’s not exactly a walk through a garden for us too you know.”

“Well, you can go back to praying every night before you go to bed then if you think that alone is enough,” Dean exclaimed.

“Dean stop it,” Sam interjected.

“No Sam! I’m tired of always going all the way to help people and we keep getting shooed away just because they can’t grasp the concept that there are things that go bump in the night!” Dean cried.

“Hey guys, look.” Howie had stepped in. He sounded calm. He liked calm, English speaking Howie, it meant that he had the situation under control and things would get back to normal in no time. He needed things to get back to normal because right now things were confusing and giving him a headache. He wiped away at the new drop of blood that had managed to drip from his nose again.

“We’re all tired, it had been a long day for all of us. I know you’re just looking out for your brother Dean and I know Brian only get this volatile when he’s trying to protect Nicky. You both are just doing your job, there’s no need to argue over this.”

Kevin would have been so proud of Howie right now, he thought.

“Why don’t we call it a day huh guys?”

And just like that, everything calmed. Dean said not a word and for a split second, he thought he saw the same kind of lines he had seen on Brian and he decided that sometimes, it wasn’t even about age, that the lines on your face hold the stories of a person’s journey so far in life and that regardless of one’s youth, you’re only as old as you feel, and Dean Winchester had a way that sometimes made him looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He almost didn’t hear the muttered ‘Sammy’ that came out of Dean, as if in sigh, as he walked out of the room. Sam followed his brother out, only to stop for a second by the door to mouthed a quick ‘sorry’ to everyone in the room and he thought that was nice of him, because to be fair, Dean wasn’t the only one to blame here; Brian had said some not nice things to them too. AJ, who had been silent throughout the entire incident, made a move on the pizza and took a slice. Eating was good, he figured, it kept you from talking and thinking too much and ultimately acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation. Sometimes he wished he could do that too.

He wasn’t sure when he had made his way back to their room but Brian found him staring out the window and asked him to get to bed because it was almost midnight. He had spent the rest of the day looking through that window, caught himself staring at the black Impala, found himself relieved to see it was still there. He almost called Kevin but decided against it. He had to learn to stop depending on Kevin now. It was okay to remember how it was back then when he was around, to hopefully learn something from the memories he had managed to dredge to the surface, but to keep relying on the man would be asking for too much. He was twenty-seven for crying out loud!

He couldn’t fall asleep, knew he would have difficulties that night, especially after everything that had happened earlier.

He didn’t think his sketches would mean anything unless someone like Sam could see it, because it had helped Sam, didn’t it? Him alone could do nothing to change what had passed; he was the line that connected A to B, the missing page needed to complete a story. Perhaps he really was the cause for Sam’s sudden attacks of visions and headaches. Perhaps Dean had the right to be wary.

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

He turned to face Brian in the dark. He didn’t even remember the lights being turned off. “You were just looking out for me.”

“I was out of line.”

“You were trying to defend me dawg, I appreciate it.”

“Still, that was rude of me.”

“Well Dean’s not exactly all sunshine and butterflies either.”

“I think I’m going to go make peace with them tomorrow morning.”

“That’s nice of you bro,” he said. “And I really appreciate you sticking up for me…have I mentioned that?”

“Twice now.”

“Just making sure.”

“Cover all the bases huh?”

“Yeah.”

It was back to silence and he let his mind wandered around, trying not to think of the scenes he’d seen in his visions so far, of death and sufferings and blood, so much blood…

“Hey Brian?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are we really not going to start lining the windows and doors with salt now?”

It took Brian quite a while to answer and he thought that his friend had fallen asleep in the middle of trying to figure out what to tell him. But then he heard Brian rather than see him, noisily climbing out of bed and then suddenly the room was bathed in light again.

“Friggin salt! I swear they’re making me paranoid over this!”

It was quite a sight to watch Brian lining salt on the windows and he wondered if it’d make the front page news when the band starts touring again and hotel staff started getting suspicious over their demand of boxes of salt to be sent up to their suite every night.

a/n: that, my friends, is my attempt at a brian/dean showdown. Hope you liked it :D