Back to Stanford

Dean nodded, getting the gist of what Sam was saying. He sat on the other bed, pulling a handful of fries out of the bag and munching on them.

"You going to try and get some more sleep after that?" Dean asked, glancing at Sam's food then back up at Sam, keeping his expression carefully neutral. He wasn't going to push it if Sam didn't want to, but he had drifted off earlier, so was obviously tired.

"Dunno." replied Sam, taking out a sandwich. "Still got work to do, remember?"

He had actually forgotten about it till now. It had been floating around, just never the main thought... what with everything going on.

"Yeah, I guess," he nodded, eating another french fry. They did still have research to do, though Dean wasn't really sure where to begin. He was pretty sure they had gathered all the information they could on Forks and their dads disappearance, though it was a good idea for them to keep an eye out for new leads. He'd probably make some calls later to other Hunter's who might have an idea of what could have happened to their dad. They had a lot of time till they needed to be out of here - a week till the funeral. They were hardly short of time for researching.

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Sam was sitting in front of his new laptop screen a few days later. Jess' funeral was the next day and then they would be heading back to Forks to sort out the vampire problem and try and find their dad. It looked like he would end up hunting after all, despite his protests about being normal. Things were different now.

He glanced at the time. Twelve thirty. He was tired, sure, but he knew that if he tried to sleep he would have nightmares so he didn't bother anymore. The few hours here and there but full on sleeping? No way. He hadn't had much luck on research. Sam had found practically every single piece of information he could find about vampire myths and legends and whatever. It was separating the truth from fiction which was the hard part. Kids making up stuff about them... it was annoying.

He yawned, scrolling down yet another page.

The last few days had been monotonous, consisting of phoning other hunters, trying to get information out of them, and trying to make sure that Sam remembered to eat and sleep, a difficult task seeing as he had hardly moved off the computer since he had got it working.

"Dude, you've done enough research," Dean asked after a while of just sitting in bed, the sounds of Sam's laptop preventing him from getting to sleep, "Turn that thing off and get some sleep."

He was unsure of whether or not Sam would actually get any sleep, but the kid could at least try. Staying awake on the computer wasn't going to do him any good, and he'd feel terrible at the funeral the next day.

Sam didn't look up. "Dude, I'll have done enough research when we know how to take care of the vampires." He expected Dean of all people to understand that the vampires were killing people in that town, and it probably wasn't even just the residents of Forks - it was probably a lot of other states, maybe even across continents.

Sleep was overrated.

Dean rolled his eyes, and turned over in his bed to face Sam. They hadn't had any luck so far, and considering they'd several days to find it out, they were unlikely to tonight.

"We can figure it out tomorrow," Dean said dismissively, "Turn it off so we can both get some sleep. That things too damn noisy."

"Sure, Dean, just tell be the URL and then I'll look it up tomorrow." said Sam sarcastically, trying to read the small text. It was getting harder for him to control his anger since he hadn't been sleeping as much, and the other thing.

He took another mouthful of coffee, draining the paper cup and then threw it across the room into the trash can which already had a few cups in there. His eyes flickered back to the screen.

"Just turn it off," Dean groaned, watching Sam irritably, "Don't make me get up and turn it off for you.". It really was too late for this. He couldn't be bothered to argue, but wasn't going to go to sleep until the computer was turned off.

Dean watched as Sam threw the cup of coffee into the trash can. Too much coffee and not enough sleep made for a grumpy Sam, and Dean disliked being on the receiving end of it.

"If you're tired enough then you'll sleep through it." replied Sam. Stupid Dean for being such a light sleeper.

He sighed, knowing that Dean was going to win this like almost every single stupid fight. He would just have to look through what he had, and he was getting tired anyway. Great...

Sam turned it off and shut the laptop. "Happy?"

"Yep," Dean nodded, settling his head in the motel pillow, still watching Sam through drooping eyes, smirking ever so slightly. Hopefully Sam would follow suit and try to get some sleep. Dean was going to be irritated if Sam turned the computer back on as soon as he fell asleep, something not all that unlikely to happen. Sam had seemed pretty intent on avoiding sleep since Jess's death.

Sam read and re-read through the notes for a while, crossing things out, re-writing stuff that could be important, trying to figure out something that would help them sort out Forks. After a while, though, Sam's head became closer and closer to the table and eventually his head was nestled in his arms and the pen slipped out his hand.

Dean fell asleep shortly after Sam put away his laptop, not quite able to keep his eyes open. He was tired, and without the sound of Sam tapping at his computer it was difficult, not to mention pointless, staying awake.

Sam fell asleep quickly once he'd shut his eyes, hidden under the mop of long hair. It had been like this for some nights. Falling asleep over research - sometimes leaving the laptop on - barely ever using his bed for more an a few hours sometimes.

But he hated sleeping now. The nightmares always got to him, no matter how hard he wanted them to stop.

"Jess!!"

Sam shouting roused Dean from his sleep, eyes blinking open, focusing on Sam. Looked like he was having another nightmare. They were a regular occurrence now, happening pretty much every night.

"Sammy?" he mumbled sleepily, and then cleared his throat. "Sam?" he called again, louder, "Wake up, man." Hopefully that would wake Sam up, though now that his eyes were open he could see that Sam hadn't made it to his bed. Trust Sam to fall asleep researching.

Sam's eyes were open now. He sat up straight - back against the back of the chair which he pulled out forcibly with his hands on the edge of the table.

He blinked hard, suddenly aware that Dean had been saying his name. "Dean?" he asked back.

"Go to bed," Dean answered back, wondering if Sam remembered anything from the nightmare. He pushed himself up so he was sitting, a critical eye on Sam. Hopefully Sam would just go to bed, and not argue over it, though refraining from arguing was not something that came naturally to Sam.

For more nightmares, Sam wanted to argue, but was too tired to bother. So he went over to his bed and lay on top of the covers. It didn't matter to him whether he was under them or not.

It was time. Time to talk about Jess.

God...

"I think you would have liked her." he said randomly.

This moment was of course inevitable. Sam would want to talk about her sooner or later, and it turned out to be sooner. Best just let him get on with it.

Dean nodded, letting him talk. There wasn't really much he could say to that. He had only met her once and she seemed to be good for Sam.

"You know." Sam continued. "When she wouldn't be yelling at you." He smiled at that. Of course she would yell at Dean and his ways...

Silence.

"Oh God... I should have told her, shouldn't I." And now he would never get a chance to.