Dean's shitshow of a week was finally starting to look up. Since coming out to Hoisington on Tuesday, the weather had been completely uncooperative, causing one of his clients to cancel completely and Dean to just about pace his tiny motel room a couple of days. There was only so much work he could do in the rain and without reliable internet. His second client of the week, Mr. Baker, had called to see if Dean would be willing to reschedule for the following morning. Apparently there was a cold front coming through early tonight that would set up some north-west winds to bring down the migrants that had been piled up in the Dakotas for the past few days. Tomorrow morning promised to be a birding bonanza—Baker's words, not his. It was a lot better than a cancellation, so Dean would take it. This motel room, although the cheapest he could find in the area, was going to take a big chunk of his payment on a single job.

Dean had rationalized that he could make better use of the driving hours if he just stayed the week out here, but that had proven pretty debatable. If he was being honest, the decision was more driven by the need to get some space from Sam for a few days than saving himself from the driving itself. They'd had it out Tuesday morning when Sam started getting on his case about his 'sulking' since Sunday dinner. Nothing got Dean wound up faster than having his younger brother trying to pry at and analyze him. Dean had managed to fend Sam off until his brother had to leave for work or risk being late, then started packing as soon as Sam was out the door.

It probably hadn't been the best decision he'd made lately. And all right, it wasn't very mature. A couple of days with little distraction besides the local cable had given him some time to reflect, and there might have been a better way to deal with it. Like lying and saying he was stressed about an editing deadline or something. Although Sam had a decent bullshit-o-meter; Dean never was sure what he'd be able to slide past him. Sam just had this bad habit of getting like a dog with a bone when he wanted to figure something out, which served Sam fine in the FBI but drove Dean a little nuts when it got turned on him. But at this point, there wasn't much Dean could do about it besides head home when the job was done and hope Sam would lay off for a bit. Or maybe give him the silent treatment for a few days.

Mr. Baker wanted Dean to take his party out at the crack of dawn tomorrow. There would be heavy rain coming through overnight, so they'd have to be extra careful where they took the trucks and hiked. Dean was running over maps and mentally trying to plot out safe courses when his cell phone started screaming Deep Purple. He glanced at the name and picked it up.

"Hey, Bobby. Good to hear from you."

"Dean. Figured I'd better give you a call before you thought I'd up and died or something…"

Dean smiled at Bobby's southern twang; the man sounded just like the last time he'd seen him. They made small talk for a few minutes, Bobby describing his new house and the area's hunting and fishing opportunities. Dean teased him about being too busy fishing to give his friends a call, at which point Bobby turned the conversation back around on him neatly.

"Well, I wanted to give you time to get used to your new editor without me lording over you. How's the new book going?"

Bobby's tone gave Dean pause. It wasn't just an offhand query; Bobby knew something. "Uh… It's different," he admitted. "The new editor has me doing a lot more character work."

"Mmm, I bet. You know, Castiel Novak gave me a call some time back. Wanted to know what he was getting into, I guess."

Dean's eyebrows went up. "Well, what did you tell him?"

"The truth—that you're a stubborn pain in the ass."

Dean snorted. "Thanks, Bobby. Trust you to put in a good word for me…"

"Just tellin' it like it is… I gotta admit, I was surprised Gabriel Shurley picked up your book. Just didn't seem like his kinda thing. But if he's given it to his cousin to edit, I know he's serious about it."

It took a second for Dean to process what Bobby said, but then everything ground to a halt in his mind. "Wait a sec. Castiel Novak is Gabriel Shurley's cousin?" That would make Castiel nephew to Chuck Shurley.

"Yep, part of the greater Shurley clan—Chuck's sister's kid. A bit younger than Chuck's youngest."

What the hell…? Castiel had made it sound as though he was some kid from Brooklyn with the line about being raised by a single mom and having a ton of cousins. And now Dean finds out he's part of the Shurley publishing empire? His jaw clenched. He'd never gotten a hint that Castiel was putting one over on him. So much for having a moment. Also, how was a guy with a voice like that even younger than Gabriel Shurley?

Bobby interrupted his roiling thoughts. "So, what do they have you doing for rework?"

Swallowing his agitation, Dean explained all the extra content that Castiel had asked for. After, there was quiet over the line as Bobby mulled it over.

"Sounds like they're trying to turn this into some serious contemporary fiction, Dean."

"Yeah… not really my thing, right?" Dean felt the stir of embarrassment and uncertainty under his ribs.

"Don't sell yourself short, boy," Bobby snapped. "You have the chops for it. Just hope they do right by the marketing. Not something I could have pulled off, but with Gabriel Shurley pitching for you, might just do… He's not Chuck's golden boy or anything, but he and Castiel Novak have more than a few bestsellers to their names."

Bobby tried to chat a few minutes longer, but Dean's shift in mood caused the conversation to flag. Eventually, Bobby closed with a demand that Dean come up in the spring for fishing. "...I'm gonna need it after my first Dakota winter in a few decades."

In the quiet after ending the call, Dean stared out the window at the gray Kansas skies, an irrational hollow spot aching in his chest.

The cold front, when it did roll through, announced itself with torrents of rain and crackling peals of thunder. Dean was in bed by that point, trying to rest up for tomorrow's hiking, but he repeatedly jolted awake at rumbling that shook the window frames, howling gusts of wind. Each time, he reflexively grabbed his phone to check for weather alerts, strained his ears for the telltale wail of a siren, before rolling over and sinking back into shallow sleep. The final time he woke, he was out of bed, striding toward the door, intending to head to shelter, before his mind grasped that the buzzing noise was the morning alarm on his phone. It took a couple cups of terrible coffee at the motel office to feel solid enough to go back to his room and double check his pack for the day. He then took his SUV rental and made the drive to meet up with the Baker party outside the refuge.

The group consisted of Mr. Greg Baker, his wife Susan, Paul and Isa Reynolds, and Bob Dorin. They'd come from all the way from Kentucky to catch the Whooping Crane migration, and even though most of the week had been ruined by the weather, they all still seemed cheerful enough, sipping tumblers of coffee and chatting about the types of birds they hoped to see that day. He got them loaded up, and they made it to Cheyenne Bottoms just as the glow on the horizon was starting to light the landscape. Baker's prediction had been right—the wetlands were alive with birds, and more seemed to land every minute. Dean barely had to try to get them to viewing spots. Between everything going on around them and every one of them keeping tabs on the birding groups and apps with their phones, they jumped from one fantastic find to another. Before lunch, Susan Baker, short, plump, and unabashedly dressed in stereotypical birder gear, excitedly called out to the rest of the group and waved her phone.

"They have a pair of Trumpeter Swans at Quivira!" Her boots slid a bit in the mud, but before Dean could even get to her, she righted herself with a fierce grin. "Greg, we can't miss this. It's a life bird for all of us!"

Dean had never seen that species himself, but he knew they were big and rarely spotted in this region.

Greg was waddling his way over to Dean, being more cautious of the wet ground. He pulled up one sleeve to check his watch, a rubber-strapped digital number. "You know Quivira at all, Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said with a nod. "Scoped that out last week. I was supposed to take a group through Wednesday, but they cancelled due to weather. It's about an hour plus from here though. Whatever you're chasing might be gone by the time you get there."

"Tell you what…" Baker scratched at a smear of dirt over one bushy, gray eyebrow, smudging it around. "I know we only booked you for a half day, but if you're available, I'll pay the full day fee plus gas for a ride down there and back. Might catch the Trumpeters, might not, but at least we can say we tried."

Dean had one less job than he had intended that week and a motel bill to pay; he didn't think twice. "I'm in for however long you want me, Mr. Baker."

They shook on it, and Baker waved to the Reynoldses and Bob. The group quickly gathered and trekked back to the SUV for departure. The drive down to Quivira was uneventful, but there were already quite a few cars and tire tracks visible as Dean took them into the refuge farther south.

"Word travels fast," Dean observed.

Mrs. Reynolds laughed. "Yep, once something like this gets posted, the crazy birders descend…"

"Including us, of course," Mr. Reynolds added.

The subjects of interest weren't at all difficult to find. A long line of birders and scopes were set up at a respectful distance. Dean stopped the SUV near the other vehicles, and his passengers were clambering out almost before he had the keys out of the ignition. He followed a bit more slowly, making sure everything was locked up and scanning the surroundings for any other wildlife. Positioning himself within earshot of his charges, he gave them space as they set up their scope and chatted with the other birders on scene. Minutes ticked by, and Dean zoned out, watching herons and ducks splash in the edges of the pool before them, eyes occasionally drifting to the two large white forms in the distance.

"Dean, come have a look," Mrs. Baker called, beckoning with one hand.

Dean took a few steps closer so he could speak without yelling. "Well, I'm a decent field guide but not a serious birder," he warned.

Mrs. Baker smiled, face broadening and crinkling. "You take a look at this anyway. You can tell your future clients about it and impress them."

Dean ducked his head and made his way over, leaning down to peer through the scope, which was adjusted to the Bakers' heights. It took him a moment to focus on the small circle of light at the end, but once he did, the swans came into view, glowing brilliant white in the afternoon sun. The scope showed every feather and clearly defined their large black beaks and tiny black eyes. One bird was preening at the moment, but every few minutes, it would raise its delicate head and check its surroundings for predators. The other had its butt in the air, dabbling. Having an audience didn't seem to bother the pair, which was a good sign. After a few moments of taking in their form and behavior, Dean surrendered the scope back to the bird's admirers.

"May very well be once in a lifetime, at least for us..." Mr. Baker observed.

"Jesus! Someone just reported a Snow Bunting at the north end." Bob's voice interrupted, causing everyone in the group to turn.

Mrs. Baker glanced back at her husband and grinned.

"Well, we aren't going to add to the day's list by standing around," he said.

Dean smiled to himself before straightening and turning toward where they'd parked the SUV. "Let's saddle up!"

The day ended with a post-sunset drive back to Great Bend, where he dropped the group and settled with Mr. Baker. Dean almost felt that he had done little but chauffeur them from one bird sighting to the next all day rather than actively guide, but everyone seemed overjoyed with the weather and the number of species they'd added to their lists. From there, he finished the drive alone back to Hoisington and turned in to his motel room, flicking on the evening news as he stripped and cleaned up. He was too tired to even think much by this point, but something caught his attention and penetrated the haze of exhaustion.

"…the tornado reported in Olathe Thursday night, with initial estimates of three dead, more than thirty injured, and over forty families displaced by damage…"

Dean spun to the television in time to see a quick flash of an image of a house with one wall torn away before the newscaster moved on to the next story. Sam. His heart jumped to life as he frantically scanned the room for his phone and grabbed it. He struggled with the lock screen for a moment before starting the call. It didn't even ring, immediately dropping into Sam's voice mail, offering no solace. Dean swore before the beep that marked the beginning of recording sounded. "Hey, Sam, just checking in. Heard you had some bad weather out there. Call me back."

Dean hung up and clawed at his memory, digging out what little he'd told Sam about tornadoes in his area—Sam, who'd spent the last few decades in cities, in buildings with basements and clear tornado procedures drilled into each resident. He'd shown Sam the tornado shelter on a tour of the property, but they'd never gone over it in detail. He'd never even opened the door. Dammit! I should have done a walkthrough with the end of year storm season kicking in…

He stood frozen with the phone clutched in his hand, mind racing, fatigue evaporated. Olathe was four hours away, and he wasn't in good condition for that drive at night. A name came to mind: Stan Carter. One of the few neighbors his property had. He checked the time. It wasn't too late. Searching his contacts, he was relieved to find he still had the man's number. He hit the call button and waited. The pause was too long before a busy signal sounded.

Not good. Not good…

It couldn't be helped; he was out of options. Dean immediately turned and started gathering up his belongings.

The drive was hellish. Even after chugging the largest coffee he could at each truck stop, Dean struggled to keep the lanes in focus, pounding the steering wheel in time with the thumping baseline of the radio music, barely registering the passing towns. Once, he was jerked back to attention by the jitter as the SUV bounced along the dirt edge of the highway. He was lucky it wasn't at a point where the road dropped off into a ditch. Shaken, he pulled over and sucked in deep breaths of cold air, pacing until he felt awake again. He drove with the windows down the rest of the way.

It was easier to pay attention after he got onto the back roads, where he had to watch each bend blearily for wildlife. He saw debris occasionally—a fence plank, a tree branch, a plastic horse feed bucket. At one point, the headlights illuminated sections of what must have been the crown of a massive hackberry, fallen far enough into the road that they'd had to cut it and push it to the side. When he found the start of the dirt drive up to his property, his heart began banging against his ribs again. If it had been daylight, he could have looked out over the hills and taken stock of the trees, but all was black beyond the reach of the vehicle's twin beams and the house was behind a rise here. When he spotted the first yellow pinpoint emerging from the dark, his breath stuttered.

"Thank you, Jesus…" he rasped, bumping the rental down the road, watching the illuminated window grow.

As he pulled in close to the house, he spotted the pickup parked out front. It was almost midnight, but it was Saturday, and apparently, his brother was still awake. Dean sprang out of the driver's side door and almost fell to the ground. His knees wobbled, and his hands slid when he tried to grab the door frame on either side. He ended up sitting down hard on the door runner. It took a few breaths of puzzling over the way his limbs refused to respond to his demands before he could clear the fuzzy feeling. The dirt beneath his boots and the slow chir of autumn insects around him came back into focus. He pulled himself to his feet, body feeling too light.

Better leave the bags for later, he told himself as he walked to the front door.

Sam wasn't in the living room. Dean wandered through the house, eventually catching sight of his brother seated at the dining table in the kitchen, phone in hand, wire from his earbuds running down his arm and onto the table. Sam jerked as Dean finally entered his peripheral vision, expression startled before settling into something more neutral, guarded. He pulled the earbuds from his head without breaking eye contact. "Hey."

Dean had no idea whether he should feel relieved his brother was all right or angry that he hadn't called back, but he couldn't seem to come up with the right words to express either at the moment. "Hey," he managed. "…I called. …Tornado?"

Sam's gaze flicked to his phone and back. "Yeah, pretty bad one. Cell service has been out all day. I drove into town, tried to help out with the truck as much as I could… A few subdivisions were hit really badly."

Dean's eyes burned. Of course Sammy had run to help… He blinked and inspected Sam, convincing his tired mind that he was real and whole. His brother's hair was damp, as though he'd recently showered, and his sweatpants and t-shirt were fresh and unwrinkled. Even though Sam loomed over the table now, long legs stretching near to the other side underneath, Dean could only see his kid brother—little Sammy used to give Dean that same uncertain, expectant look whenever he was waiting to see how the older boy would react to something. Dean wondered if he'd ever grow out of that… feared it might happen some day.

Sam's eyes were moving over Dean in a similar fashion. Dean didn't know what his brother read off him other than 'exhausting four-hour car ride', but there was a shift in Sam's eyes to concern. "So… Everything go all right with the jobs?"

"Yeah... " Dean responded on autopilot before continuing, "uh, not so much. But at least got one day around the weather." He rounded the table and stumbled into the seat across from his brother, spending a minute working out how to twist his chair so he could stretch his legs to one side of Sam's.

"That's good…" Sam's eyebrows were pinching the way they did when he was solving a puzzle, but his mouth had flattened into the unhappy line that meant he was holding his tongue.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Dean realized he could turn the conversation whatever way he wanted. Sam was sitting back, letting him. It would be so easy to just make some small talk, say nothing at all… but something had shaken loose this past week, starting when Castiel had asked him to dig into his character backgrounds. It was banging around inside him, refusing to sink back into the distant past and sleep, scratching at his mind across two hundred and fifty miles of Kansas highway. He took a breath. "Listen, Sam…" he began, then stopped as he tried to figure out how to even begin. "I'm sorry about running off like that." The words fell out before he'd really decided to say them.

Sam's face pulled into an expression of shock. "Uh… okay. Do you want to… talk? About it?"

Dean sighed again. "Not really… But if I don't, it's going to keep coming up, and you're going to keep picking at it, and I'm just… I'm just so tired of having to walk this line between you and Mom."

"Dean, I don't know if she did or said something after you came out... You can tell me—"

"Mom didn't do anything." That wasn't exactly true. Or maybe it was true. There was a whole history there of Dean having to become a parent to his younger brother that he occasionally reflected on in not-so-good moods. But that wasn't really anyone's fault, and it wasn't what he needed to tell Sam tonight, so Dean pushed that away and concentrated on pulling together the right story. "It's just… every time we go over there, it goes all right until it doesn't, and at some point, she always just... looks at me and says how much I remind her of Dad." Dean shook his head, trying to hold it together.

Sam's eyebrows collapsed down in confusion. "Well, he was our father, and the love of her life, Dean. You can't blame her for remembering him when we all get together. ...Does it hurt that much to remember him?"

Dean realized in that second that he could never give Sam the full truth. He didn't have the right to mess with Sam's image of Dad, and even if he set that idea aside, the fact was that the truth could only hurt at this point, hurt Sam and Mom like it hurt him every time their mother started retelling stories about Dad and their childhood. He took another breath, trying to figure out how to get himself out of this mess. He reached down below the big truth and pulled up one of the many little ones he'd figured out in the years since the Winchester apple pie life portrait had shattered around him.

"You wanna know what my last memory of Dad is?" he asked Sam. "We're on a hunt together, and I misjudge a shot on a deer. I try to correct and refire and end up wounding it in the gut. It makes a run for it, and Dad is pissed. He turns to me and says, 'I don't get how someone so smart can be so stupid.' And that's it. ...Few days later, he's dead, and that's what I'm left with."

Sam was fixing Dean with one of those sympathetic stares that Dean found all the worse to bear because he knew his brother's sympathy was genuine. Dean blinked and looked toward the far wall so he could keep going.

"It wasn't like he was beating me or anything like that, but he just… you could do a hundred things right, and he'd get on you about the one thing you didn't. And after he was gone and Mom had to work all the time, I tried with you, I really did, to be… Not that. But, you remember that time you snuck out to go to the movies with Billy and that other kid from down by the Owens Farm? And the kid takes his dad's truck and crashes it into a fence, and I get the call to come get you. And I get there, and what the hell comes out of my mouth? His exact words. 'I don't get how someone so smart can be so stupid.'" Dean broke off, blinking hard now.

Across from him, Sam didn't seem to know what to say. Dean turned back and found him waiting… Waiting for Dean to get to the point. What was his point?

"...I think back on that now, and I just hate myself. So when Mom goes and tells me how much I remind her of him…" Dean swallowed. "I never wanted to be that voice for you, Sammy."

There was a long pause as Sam gathered his thoughts. "Dean," he said finally, "you weren't. I remember you always telling me that I could do anything I set my mind to. Driving me to the library two hours over to get books I couldn't get in Lawrence. Calling Ted Gruder and his buddies jerks for bullying me—"

"—I believe the word was 'fucktards'," Dean corrected. Although they had been jerks and a few other words too. He still had a scar on one knuckle from where he'd cut it on one of Ted's teeth.

Sam laughed and shook his head in embarrassment before fixing Dean with his gaze again, serious. "You were the voice that gave me the courage to be myself, Dean. ...I'm just sorry I couldn't be that voice for you back then."

Dean gave him an admonishing look. No matter how many times Dean had tried to explain that he just hadn't been ready, Sam continued to take it as a personal failure that Dean hadn't come out to him as bi until he was approaching forty.

Glancing away toward the kitchen again, Dean found a dozen different images of Sam tumbling through his mind. Little Sammy beaming and clapping his hands as Dean sung him nursery rhymes. Sam acting like Dean had hung the moon as Dean showed him lightning bugs in the fields in July. Sam showing him a collection of all the postcards Dean had sent him while he was on the road. Sam encouraging him to start a blog about his road trips and hikes. Sam, who hated hunting and sobbed openly that time he'd hit a nest of rabbits with the mower one summer and loved the things about Dean that were Dean while everyone around them was expecting him to be the second coming of John Winchester…

"You were, Sammy," he managed at length, clutching at those shards of memory. The portrait may have shattered, but he knew what the good bits were made of. "You were."

He stayed up sitting at the table until his brother excused himself, then collapsed into bed with everything but his boots on. Sleep came deep and dreamless, and Sunday afternoon brought cloudless autumn blue sky from one horizon to the other. Dean walked the fields underneath it, let it soak into his skin, let it wash away the aches, past and present.