tampered | log: ongoing

When; this afternoon
Rating; pg-13+
Characters; sam winchester [

canitdean] + dean winchester [

shutupsammy]
Summary; Sam'n'Dean really need to have a talk about this thing where they tried to kill each other.
Log;

He wondered if Sam even went to bed last night when he got up this morning, earlier than usual, the glow of the light in his brother's room coming out from below his bedroom as Dean made his way to the shower. Hours later, time for late lunch, Sam was still in there. And part of Dean hopes he still is when he gets back from doing some shopping and picking up some entrees, because, fuck Sam, and fuck Dean. They needed to talk.

Before Cas yelled at him again. Or Bobby kicked his ass. Or both. And because--

How did you get over that? The way things were spiraling, one step forward and two steps back?

Dean booted the bottom of Sam's door with his foot, arms full of bags from the family dining restaurant he'd visited on the way back. Time to talk.

"Sam? I hope you don't have any plans for a hot date tonight, because I brought back Italian. I even splurged on shrimp scampi."

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In some sense, Dean's intuitions were right. Sam hadn't gone to bed, unless you counted the fleeting catnaps here and there, habits picked up from way back when college and law school were still the biggest hurdles on the horizon and procrastination only resulted in pulling all-nighters for term papers. His room might have reflected those old habits to a certain extent, papers strewn across his desk and some littered on the floor--those on the former in neat piles, while the paper that wound up on the carpet were mostly balled and crumpled. There were even lines of notes taped to the walls, one of John's old habits, notes on the Underground and more importantly, the clock.

A few on angels as well. Castiel wasn't the only one hanging around their shoulders.

But when the pounding on the door started, Sam had been half-asleep on the bed, jerking awake at the voice and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You're kidding," he called out, standing aimlessly for a moment next to the bed as he wondered whether or not he should attempt to tidy up at all.

The thought was quickly abandoned. Because, really, did it matter whether his bed was made for this? Dean didn't usually bring food back. Italian meant cornering.

Not that Sam hadn't been waiting for that anyway.

He pulled the door open, expression still flabbergasted for the most part as he lifted an eyebrow, and his jaw moved to the side, mouth agape.

"Huh. You weren't kidding. You... want a hand with that?"

Vaguely, Sam wondered if he should steer Dean back to the dining hall, since getting marinara all over his sheets wasn't exactly his idea of a good replacement for a hot date.

If the Italian meant cornering, then the shrimp meant pre-apology and seriousness in whatever strange language Dean was speaking at the moment. He only stared at his brother for a moment to take in the rumpled appearance-- he'd obviously woken Sam up, possibly because he'd just gotten too tired to function at whatever he was doing any longer.

Staring around Sam's side at the pile of balled papers by the small trash can, Dean shoved one of the bags into Sam's arms before moving to the kitchen. This way, he couldn't ruin everything he was trying to do by getting tomato all over a misplaced important piece of paper something.

His own bag was dropped on the table before he moved to grab two beers, peering over the top of the refrigerator door at Sam.

"The Clock?"

Sam grunted a little at the sudden weight that was shoved against his chest--not that it was terribly substantial, but there must've been a decent amount more than breadsticks in there, and briefly, the younger brother wondered what exactly it was that Dean was trying to compensate for. Or what he was trying to guilt Sam into. Nothing was very clear anymore to Sam, and perhaps that was why he avoided it, some type of dynamic that he could no longer understand or decipher, and when Sam Winchester didn't understand something, he ran from it until he was ready to try and tackle the problem again.

Dean just didn't usually give him enough time to do that.

"Yeah, the Clock," Sam replied, eying Dean warily as he set his own bag next to the first, putting it gently down in contrast to the hasty way Dean had gone about it. His gaze was broken only to peek within the paper bags to check for plates or utensils--before he decided, well.

Company plates. This was company, right?

Sam made his way to the cabinets and pulled out two of everything.

Seemed like it'd been a while since he set the table properly.

"I figured that, short of going to the deities themselves, the Clock might have some of our answers. Been scouring the Network for information, and I plan on calling Claire to confirm some of the things she told me some time ago. We couldn't find it last time, but that's no reason to quit trying, right?"

The two bottles Dean sat on the top of the table with little clicks, watching some in a combination of curiosity and mild confusion as he went for actual ceramic plates as opposed to paper or styrofoam. Maybe it was better that way, something heavy and solid to make sure they sat their asses in chairs in the kitchen and stayed there, instead of running off to their separate bedrooms or the living room couch.

Dean's eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he considered Sam's talk of what he had been throwing himself into. Getting home. Of course. And why wasn't Dean just as frenzied about it? He claimed he needed to get back, to save lives, to keep fighting the good fight they always had, Tribulations be damned.

He didn't know.

"Have you tried the less full of deadly threat to our squishy bodies route of asking the Deities? You might learn something. It's like, you know, in the old Batman cartoons when the villains would monologue about what their evil plot was to shame and derail the heroes?"

He raised his eyebrows. Have you, Sam? Or is that too much like an easy way out for a Winchester, when the option to bang his head up against a brick wall repeatedly held so much more glamor, apparently.

"I guess that's where we differ in opinion," Sam quipped, as he set down the plates, taps on the table before he pulled his own chair out and sat down, arms immediately resting on his knees. "'Cause I happen to think that asking the deities is both a deadly threat to our squishy bodies and not likely to get us any answers. I did, however, take that plan of action into consideration when I scoured the Network, looking at deity posts, conversations, and the like. There was that one that called herself Lina, wasn't there? She took an odd liking to you."

For someone who claimed not to enjoy standing out, Sam sometimes couldn't help but think that Dean really had a knack for it. Questioning authority, although often ineffectually, as far as Sam could tell.

Not that Sam himself was any better, but at least he put less faith into it.

"Not to mention that these deities aren't exactly textbook villains or demons, for that matter. I'm still sticking with what I said when we first got here, however long ago. Tricksters. They're messing with the dimension, messing with time... I'm just unsure if it really is some large group working together to pull that wool over our eyes or if it's just one great puppeteer creating several sets of eyes and limbs to throw us off."

He paused then, half holding in a breath, not finishing the rest of what he wanted to say.

That's what I've been doing. And what about you, Dean?

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