Under my skin, part 1

[yourkidney]

I've got you under my skin
I've got you deep in the heart of me
You're so deep in my heart you're really a part of me
And I've got you under my skin

"I've Got You Under My Skin"
Cole Porter, 1936



Threes have always been bearers of bad news.

Sam didn't tell them he was leaving for Stanford until three hours before he left (and Dean never really got to say goodbye, because those three hours were an eternity of betrayal, sadness, anger and trying to keep dad from ripping Sam apart) and he stayed away for three years.

The only time he ever tried to call Sam was in March of his freshman year. It was from a pay phone, and as soon as Sam heard his voice, he hung up on him.

The first time he saw Sam almost die was when they were fifteen (the one and five is six, which is three twice) and twenty. There were the ghosts of three young sisters and they had Sam pinned to the ground. They sliced his wrists and one was fingertips-deep in his stomach before Dean could get there with the iron poker and dad burned the bodies.

There were only three in their fucked-up family. If there had been four, if mom had still been alive, they could have been okay.

It takes him nine shots of whiskey, which is three times three, to start telling Sam the things he's scared of.



Sam got three long gashes from the pixies (there were nine of them) that Dean is stitching up right now. There's a third of a bottle of cheap vodka left and he pours almost all of it onto the wounds. He drinks the last two mouthfuls (and the second was too big too much at once, but he couldn't add another to the count) to invalidate the three, and gags at the lukewarm temperature.

He stitches Sam up, calm and soothing, and is especially careful on the third, sixth and ninth ones (and is glad he doesn't have to do twenty-seven, because if there's any number worse than three, it's three to the third power).

He covers the wounds in antiseptic and bandages them. Bandages as many other smaller cuts as he can, too, so he doesn't have to see THREE screaming at him from all over Sam's body, taunting him, reveling in their near-victory of fucking his life thrice and for good.

He only has one pixie scratch bad enough to be sutured, on his shoulder. Sam lays him down, cleans it out with a new bottle of even cheaper vodka and starts the stitches. It hurts, and he keeps track of how many stitches it takes.

Nine. Fuck. He's too tired to argue with Sam for another, so he counts the antiseptic as half and the bandage as one, and that equals ten and a half. Half of that is 5.25, and five plus five plus two is twelve, whose one and two become three which again is no good.

He retracts his earlier statement: the antiseptic doesn't count at all. Ten is friendly enough that he can fall asleep.



"Sam," he had slurred, nine drinks in, "you get beat up enough even when I've got an eye on you. How am I supposed to keep you safe when you're gone? And you-you've taken off twice already. A third time? I don't know if I'd shoot you or myself." Then Dean got Sam drunk enough that he didn't remember what they were talking about, except he probably did, because Sam started leaving notes even when he went out for coffee or a sandwich or to the library, and never packed up his stuff unless they were both about to leave.



Dean wakes up and immediately checks the time, as always, and rolls his eyes (7:26) because seven plus two plus six becomes fifteen which is is a multiple of three, or seven times two times six is eighty four which multiplies out to thirty two which is then six, or seven plus twenty six is thirty three, which is two too many threes. That's three ways this time sucks, so he stares at the clock until it clicks to 7:27, which is sixteen, ninety eight (then seventy two then fourteen then four) or thirty four (then seven), which is good enough for him to get out of bed. Sam is still out cold, sleeping off the pain and the drugs.

He gets up, writes a short note to Sam on the lame motel stationary just in case he slips out of that coma he calls sleep, and goes out for coffee. The total for two coffees comes to $2.97. Dean drops the three cents into the tip jar just to get rid of it, then follows it with a few other spare coins from his pocket so he's not just passing the bad luck on to somebody else.

When he leaves, he skips over the third step down, and once in the car he has to fast forward through Led Zep's "Since I've Been Loving You". He used to like the song, years and years ago, but the drums are so ostentatiously in 6/8 that he can't listen to it anymore.



He must have been eight when it started. Not the threes, that came later, but the numbers. Counting and then adding subtracting multiplying dividing in circles, to manipulate them into new numbers (usually however old he was at the time) and then back.

People he either really liked or really disliked were given numbers. (Okay, so he's always disliked the number three, there was just never a reason until he hit his early twenties.) Sam is zero because that's his favorite number (it always stays the same and never trips you up unless you're dividing by it, but in that case it just becomes infinity which is everything which is Sam) and dad is twenty eight because six, twenty eight and four hundred ninety-six are perfect numbers, but six is three plus three and four hundred ninety-six is just too big, even for their father, and the ones that come after are even worse.

He was in third grade when it started, and it was just a way to pass the time in school until he could go home and actually learn something useful, but then it turned into a habit and eventually became a way of life.



Dean shakes Sam's foot four times when he gets back to the motel room. "Wakey wakey, princess," he says. "I've got coffee."

"Bzuh?" Sam asks into his pillow.

"Coffee, you idiot. Wake up, smell the caffeine and shake off the painkillers. We've got road to eat today."

"Ew," Sam says. He burrows his face further into the pillow and relaxes his shoulders again in preparation to fall back to sleep.

"Such a bundle of eloquence, huh Sammy? Come on, or I'm taking your laptop and leaving without you." Dean rips the covers away, and is grateful that there are only two bandages showing. He dips his fingers in coffee and splashes it onto Sam's back. "If you aren't drinking this, I'm going to have to try osmosis."

Sam turns his head and scowls up at him. "Osmosis doesn't work like that, moron."

Dean laughs. "We'll see. But come on, let's hit the road. We've got to leave now if we want to get to Bobby's by dinnertime. You can sleep in the car."



He's glad he only hates the number three, and isn't infatuated with it. It's easier to get something to not be a number than it is to fool around with it until it becomes one.



As he predicted, Sam falls asleep as soon as they leave the parking lot.

His breathing evens and deepens, and Dean counts Sam's breaths. In and out and in and out ten eleven twelve thirteen and his brother is so alive and beautiful it hurts.

Sam gives a little snuffle and worms his way down into the leather, then a sighs contentedly. Dean flicks off his music so the sound of Sam, quiet and living and asleep, can fill the car.

Dean smiles and guns it.

A couple hours later he stops for gas. He wakes Sam up to ask "Hey, you want some coffee while we're stopped?"

Sam shakes his head first to brush off the remaining sleep and then again as a "no".

"Suit yourself." But when he gets back in the car with the tank full and the biggest cup of coffee they had (black with a little hot water added to weaken the bitter taste), Sam looks over, slides his eyes up and down the cup. He stares it down for a few miles until Dean rolls his eyes and hands it over. He doesn't know why he keeps on fooling himself that Sam will take him up on the coffee offer for once in his life.

When Sam actually gets his own, he likes it so strong it could corrode steel and with eight sugars and two creams, but they end up sharing coffee while in the car more often than not. He makes a face because he can't stand how Dean takes his coffee, but Dean knows it always tastes better stolen from your brother. They trade the cup back and forth, five six seven eight, drinking it as fast as they can before it gets lukewarm, fingers brushing as they pass it. Sam gets the last sip, and tosses the empty cup into his footwell.



Threes crawl under his skin like nothing else. They burrow and hole up and they're these terrible itches that he can never scratch. They've cropped up in every bad situation he's had to endure; he doesn't even have to get abstract to reveal them.

He thinks that if he can eradicate all evidence of them, if he can somehow avoid any mention of them in his life, Sam will be safe forever. If they would maybe stop following him around then they would stop bringing bad luck, and he could start trying to make Sam happy instead of just keeping him alive.



They'll get to Bobby's by seven, like Dean planned. The last twenty miles make him impatient-he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, first second fourth fifth, and then back and then again, which he only does when he's really antsy.

Sam looks at him with a couple of raised eyebrows as if he's familiar with Dean's nervous tic. He probably is.

They roll into Bobby's place, past the junker cars and right up to the house. He's outside, with a few popped beers and some steaks on the grill.

"Hey, boys," he says, and it's comfortable.

It's a good night, with a wide open sky and a breeze flowing through.

Dean doesn't mind that Bobby makes them a trio, because he's not always around so it's really more like a two-and-a-half-o, and two and a half is seven, which is a good number on enough counts.

Sam insists on doing the dishes and Dean and Bobby sit down on a couch with a new beer each.

"How have you been doing, kid?" Bobby asks in his rough drawl. He's the only one who gets away with calling him that.

Dean smiles and takes a couple slow sips of beer before answering. "Same as always, old man. You?"

"Ha! Not much, as usual. Found some interesting books Sam might want to look at tomorrow."

They go quiet and Dean is content. He cradles the beer bottle on his thigh, is pleased by the warm thrum of blood that accompanies beer and listens to Sam clacking and shuffling in the kitchen. He counts the books on Bobby's shelf, notes the colors and size of them, then counts plates cups beer bottles scattered around the living room. A clock is ticking somewhere, and the more he tries to ignore it the louder it gets, so he gives in and counts the seconds until the noise completely overwhelms his hearing and then dies back into the background.

Sam comes out after a time, and all three of them are sitting on the same couch even though there's another one directly opposite them. They share the heat and companionship; they're pushed together like three lazy ears of corn. Dean nudges Sam's arm, just to feel him next to him, and Sam looks over and smiles. (He's now seen four smiles like that today, when usually he's lucky to get even one.)

They make small talk to fill up the silence, but they don't really pay attention to the words, just the cadence of each others' voices and laughter. Eventually Dean gets up. "I'm going to hit the sack," he says and heads up to the room. He hears Sam follow.

They share a king bed, because Bobby stopped offering them separate rooms or the cot years ago, and it's warm and cozy like the Impala. (Two homes. He hopes they never find another one, because the numbers are a bitch and something bad would happen to it and he wouldn't be able to handle losing it.)



Sam's name has three letters in it. That really annoys Dean, because Sam is the best thing that's ever happened to him. Samuel has six letters, but he doesn't really care because Samuel is about the lamest name in existence anyways.

So he calls him Sammy whenever he can get away with it, because that has five letters, and even though five times three is fifteen, which then becomes six, which is three plus three, it's better than straight-up three. He doesn't use Sammy all the time, because his brother finds it annoying just as often as endearing, and Sam's mood is usually more important than his stupid numbers.



Sam spends the next day hunched over Bobby's books, only looking up to take a sip of water or the occasional bite from his sandwich.

"A friend of mine just called," says Bobby halfway through the day. "Heard of another ghost ship down offa Cape Hatteras, but he's in Georgia cleaning up a pack of werewolves. You boys want to handle it?"

Dean nods. "Hell yeah. We'll get fat with all this down time." He turns towards Sam and says, "Want to hit the road in a few hours? We could make North Carolina by tomorrow afternoon."

Sam nods without looking up.



They get a late start. Eight. Bobby gives them some food for the road ("If you idjits ever get scurvy, I'll know it's my fault.") and the book Sam was reading with the promise that he brings it back the next time they drop by.

"Is there anywhere you want to stop on the way there?" Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head no.

"Good. Just a straight shot there, then. Man, I love days where we have nothing better to do than drive!" He grins at Sam who smiles back. He can feel the buzz rushing through his system at the impending hours behind the wheel, listening to Led Zep and talking about nothing and everything.

And it's a long drive, over twenty hours from South Dakota to North Carolina even with Dean breaking ninety-five all night without stopping (and they only get pulled over once-Sam sweet-talks the officer, as usual).

Sam takes the wheel for a few hours the next day so Dean can get a little shut-eye, but as soon as he's awake again he bitches and whines until Sam gives him back his baby. They're almost there by the time dusk starts to fall the day after they left Bobby's, and Dean starts to count as fast as he can to a hundred, back down, and then up and on and on, always skipping the threes. It keeps his mind alert.

There are too many kitschy motels along Cape Hatteras, most right on the beach. ("Fucking beaches," Dean says, but Sam seems to love it, so Dean shuts up.) They pull into Buxton right when Dean is about to nod off again, fuck the consequences.

Sam had called ahead and miracled them a room, since it was midsummer and all the motels were usually filled around now. They crash to sleep as soon as they're there.



"Okay, so I've been able to pinpoint eight different incidents with this ghost ship over the past ninety years," Sam says the next day at the library. "Who knows how many others I haven't found yet."

Dean is sitting across from him, spinning his cell phone. "Cool."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Dean, would it kill you to occasionally give some input? Look, only four people even mentioned a ship, but I've been able to pick out a few others. They were groups of people each time, between counts of two and six, and they all drowned themselves on the same stretch of beach, always together. From what I can tell, there were symptoms that lasted for weeks before the suicides, such as sudden changes in behavior, usually an increase in restlessness and constant preoccupation, or--"

Dean zones out. It's not that he doesn't care about the case, it's just that he wants Sam to figure out what they have to do so they can do it. He doesn't need all the details. He keeps on absently counting the rotations he makes with his cell phone, and when Sam interrupts him on the twenty-seventh he knows this case is going to end badly.

"Dean, could you at least pretend to pay attention?"

He shrugs. "Sure. You have any idea which ship it was yet?" He scrubs his hand across his face and shoves a yawn back down his throat.

Sam smiles as if he had won the lottery. "As a matter of fact, I think I do. The Carroll A. Deering is one of the most famous ship wrecks off the Eastern Seaboard. It was found hard aground in the outer Diamond Shoals not too far off the coast from here, all eleven crew members disappeared; they never found any of them. The authorities at the time thought piracy, but they don't ever see things the way we do, right?"

"Sure, but why this one? I mean, there are hundreds of other shipwrecks off of this fifty-mile stretch of tourist trap."

"Because what I can pick up from the rumors of the time, the first mate dabbled in witchcraft, and what we're dealing with here certainly stinks of it."

"What, so maybe he cast a spell on the crew and now whoever sees the ghost ship catches it too? That's a little far-fetched, Sammy."

"Hey, it's not like we've dealt with many ghost ships before. Who knows how they can mess with people. Okay, so back to the victims…"

Dean drifts off again, satisfied with his contribution to the conversation. He finds two books with the word 'radio' in the title in the G authors on the science fiction shelf before Sam kicks him.

"Pay attention! The quicker I fill you in on this the quicker we can check out where they killed themselves."

Dean sits up. He doesn't know what they'll actually be able to find on the beach, but anything is better than sitting in the library. "I'm all ears, Sammy."

Sam almost cracks a smile at that, almost, at his enthusiasm. "As I was saying, most of these groups of people worked together, usually as business partners. There have been store owners, hotel owners, writing collaborators, researchers. They varied in degrees of success and category but they were always falling apart before they drowned themselves. Whatever this thing does, I think it targets teams and colleagues with traits similar to the ship's crew."

The chair creaks when Dean gets up. "Good enough, show and tell is over, let's hit the road." He thinks that this curse will go after them, probably will, according to that bad feeling he had not too long ago, but they're Winchesters and they can kick anything in the ass.



They go and grab dinner before heading out, because the beach is a state park and they have to hike in once all the rangers leave. Dean tries to count how many times he chews each bite of food but Sam keeps on kicking him under the table with his fucking steel-toed boots and grinning at him and Dean can't help but forget the numbers for a moment and smile back.



There's nothing terribly interesting on the beach. Sand, obviously, a hell of a lot of drift wood, some sea glass, a lot of little purple shells and handfuls of sand dollars. Dean doesn't know what the fuck they're looking for, so he sits down on a big giant drift wood tree and watches the waves crashing into each other, rushing from both the north and the south and meeting at the middle and jumping high into the air upon impact.

"What are you looking for?" Dean asks.

Sam shrugs. He walks over to Dean and kicks sand onto his boots. "I don't know. I was hoping maybe I'd be able to see what was so special about this place that people kept coming here to kill themselves."

"You know we're probably going to see the ship, right? We fit its pattern as far as we can tell." Dean pokes his fingers through one of Sam's belt loops and twists it around his fingers. He looks up to his brother's face, sees the black and white shadows reflected by the moon.

Sam nods. "Yeah, I know. But we have no idea what it's actually doing to them. I can't pin down anyone who's survived this and I can't think of any other way to get intel on what's happening. Dean, if we can't stop this ghost ship then I don't know who else can."

"Yeah, and didn't you say there were a couple weeks between the sightings and the suicides? We'll have time to figure this out." Dean tugs Sam down to sit next to him. "We should have brought blankets, bitch. Why didn't we bring blankets? And four giant thermoses of coffee. Fuck, this is going to be a long night."

Sam knocks their shoulders together. "Stop whining and keep an eye out. At least the view isn't half bad."

"Why thank you," Dean says and shoots Sam a laugh. Sam rolls his eyes.

"What do you think the chances are of seeing this ship on the first night?" Dean asks after half an hour or so. "Of trying to find it?"

Sam looks at him and scoffs. "I'm flattered you think I know the answer to that, but I really have no clue."

"Yeah, because you're so fucking useless."

And then they're quiet again. Dean scuffs his foot forward and back, one two three four five six seven, forward and back and forward, twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty, until the walls start collapsing onto his toes. Then he kicks left and right, helping to bring the hole down in on itself, thirty-seven fourteen eight two zero, until it's full again. He smooths over the top until it's flat, then plants his feet down, perfect imprints of his boots, except he can't pull his feet up to look because then he wouldn't have anywhere to put them anymore. So he clenches his thigh muscles, left then right over and over and over again, as fast as he can, keeping in perfect time with the clicking of his teeth.

He gets bored again, so he starts counting up and down simultaneously. One one-hundred two ninety-nine three ninety-eight four. He gets halfway done before knocking over into Sam. "How the fuck can you sit still for so long? I'm going insane here!"

Sam pushes back. "Yeah, I can tell. Come on, you'll be fine. Just take deep breaths and focus on the waves."

Dean tries not to laugh, really, he does, but the snort bounces out of him despite his best efforts. "Are you seriously trying to tell me to meditate? Sam, I thought you were above all that shit."

"I've seen you do it, Dean. You have these crazy, intricate things that you tap out with your fingers, and seriously man, I've tried to imitate them and you need a hell of a lot of concentration to pull them off."

Dean laughs. "What? Not really, dude. You just probably weren't doing them right." He spends a few minutes trying to explain one of the patterns to Sam, the patterns that flow so naturally in his head and so effortlessly through his hands. Sam fumbles it, can't get one set of fingers to move differently than the other's. So they stop and Dean goes back to cycling through the hundreds of ways he has of making time drift by.



It starts to sink in a few hours later exactly what they're trying to do.

"Do you get how royally stupid this is?" Dean asks. "We're actively looking to catch a curse that doesn't leave many survivors, and we're hoping against hope we can outsmart it. What if we can't, Sam? What if this curse kills us?"

They're faced with proof of their own mortality on a daily basis but they rarely go searching for death like they are today, and he feels the shiver of dread. He knows he's not going to live forever but he has a relatively good life and he really doesn't want to die in two weeks.

"We'll be dead and it'll suck."

Dean looks at his brother like he just ate a bug, because Sam is usually the poster boy for optimism and sunshine, and he did not expect him to say something like that. "Wow that's comforting." But it makes him feel a little better. Somehow. Besides, at least they'd be going out together.



The moon sets and the sky goes from black to midnight blue to dark blue to the sun crawling over the horizon. Dean yawns and lifts his head from Sam's shoulder. He hadn't fallen asleep exactly, he knows he had most certainly kept his eyes open all night, but anything he had seen or thought or felt or heard is skittering away as if it had been a dream. "Nothing, right?" he asks and stretches, feels a shiver running through his tensed body.

"Nothing," Sam agrees.

"So we can leave now? We can come ba- Fuck."

And now they're stone still, perfectly quiet, for there goes the Carroll A. Deering heading north along the coast, right as the sun has fully risen over the horizon. Its sails are furled, leaving the five masts bare, and it floats calmly past them. It doesn't look ghostly, except for the fact that Dean can tell, without a doubt, that it's completely empty, even though it's too far out to see most details. A cold feeling starts at the top of his head and works slowly down, sliding over his face, down his neck, across his shoulders, into his skin.

"What did you get us into, Sammy?" Dean asks, moments before his head explodes in pain.



Dean doesn't remember much of the first half hour after they saw the ghost ship, just that he has a new sympathy for the headaches that came with the visions Sam used to get. He lays in a daze, tries to push the pain back by counting his breaths, counting his heartbeats, counting anything he can.

Eventually Sam sits up from where he and Dean had been clutching on to each other in the sand.

"Dean?" he asks and shakes his shoulder.

Dean rolls his head and then groans because that was too much movement. "Whatever you did, I'm kicking your ass for it."

Sam laughs a little.

They sit for a while and let the pain reside. He sees the waves crashing in front of him and he starts to count them out of habit. He stops on the fifteenth, because isn't he laying on his side, and aren't his eyes closed?

Weird, Dean thinks, just as an experiment. He keeps his eyes closed, just in case.

"What's weird?"

"Oh fuck." He says that out loud and goes to jab Sam's side, another experiment, except Sam must have seen it coming and rolls out of the line of fire. He feels his body both rolling and staying still.

"Dean. What's up, man?"

"We're in each other's heads. Fuck, Sam, this is the curse." He grabs at his hair again and gives it a yank. "Of course they killed themselves."

"Dude, ow! What was that?"

Then Dean opens his eyes and Jesus fucking Christ.

"Fuck," he says, because it sounded so good. "Fuck this is messed up."

Because he can see Sam, but he can also see himself through Sam's eyes, and trying to concentrate on both the images at the same time is making him dizzy, as well as the shock that's bouncing back and forth between them and magnifying and freaking him out more than he would have been without.

Holy shit he can feel Sam in his head. He's completely engulfed in his presence, he's bleeding into him. Dean tries to pull back and shut his mind down a little, to maybe keep a little fucking privacy.

Sam closes his eyes. That gets rid of his sight, but Dean knows his own is still filling both of their heads. "Could you just close your eyes for a few minutes? I need to get my bearings."

Dean complies before Sam even finishes the thought, let alone the sentence. "You don't have to actually say anything. I'm in your head, dude."

"Same for you, jerk."

They're quiet. Sam is concentrating more on keeping his mind empty than he would have on actually thinking the thoughts, but Dean sends him a thanks him for his effort anyways.



"Okay, so walking isn't a go yet. Let's just sit and try to keep all our eyes open without keeling over."

"Dude, this shouldn't be so fucking hard. Come on, just a few steps."

"No. We sit and talk about this and try to figure out the case, then we'll do some walking."

"Figure what out? We're sharing the same brain space! One brain, more than one body. Like those Bugger things in Ender's Game. Come on look at me, you bastard. We just gotta stand up."

He sees his own insistent face as well as Sam's nod. "This is so fucked up," he thinks for the twentieth time that night.

Dean slings his arm over Sam's shoulder and they manage to stagger upright.



They eventually get the hang of walking, although it's slow and staggered and easier when done with less thinking. They fight for control to move their bodies; they can't seem to differentiate between moving Sam's left leg or Dean's; they try to keep their minds blank but can't seem to help stray thoughts from floating over and tangling and where does one end and the other begin?

The double sight is the easiest thing to get used to, actually. It's a little like the difference between one eye open versus both. Their vision just has a greater periphery now or something.

But moving, that's taking some time to get used to. Dean doubts they'll be able to have full mobility for as long as this thing lasts-

"Of course we will, you idiot," Sam cuts in. "If anyone can swing this, it's us."

Dean rolls his eyes. "We'll see."

He counts their steps and keeps numerical track of both of their bodies because it helps him remember where everything is.

Once they finally make it into the Impala, Sam closes his eyes and lets Dean drive.

Dean can feel Sam too strongly in his head. He can feel his brother seeping in to every one of his cracks, and he's crawling into every one of Sam's. Neither of them can help it; their minds have entwined in the blink of an eye.

He doesn't know which thoughts are actually his, nor can he tell his movements apart from Sam's, and all he can feel is panic.

"That's all yours," Sam says from his right, where he's laying against the door with his eyes closed.

Dean concentrates really hard. For a moment he can separate their emotions and okay yeah, Sam is taking this a little better than he is.

That's because he's into meditation and breathing patterns, the freaking weirdo.

But Sam sees the numbers repeating subconsciously behind every one of his thoughts and laughs.



Dean inhales one two three four, holds two two three four, exhales three two three four, inhales four two three four, holds five two three four, exhales six two three four, holds seven two three four to the rhythm of his heartbeat which is also Sam's heartbeat which is also the thrum of the Impala's engine and he tries not to be startled when he feels a yawn that's not his own. They make it into the hotel room without much further hassle even though they're still so uncoordinated and clumsy.

The sun has been up for about an hour by now and is shining brightly into the room, so Sam pulls the curtains closed. Without another word they drop into their beds. Dean is still counting.

"Shut the fuck up," Sam says into his pillow, and Dean would have understood that even without hearing it in his head because some things just go without saying.



They sleep through the whole entire day and well into the night, sleep off the fatigue and pain and stress. Dean wakes up at 4:04 in the morning of the day after and he's awake and Sam is still asleep. He isn't dreaming, thank god, because he really doesn't want to think about how messed up that would be, some psychic version of DMT. He can feel Sam's lower back all sore and irritated and he presses his fingers against his own to maybe see if the pressure lessens up and no it doesn't.

He was so tired last night and last night he was so tired and now Sam can see everything. Sam can see the numbers, and maybe he'll understand them but he's still going to see them, and he'll see all the broken bits of Dean that come together and add up to one whole Dean that isn't actually whole and isn't actually Dean unless Sam is there to fill in all the gaps. If Sam sees this and gets scared off then Dean will be a Dean without a Sam, and a Dean without a Sam is broken just like when Sam was at Stanford. Broken broken Dean who can't function; broken broken Dean who can't (doesn't want to) live without his little brother.

Sam starts to wake up. Dean can feel it, the second set of alertness growing inside him. Sam feels his panic and is waking up because of it so Dean gets out of bed and runs to the bathroom and locks the door.

He stares into the mirror. He sees himself through his eyes and Sam's eyes. He's Dean looking at Dean but he's also Sam looking at Dean and he's also Sam laying in bed wondering what the fuck is up with Dean and onetwofourfivesixseveneightnineten he can handle this but he really can't.

He's in the bathroom and there's glass all over the floor because he just ripped off the mirror and threw it against the door and now there's glass all over the floor. He brushes some aside with his boots so he can sit down. He can hearfeel Sam's concern in his head, so he shouts THREETHREETHREE back as loud as he can and the nauseating repulsion he feels in response to the THREETHREETHREE is enough to drown out the loveconcernworry that he can't deal with from Sam right now. He ratchets up the volume of THREETHREETHREE until it's a mantra of THREETHREETHREE so loud in his head that it buzzes and crackles and flickers like a light or the radio when a ghost is around.

He pushes shards of glass together in patterns and it reflects back bits of the ceiling and the THREETHREETHREE is still going strong in his mind but it's loud and strong enough that he can ignore it and focus on the glass and make patterns and think about something else.

Like maybe how sick he already is of this bond because he loves Sam more than everything in the universe combined but he doesn't like that Sam can tell this now and he doesn't like that Sam sees his fixation (THREETHREETHREE) that's built entirely around him and he doesn't like not having control over his own body and he hates loathes despises numbers (except zero) but sometimes they're all he has to hold onto because he can control them and they're predictable and cold and indifferent and don't love him only hate him and Sam loves him completely and wholly and he knows this now and he doesn't know how to deal with that.

He also knows Sam doesn't want to leave him and that should be a good thing but it used to be the only reason he had to push Sam away a little. If he doesn't have that reason anymore then he has no excuse to keep Sam at elbow's length, so he's going to pull him in and never let go ever ever ever and he doesn't know how to stop himself from doing that.

Then Sam picks the lock and in Dean's distraction the THREETHREETHREE shatters away just like the mirror and he can feel Sam again. He floods through along with all of his devotion and love and compassion.

He stands above Dean and watches down at him and finally sits and Dean stupidly mutters "Watch the glass."

They sit together and breathe together and Sam counts in one two three four, hold two two three four, out three two three four, in four two three four, for the both of them and they sit together and breathe together for a long sixty-four minutes. The panic begins to slowly, ever so slowly, fade away. It's chased by just feeling Sam and soaking Sam in and all his problems should be solved like this, with just lots and lots of Sam.

His panic dissipates and wells up again and then down and then up a little and then down more and then up a little and then down more until he can breathe on his own without Sam working his lungs for him.

Sam is scared because he didn't know this about his brother he didn't know about the numbers he didn't know about the obsession but now he knows and it freaks him out.

"Good, because it's not normal and it should freak you out a little, a lot, more than it actually does, and why aren't you more freaked out?" Dean likes saying things out loud because they disappear faster when they're said out loud. They fizzle out into nothing. Nothing is zero is good is predictable; if he keeps the words stashed away then they get so tangled up with the numbers that he never forgets them ever.

Sam shrugs and Dean tries to stop him because "No that was rhetorical. I said it out loud because I didn't mean it so why are you answering," but Sam gets control always gets control and shrugs like he wants to. "You're my brother."

Dean laughs a little. "That's not good enough." But he can feel it, and Sam is still freaked out, but it is good enough, because to Sam 'brother' is everything, is mother is father is best friend is home, no matter how fucked up they are, no matter how fucked up Dean is, no matter no matter no matter. This is the thing that helps shove everything back into place and he can see again.

Sam knocks his knuckles against Dean's forehead. "Do we have an accord?"

He cracks a smile at that and gets to his feet. "As long as there's beer. I could knock back a few of those and then more, so what do you say Sammy? Let's drink a few."

"I think I could get behind that, even though we just woke up an hour ago." He laugh then reaches up a hand for Dean to help him stand, and doesn't use him so much for balance as something to drag himself up completely by. Dean thinks he could survive suffocation by Sam as long as Sam is smothered right next to him, and he hopes neither of them get goose down in their mouths.

Sam laughs at him and then agrees, only in reverse.



A couple hours and a few beers later, Sam asks, "You're done freaking out on me, you big baby?" Sam can tell he's stable for now, but he knows that Dean needs him to make light of whatever the fuck happened a couple hours and a few beers ago, to pretend it didn't happen, so that's what Sam is doing and Dean appreciates it.

"What freak out?" Dean asks with a smirk, still feels the roiling panic just under the surface. "Dude, I think your old age is showing."

Sam rolls his eyes and drawls "Ooh, burn." Then they look over their beers at each other and laugh.

A few more beers after that and considerably less time than a couple hours, Dean is pretty fucking tipsy. He tells Sam this, even though Sam already knows.

"Dude, you're not tipsy, you're halfway to wasted. What the fuck happened to your tolerance?"

Dean shrugs and his body is all beautifully warm and slow and he doesn't have to pay attention to anything that isn't now. "I have no fucking clue. Endorpho-whats? I think they're making me all giggly, not the beer. Dude, it's beer. Nobody gets drunk off beer, because it's beer."

Sam accepts this with a grave, accepting face as is his duty, but only holds it a few moments before cracking up. "You're such a dork. You think you're a hotshot and all, but you're a soft, gooey dork!" He reaches over and pats Dean's cheek, and Dean scrunches his face up underneath the hand but doesn't flinch away.

Sam gets up after a moment and goes into the bathroom. He fills up all four of the motel-provided plastic cups with water. "Drink up, big boy," he says and hands two over.

"Ooh look at who's being all responsible adult now, Sammy," Dean says.

"I don't know about you, but I don't want to be feeling both of our headaches in a few hours."

"Very good point," Dean says with a nod, and drinks both cups of water down.

They putter around the motel room for a while. Sam takes a few things out of his duffel, puts a few things back, brushes his teeth. Dean settles back into bed and turns on the tv. There isn't much on besides old reruns of "Friends," but that shit is always funnier when you're drunk anyways. He's just dozed off when Sam starts tickling his feet. He tries to move them around out of Sam's reach but Sam is faster and doesn't stop poking and pinching at them.

"Nng, Sam, what the hell do you want?" he asks, too drowsy to decipher any emotion coming off Sam.

"I'm bored," he says. "Come on, let's go get coffee or something and walk off your genius decision of getting drunk first thing in the morning."

Dean lays still and breathes for a couple moments to get his bearings again then sits up. "Okay. Okay, let's do this." He shakes the sleepiness away (and ignores it when it comes crawling back almost immediately) and gets out of bed, then laces his feet up into his shoes.

They find a little cafe in walking distance from the motel room, bright and sunny and weather-worn. Dean gets just a regular old coffee (seriously, what's wrong with normal coffee?) while Sam gets a quad shot small americano and dumps in eight sugars (fuck that thing would burn a hole in the lining of his stomach). They're both still drunk, but drinking coffee helps center his focus. He takes even, calculated sips one two three four five and Sam tries to mess him up with "sixteen four eight three ten" which really isn't that funny, except Sam seems to think it is (Sammy Sam Sam, purveyor of immature jokes for almost two and a half decades; twenty three is two times three which is six, so he'd rather add instead to get five), and he feels everything Sam feels, so he can't stay annoyed for long.

They look at each other over their coffee and giggle like they're kids again. The amusement bounces back and forth between each other, magnified and ticklish, until they're laughing so hard they can't breathe or keep their coffees still anymore.

Sam feels so much affection for him, so affectionate it's almost embarrassing, and Dean sort of blushes. Another time that might have flustered Sam, to get called out on his emotions, but he's drunk drunk drunk, the coffee hasn't sobered him up, so he just smiles wilder and crazier.

That smile makes Dean's stomach flip just a little, makes him his own sort of crazy, because he's the only one who can make Sam look so happy (how did he not see how happy he could make Sam before?) and his fingers slip right off the edge of the cup into his coffee. It isn't really hot but he winces anyways, wipes it on Sam's sleeve when he starts to giggle again.

Dean's mind is hazy and he isn't necessarily the most alert he could be, so he startles when Sam hooks his ankle behind his, accompanied by contact I need to touch him this can't actually real because we never have mornings like this we're always arguing why do we fight so much when we could always be like this?

It's uncomfortable to see everything Sam is thinking, to hear something kind of private, but when he tries to separate their thoughts even a little, Sam latches on tighter. "We have to make this a good thing, Dean," he thinks. "If we start to resent this happening, even a little, it's going to become ugly and drive us mad. Dean, Dean, this is good; we're both so angry about so many things, so please, Dean, let's try to fix it all. Dean we can use this to get better, Dean Dean Dean Dean."

Sam keeps repeating his name, over and over like an incantation, keeps the steady pressure at his ankle, makes him breathe deeper, smiles at him because that silly bitch knows now how much Dean likes to see him smile.

Dean nods after a moment. "You're right," he thinks to him, then yawns and says out loud "Hey, we should probably call Bobby about this."

Sam shakes his head. "Probably, but let's wait a few more hours. He might not be awake yet. Anyways, I can tell how tired you still are, though who the fuck knows why since you just slept for almost twenty hours straight. Let's head back to the motel and you can get some more beauty sleep."

"You know me too well," Dean says back, good humor still floating around between them. "Let me just finish my coffee."

Sam tosses his head back and laughs, long and a little louder than the situation warrants, but there are enough people around that nobody really notices. "I can't believe you sometimes, that you can get up long enough to drink your coffee and then go right back to bed."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, my body knows what it needs most. Nothing can get in the way of sleep." He takes a few more deep sips of coffee, then a couple smaller ones, then brings their cups to the busing bin with the cold dregs left behind in the bottoms. "Okay. Let's go."

It's a quick walk back to the motel and they only stumble into each other twice. Dean kept track, then make sure it didn't happen a third time, because he'd probably faceplant that time. He curls back into bed as soon as they're through the door, too tired to even take off his shoes. Sam berates him, but takes them off for him anyways, and he's asleep soon after.



Sam wakes him by singing Britney Spears a couple hours later, and the only thing Dean can think is how much it sucks that he knows the words to this now.

He's still drowsy, but it's offset by the sheer fucking energy radiating from his stupid giant of a brother who is standing over him waving another cup of coffee right near his face. If he opens his mouth wide enough maybe Sam will just pour it in? Please? Because he's really warm and doesn't want to move for about a decade.

Sam laughs and rolls his eyes. "In your dreams princess." He peels back the covers and Dean tries to stop him but Sam wrestles him out of his body and wins. "Brush your teeth first. I don't want to hear you complaining all day about assbreath."

Dean grumbles good-naturedly. "Whatever. Minty fresh breath just for you, Samantha." He gets up and ambles his way towards the bathroom.

When they were kids there hadn't been nearly enough money to pay for braces or fillings, so when Dean was twelve and got his first cavity, dad dosed him up with painkillers and yanked it out himself. (On the count of three: one - FUCK OW!)

It hurt enough to feel through the meds (the initial loosening of the tooth slowly back and forth and then a yank all at once), and the feeling of blood flooding his mouth before it was packed was about the grossest thing ever. Their dad was fed up. Sam cried because he thought he was next and Dean passed out moments after the gap was dressed properly. From that day on their dad stressed clean teeth as heavily as clean weapons, which Dean was more than happy to comply with.

Dean brushes his teeth, flosses, brushes again and then rinses twice with mouth wash, just like he has every morning for almost twenty years. There's still a gap in his back molars where the rotted tooth used to be, and his toothbrush skitters into it at every pass.

Sam's own bottom teeth are a bit of a mess and he keeps them hidden whenever he smiles. It's a shame, because Dean likes Sam's full, toothy grin, even thinks the crooked teeth are kind of cute.

Sam pulls a face. "Dude, that's probably the weirdest thing I've ever heard you say."

He spits into the sink and pulls out the mouth wash. "Bitch bitch bitch. That's all I hear coming out of your mouth."

Dean picks up the cup of coffee from the nightstand on his way out of the bathroom, and is about to take a deep, life-affirming sip when he thinks of something. "Wait," he says and stares at the cup for a few long moments, then looks up. "How many times did you pump the coffee pot? I was asleep."

"Just twice," Sam says. "You're safe."

Dean smiles and is ridiculously touched.

"I called Bobby while you were asleep. He has no leads, as expected, and he told us to stop depending on him to get us out of our stupid messes," Sam says with a grin after a few minutes. Dean rolls his eyes.

"What, he can't crack open one of his dusty books and find a magical answer on how to break rare ghost ship curses? What kind of hunter does he think he is?"

Sam laughs. "Apparently not the kind we should be associating with. What do you say we find someone better equipped to saving our sorry asses?"



It's Sam's idea to go jogging. "If we're going to have any chance of coping with this dumb curse, then we need to learn how to work with it now," he says in his typical demanding way, and Dean agrees with him up to the "jogging" part. He really hates jogging.

It's not like he's bad at it - quite the opposite, rather - it's just uncomfortable and time-consuming and he'd rather be doing pushups or shooting at targets.

"Shooting comes after," Sam says with a sigh, "just as soon as I know you won't accidentally make me shoot myself in the foot."

Dean concedes (of course he does), but grumbles through putting on his shorts and sneakers as retaliation. "You're a cruel taskmaster, Samuel Winchester."

Sam rolls his eyes and walks out into the warm afternoon. "Suck it up."

Their coordination is a little better with more caffeine than alcohol or fatigue in their systems. They start out just walking in time with each other, quick and synced. Their footsteps are perfectly matched now (one two one two one two one two), crunching along the pavement at an easy pace.

"This isn't too hard," Dean says after a few minutes, and it's not. They breathe together, step together, swing their arms together; the same as any other day. As long as Dean doesn't concentrate too hard on feeling Sam compressed into every part of him, if he tries to ignore the fact that he can't tell the difference between them anymore, then it's the same as any other day. "This would be a fucked-up thing to have happen for people who don't know each other too well, but why would they kill themselves over it? It sucks we got cursed, but we're going to learn to live with it."

Sam sighs and picks up the pace a little. "People just aren't that adaptable to crazy, unexpected things. Look, just imagine-" Sam cuts off his words and instead sends over a series of images and half-formed thoughts. Dean drinking with some coworker he doesn't actually know very well on the beach all night sees the ship then it's pain and weakness and passing out right next to someone he doesn't know she can read his thoughts can control his movements chained to someone he doesn't care about.

Dean starts to breathe faster and his steps falter. Okay yeah. Shit shit fuck. He can understand that terror and how it would drive people to suicide. If someone saw his fanatical devotion to Sam, actually saw it, experienced it, if they saw the numbers if they saw all he lives for then who knows what he would do? Someone is going to see they aren't allowed to see if someone sees they'll run.

Sam gives him a nudge to keep on going, then makes them go even faster. "Calm. Calm calm it's okay. Sorry for freaking you out. I'm the only one who's ever going to see you and I'll never run. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life." Like last night, Sam is pushing love and steadfast devotion at him, just tossing it at Dean when he's least expecting it and like he has plenty to spare, and then he refuses to take it back when Dean doesn't know what to do with it all.

No! It's not allowed. Sam isn't allowed to need him this much. His universe isn't supposed to revolve around him. Little brothers cut ties with their families, they leave, and if they happen to stay then it's with great reluctance. Obsession like Dean's only ever goes one way.

But here Sam is, shoving his own devotion right back like he needs to prove something. He's shoving it all over Dean and implanting it so it won't leave so it will grow and so Dean might start to believe it.

"You'll believe it," Sam says firmly. He leaves no room for argument.

Dean gives it a moment, then nods reluctantly. "Maybe."

"Now that that's settled," Sam says, "let's turn this into an actual run."



They get back to the motel nearly an hour later, dripping with sweat. They have the usual mock wrestle for first shower that Dean usually wins because he's older and knows all of Sam's moves, but Sam wins this time because he's quick and is already familiar with the weak spots in Dean's mind and he pressures into one of them. Dean's arm goes limp and it's like getting dead arm but Sam did it with his mind.

"Dude," Dean says, half awed and half terrified. "You just- you made me- you stopped-" But he also says, quieter and to himself (except nothing is actually to himself anymore), "You did that to me. You stopped me you can stop me you can do anything to me now you can get in me and scramble me up and do anything to me."

Sam's face goes from triumphant to placating. "I'm sorry," he apologizes for probably the billionth time today. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Dean brushes him off. He hates being placated. "Go take your shower. You earned it."

There's the quiet stretch of silence that lasts a moment too long. Dean has his back turned to Sam and Sam is watching Dean and trying to apologize, but Sam turns away because he can't find the words or thoughts. Dean has his back turned to Sam so Sam goes to take his shower. "Fine." Dean tries to give Sam his privacy and not pay attention (he's annoyed but not inconsiderate) and doesn't do anything more than purse his mouth and close his eyes when Sam has to stop himself from jerking off (he's also annoyed but thankfully considerate).

Sam comes out a handful of minutes later and then it's Dean's turn for the shower.

When Dean comes out of the bathroom he smiles. He's not really angry at Sam anymore. Sam always scrambles him up, so this routine isn't anything new. Sam smiles back, and the gratitude Dean feels is enough reason for dropping the anger.

"We're hitting the library again, right?" Dean asks.

Sam nods. "I'm hoping I can find traces of other people that caught this curse and then survived it. If they exist."

Dean lets out a long breath then grabs a small handful of dice from the bottom of his duffel. It's going to be a long afternoon and he wants something to distract him.

One | Two | Three