"WHEN Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know --
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow."

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“I called Joshua.” Sam watched as his brother set down the cold water he’d retrieved from the bathroom.

“And?” Dean asked tersely, as he dipped two wash cloths in the improvised bowl. Who would have thought their old camping gear would come in handy in December.

“He’ll be here within the hour.” Sam reflexively clenched his fingers around the phone. “Dean, maybe I should call Mac again. I think he might have picked up on something when I asked him if he’d talked to Caleb and…”

“No.” Dean shook his head, wringing out one of the cloths and placing it on the psychic’s forehead. “Caleb wouldn’t want that, and besides there’s nothing he can do from New York.”

The younger Winchester shook his head. “But, he needs a doctor, Dean.”

“That’s why I told you to ask Joshua about finding us some local help.”

“He said why didn’t we get creative and try the ER.”

“Did you tell him…”

“Yes,” Sam interrupted, “I told him to go fuck himself and that if he didn’t come through you’d kick his ass.”

“You reading me without permission?”

The younger hunter’s mouth twitched slightly at his brother’s look of irritation. “Hey, I don’t have to be psychic to channel you, man. I know you better than anybody. But he could have a point. Maybe we should take him to the hospital.”

Dean frowned at his brother. “Take him to the hospital where we have no control? If he's put in ICU, Sam, we wouldn’t even be allowed in to see him, let alone do anything with his treatment if it’s some kind of poison, or worse, a spell.”

The younger Winchester raked a hand through his tousled hair. “Then what do we do?”

“We wait for Sawyer. Did he say he’d find someone?”

“He said he had a few contacts.”

“That’s a start.” Dean glanced at Caleb as the older hunter began to move restlessly on the bed. “Caleb?”

The psychic’s dark lashes fluttered against his flushed cheeks for a moment and then he was staring up at Dean. “I…need help.”

The lighter haired hunter felt his gut twist at the exposed pain reflected in the glassy gaze. “Please.”

“It’s okay,” Sam said, shooting his older brother a worried glance when Dean didn’t say anything. “We’re going to help you, Caleb.” The younger Winchester laid his hand on the other hunter’s hair. “Just take it easy.”

Dean swallowed thickly as Caleb’s eyes closed again. “We need to get his fever down.”

“Dean…” Sam tried, but his brother was up, pacing across the floor.

“If this is a poison a damn doctor ain’t going to do us much good. We don’t even know how long he’s been like this…Shit, it could have been days.”

“Dean,” Sam said again, watching as his brother built up steam.

“Fucking Joshua and his fucked up tag team voice mail.”

The younger Winchester moved to his brother’s vacated spot by the water bowl, picking up the other cloth and running it over Caleb’s sweat-drenched face and neck. Ranting was Dean’s way of dealing.

“He wouldn’t have known anything until the news story broke. I can see it now. President and CEO of Tri Corp found murdered in a freaky-ass motel room.” Dean gestured to the walls that were covered with newspaper clippings and notes on the missing girls and the cult. “The press would have a field day.”

“Dean, he’s not dead.” Sam lowered his voice, hoping to get his brother’s attention. “He’s not going to die.”

“You got an antidote up your sleeve, Sammy?” Dean stopped his pacing long enough to glare at his brother. “Because if you’re holding out on me…”

“We’ll go find the girl when Joshua gets here. She’ll tell us what she used and we’ll fix it. We’ve faced things like this before.”

Dean’s mind recalled a time when Sam was in a similar position as Caleb. A witch had poisoned his brother to blackmail their father into helping her sick-o boyfriend. “Yeah, but Dad was there.”

Sam sighed, went back to bathing the psychic in the cool water. “If I remember right, it was you and Caleb who stopped Duran.”

Dean moved back to the bed, taking a seat on the other side next to the unconscious hunter. He dropped his head into his hands, sighing heavily. “Yeah, but Caleb’s not going to be much help.”

Sometimes it amazed Sam when his brother didn’t see how important he was in the grand scheme of things. “But you’re here. That’s what matters.”

Dean looked up at him, feeling as lost as he could remember. “I don’t know what to do.” The older hunter’s voice broke slightly. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

Sam dipped the cloth in the liquid again, squeezing the excess from it before handing it to his brother. “You’ll do what you can. That’s all he’d expect.”

The older Winchester took the cloth with a nod. “He’d kick our asses for giving him a sponge bath is what he’d do.”

Sam laughed, shaking his head. “Maybe Joshua’s contact will be a hot nurse?”

“Do you know Josh?” Dean ran the cloth over Caleb’s chest. “Nurse Ratchet is more likely.”

The younger hunter grinned, and jutted his chin towards the right side of the psychic’s chest. “Did you notice that?”

Dean eyed the intricate tattoo. “I bet that cost him a fortune.” The work was immaculate and obviously done with painstaking accuracy. The red dragon covered the upper portion of Caleb’s chest, it’s outstretched wings reaching up to his shoulder. In its claws the mythical animal held two things-a black-hilted sword and a golden cross.

“I bet he did it himself,” Sam observed. “It looks like the ones he use to draw for me when I was a kid.”

Dean raised a disbelieving brow. “Caleb used to draw you dragons?”

Sam shrugged, the faint memory tickling at the back of his mind. “When nobody else was around.”

The older Winchester snorted. “So much for being a hardass.”

“Yeah, reminds me of somebody else I know.”

Dean glanced up again. “I know you’re not talking about me, because you won’t see me packing a box of Crayolas on the sly.”

Sam smiled, not bothering to mention Lucas and how his brother had interacted with the traumatized child. “I just meant that you both have a lot of layers.”

The older hunter rolled his eyes. “With me, what you see is what you get.”

“And what do you see when you look at Caleb?” Sam asked quietly, watching his brother’s eyes go from the dragon tattoo to the sliver chain and ring around the psychic’s neck. They both knew it was their dad’s ring.

Dean sighed. “The sword has Semper Fi written on it.” Sam was right. They weren’t the only ones who missed John Winchester.

The younger hunter frowned, letting his own gaze go back to the Knight’s sword held tightly in one talon. Sure enough, the Marine creed was etched across the blade.

Dean cleared his throat, bringing Sam’s eyes back to him. “Remember when he used to torture Mac about joining the Marines. Dad use to get in on it, too, with all that talk about having an old buddy that was a recruiter.”

Sam nodded. “I don’t know who was more worried, Mac or you.”

Dean flinched, his posture screaming indignation. “Like I cared what the idiot did.”

“Just like you didn’t care when he sold Tri Corp, or gave me the journal?”

“What does one have to do with the other?”

“You were worried about him and it pissed you off.” Dean internalized any emotions he didn’t want to deal with, and it usually came out in one of two ways- inappropriate humor or scary rage.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sam shook his head. His brother had a whole hell of a lot room to call Caleb an idiot. “I do know because I’ve spent a lot of time being pissed at you.”

“It’s not the same.” Dean didn’t want it to be the same. “You just don’t understand…”

“Then explain it to me.” Sam was so tired of being shut out- of all the macho loner crap. “Talk to me.”

Dean wiped the wet cloth over Caleb’s face again, not meeting his brother’s penetrating gaze. For a long moment only the psychic‘s labored breathing dared to breach the heavy silence between them. “You know he watched his mom die.”

The statement caught Sam off guard and he hesitated for a moment before putting the cloth he had rewet back on Caleb’s forehead. He glanced up for a moment, barely making eye-contact with Dean before going back to the job at hand.

The other hunter continued on in a monotone, matter of fact way. “His dad stabbed her to death with a letter opener. Then he shot himself . Caleb was hiding in the closet. He saw everything.”

“Yeah.” Sam swallowed hard. “Mac wrote about it in the journal.”

The older Winchester stopped what he was doing, surprise and something else written in his eyes. For some reason Sam felt slightly guilty under his brother’s intense scrutiny, even though Caleb had given him the journal, trusted him with what was inside.

“Mackland was always meticulous.”

“He was trying to help.”

“Nothing helps that kind of pain, Sam.”

“I know.” He could say that now. Jessica’s death gave him a taste, but after losing John, he was certain he had never truly understood loss until the moment his father was killed. There was something about a parent dying…it took a part of you, dashed a part of your history…gone forever. He was no longer someone’s little boy, someone’s son. That was forever lost to him. He was a twenty-three-year-old orphan, and it was scary as hell. He felt unbalanced, lost, and it was impossible to imagine that happening when he was six.

“He understood about Mom and he didn’t try to explain things to me or make it all better.” Dean exhaled, wearily. “He let me be a kid.”

Sam had never thought about it, but Caleb was the only ’kid’ his brother recognized as safe. With everyone else, whether it be school mates or neighbors from whatever slummy apartments they were living in, Dean had to be on guard. He was in charge of protecting their secret, guarding his little brother. Other children didn’t understand the role of good soldier, being a surrogate parent, or the responsibility and weight of knowing about the things in the dark. But Caleb Reaves did and as a bonus he was a child too. He might have been eight years older than Dean, but he was the closest thing his brother would get. “He’s going to be okay, Dean.”

Dean didn’t say anything because Caleb chose that moment to react to their treatment.

The psychic curled into himself crying out as he battled some invisible assailant. Muscles knotted and rippled across his abdomen as convulsions wracked his body either from the toxin or the high fever. “No…” he muttered tossing his head from side to side. “Duran…”

“Shit,” Dean raked a hand over his face, afraid to imagine what ghosts his friend was encountering.

“Caleb!” Sam moved his hands towards the older hunter trying to offer some sort of comfort, any solace that would make the suffering stop.

“Don’t even think about,” Dean ordered, pointing a finger at him as if he could read his brother’s mind. “That won’t help and you know it.”

“What?” Sam feigned innocence. Maybe he could mentally block what was attacking Reaves. They wouldn’t know if he didn’t try.

The older hunter glared at him. “Don’t forget I know you, too.”

“But…”

“No!” Dean snapped, keeping his brother from making physical contact with the other psychic. His eyes moved from Sam’s stubborn gaze to Caleb’s tortured form as Reaves cried out again. “I can’t take care of both of you.”

“Then do something,” Sam choked, unable to watch and do nothing. He could see the same helplessness he felt openly displayed in his brother’s green eyes.

Dean’s gaze searched the motel room. Caleb was as much of a neat freak as John Winchester. “Find his first aid kit. He would have brought it in with him when he checked in.” They still hadn’t spotted their father’s truck that the psychic now drove but Dean knew the other man almost as well as he knew Sam. Most of his weapons and anything valuable would be in the room.

He watched his brother move around the cramped space even searching Caleb’s duffel before moving on to the bathroom. The psychic called out for Mac and Dean ran his hand over his hair. “Take it easy, Damien. It’s okay.”

Caleb looked at him, but Dean didn’t think he was awake. He had enough experience with Sam’s nightmares to recognize the look of someone still trapped inside one. “Jim…I’m scared.”

The words cut deeply as a memory of saying almost the same thing to his father a few months before sprung to his mind. Dean suddenly felt all of ten again, terrified and helpless. He swallowed the urge to be sick and continued trying to calm the other hunter. “Don’t be afraid, Caleb. Knights are brave, man. You gotta‘ be brave.”

The psychic lifted his hand and Dean grasped it, holding on to it as if he could anchor the other hunter, provide him with the strength to keep fighting. “Deuce…”

Dean’s heart faltered at the annoying nickname and his friend's sudden clarity, and his grip tightened on Caleb’s hand. “I’m here.”

Caleb’s gaze seemed to focus then, his gold-colored eyes gaining some cognizance. “The demon’s…here…we need the Guardian…”

That was all he managed before another wave of agony pulled him under, tearing him from the younger hunter’s hold. He called out for his father again and Dean cursed his helplessness.

“I found it.” Sam rushed back into the room, carrying the familiar black doctor’s bag. It had belonged to Mac in medical school, and Caleb kept it stocked like a physician.

Dean moved quickly, taking it from his brother and rifling through the contents. Finding what he was looking for, he dropped the kit onto the floor and moved back to Caleb’s side.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked, watching as his brother knelt over the dark haired hunter.

“Help me hold him down, but don’t think about using your freaky mind powers.”

“Dean?” The younger Winchester did as his brother said, grasping Caleb’s shoulders, pinning him to the bed. It wasn’t easy, even in his weakened state the other psychic was strong and he fought like trapped animal. Sam recognized the determined look on his brother’s face. “Dean, you don’t know what we’re dealing with,” he warned. “You don’t know what that will do.”

Dean blinked, causing his brother’s worried features to blur. “Yes I do.” Sam frowned and Dean grabbed hold of Caleb’s arm. Mackland had taught Dean the proper procedure to give injections the same day he’d taught him how to do sutures. The ten-year-old had surprised the surgeon by taking to it with the same natural grace he had on a ball field.

He uncapped the syringe with his teeth and hesitated only briefly before plunging the needle into the psychic’s arm, depressing the plunger with a quick, silent prayer. “It’ll make the pain stop.” At the moment that’s all that mattered to Dean- taking the pain away.

Caleb only struggled for a moment more; his body twitched a few times before stilling completely. Sam kept his hand on the psychic’s shoulders, even after the older hunter stopped moving. His dark gaze went to Dean, who was silently staring at Caleb, his bottom lip held pensively between his teeth.

“Dean?” Sam watched as his brother tossed the used needle away, sank down on the bed beside Reaves. He didn’t miss the way Dean’s hand trembled as he placed his fingers against the psychic’s throat, or the way he nearly sagged in relief when he obviously found what he was hoping for.

“He’s still breathing.”

“What the fuck, Dean?” Sam slid one hand through his hair. “You didn’t even know how much you were giving him?”

“Yes I did.” Dean kept his hand on the psychic’s chest, making sure it was still rising and falling the way it should be. “He keeps them loaded with the right amount. Pays to have a doctor in the family.”

Sam sat down on the other side of the bed, wondering at the absurdity of it all. “Our lives are so fucked up, Dude.”

“You’re telling me.”

“It won’t fix things.”

“I know that.” Dean gave his brother a sharp look. “But it’s the best I could do for now.”

“We need to figure out what the hell happened to him,” Sam said, finally removing his touch from Caleb.

“Seems to react a lot like that stuff that Duran’s witch gave you.”

“Yeah.” Sam pinched at the bridge of his nose, feeling the building of what promised to be a spectacular headache if given the chance. He’d thought about that, too. Apparently he and his brother were on the same wavelength, as usual. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Dean’s reply was interrupted by a knock on the door. He stood pulling his gun from the back of his jeans. He nodded for his brother to get it as he placed himself in between the potential threat and their defenseless partner. “Delivery.” The voice was muffled by the door, but it was recognizable. The older Winchester placed the safety back on his weapon and returned it to his jeans.

Sam rolled his eyes and opened the door to let Joshua in. The man wasn’t joking about the delivery, his arms cradling several white bags decorated with Japanese symbols.

“You stopped for food?” Dean asked, incredulously.

Sawyer shrugged. “A man’s got to eat, albeit he won’t eat well in this town. What decent Japanese restaurant doesn’t have Sushi?” Joshua sighed, dramatically. “Don’t worry though. I brought enough to share, Deuce.”

“It’s Dean,” the younger hunter growled, reconsidering putting his gun away.

Joshua dumped the bags on the table as an older, balding man in a velour jogging suit followed him in. “Why don’t I get a nickname? It’s not fair, you know.”

Dean’s lip curled. “Oh you have a nickname, Dude.” He nodded to the stranger. “It’s just not polite to repeat it in front of company.”

“Speaking of manners.” Joshua ignored the implications and gestured to his friend. “This is Doctor Rodney Combs, formerly of the prestigious Aluminous Cosmetics Group.”

“Formerly?” Sam inquired, giving the pudgy man a critical once over.

The greasy doctor smiled. “I was fired.”

“He retired,” Joshua quickly corrected, giving the man a disapproving look. “Rodney decided to go into private family practice to spend more time with his own darling wife and lovely offspring.”

Rodney snorted. “That’s his way of saying I fucked up the breast job of a very rich woman and got kicked out on my old, sagging ass. Now I have way too much time to listen to my nag of a bride prattle on about her lack of access to Botox and I won‘t even go in to the demon spawn that sprung forth from my loins”

“You’re making my job very difficult by continuing to tell that distasteful rumor, Rodney.”

The doctor rolled his eyes and waved off Joshua’s reprimand. “My wife is paying you a lot of my money to fix her little fairytale life. You might as well have to work hard for it, Slick.”

Dean gave the man another look. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as the poor taste in clothes and bad-smelling aftershave that smelled a whole hell of a lot like Vodka alluded to. But was he a decent doctor? “You know what you’re doing, right?”

“I went to medical school, Kid. How picky can you get when you want a back alley house call in the middle of the goddamn night on the day before Christmas Eve? Most of my decent colleagues are on their way to Maui.”

“He’s got a point, Dean.” Sam saw the argument building in his brother’s eyes. “Just let him examine Caleb.”

“Speaking of demon spawn…” Joshua started, but quickly shut his mouth when Dean gave him a withering look. He held up the box of friend rice he was eating from in surrender, and moved to Caleb’s bedside. “Damn. He looks bad,” he mumbled around a mouthful of shrimp.

“Thank you for that diagnosis,” Dean snapped, shoving him out of the way as he took his place by the psychic’s side. “Now let the guy with the MD after his name have a look.”

Rodney took a seat on the bed, opening his bag that looked more ancient than Mac’s retired one. He pulled out a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff. “How long has he been like this?”

Sam watched the doctor move his practiced hands over Caleb’s body. “We aren’t sure. We found him a few hours ago.”

“Is he on anything?” The physician lifted each of the psychic’s eyelids, using a pen light to check for pupil reaction. He glanced to Dean. “Is he a junkie?”

“Hell no!” Dean snapped, his fist clenching at his sides as the doctor ignored him and checked each of Caleb’s arms for signs of track marks.

“Meth? Cocaine?”

“Fuck you, man,” Dean growled."We don't need this shit."

“The pain got out of hand, we were afraid of what damage it was causing,” Sam interrupted before his brother tossed the tactless physician out of the motel room on his sagging white ass. “We gave him an injection of morphine.”

Rodney raised a brow. “If you’ve got access to the good stuff, then why the hell do you need me?”

“This is the best you could find, Josh?” Dean pointed an accusing finger at Sawyer. “Because you do realize it’s your neck on the line, too. Right?”

“Rodney,” Joshua moved away from the older Winchester, “the line of work that my colleagues and I perform on the side is very dangerous. As I explained to you, and we have to be prepared for any circumstance.”

“Yeah, the whole secret spy business.”

Sam looked at his brother and mouthed the word spy. Dean shook his head. “Yeah, Josh is a regular double-o-zero.”

Sawyer sighed. “Could you just help our associate, please?”

Rodney went back to work. “I can tell you one thing. He’s not been like this very long.”

“Why do you say that?” Sam asked.

“Because if he had, he’d be dead,” the physician replied. “His pulse is racing like it’s been thundering around the horse tracks of Kentucky, and with this fever…”

“What?” Dean asked, swallowing thickly.

“You’ll be lucky he doesn’t fry his brain.”

“That’s okay: we’ve got damage control covered. His father’s a famous neurosurgeon,” Josh replied, continuing to eat his dinner.

Rodney tossed his own disgusted look in Sawyer’s direction. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that because your buddy here is dying.”

That caused Joshua to falter and he shot a quick look in Dean’s direction. “I thought you were exaggerating.”

Dean ignored him. “What can you do?”

“I can check him in a hospital.” Rodney held up the thermometer he had just removed from Caleb’s ear. He gave a low whistle. “Almost a hundred and four. That’s impressive.” He gave Dean another hard look. “He’s not been out of the country has he? This better not be some kind of contagious shit.”

“We think he was poisoned,” Sam spoke up, “but we don’t know what was used.”

Rodney took out a syringe and a bottle of clear liquid. He punctured the rubber top with the tip of the needle and withdrew a few cc’s of the medicine. “I might be able to help with that, but I’m not sure how much good it will do,” he added as he took out another syringe and an empty test tube.

He started for Caleb’s arm with the filled needle but Dean clamped a vice-like grip around his wrist, when he noticed the slight tremble in the old man’s hands. He was the one probably tripping on self-prescribed meds. “What the hell are you giving him?”

“Something for the fever. Morphine doesn’t exactly help with that.”

Dean didn’t let him go, just continued to look from his blood-shot eyes to Caleb’s pale face. “I’m trying to help, Son,” Rodney said with the first hint of compassion. “As long as your buddy doesn’t need anything lifted or tucked, he’s safe with these old hands.”

“I wouldn’t have brought a quack, Dean.” Joshua set down his dinner, his appetite suddenly abandoning him. “I wouldn’t risk the Knight.”

Dean swallowed again at The Brotherhood speak, and he removed his hand from the doctor’s wrist. He wasn’t all together sure what the whole idea of Caleb succeeding his father in the Knight’s position meant, but he knew it was important to anyone who wore a ring, maybe to hunters who didn’t follow their code. John had kept them in the dark about so much. The only thing he knew for certain was that Sam had been right, as usual. Caleb was like a brother to him, and not just because they were bound to the same cause. He looked at the doctor again. “Make sure you don’t botch this, Doc, because your widow will be enjoying your pension with the hot, Latin pool boy she’s likely to be screwing.”

The doctor looked taken aback at first, but then he shook his head grinning ruefully. “Son, you haven’t seen my wife.”

Sam physically winced when the doctor forced the syringe into Caleb’s arm, and he felt the blood rush to his head. He fucking hated needles and doctors weren’t high up on his list these days either. It was all too sickeningly familiar after their father‘s death. “Sit down, Sammy.”

Dean’s voice penetrated the painful memory and Sam did as he was told, taking a seat on the opposite bed. He was unable to look away as the physician used another syringe to draw two tubes of Caleb’s blood. “How soon will you be able to tell us what it is?”

Rodney didn’t look at him. “Not soon enough, I’m afraid.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean demanded, watching Caleb as he shrank away from the doctor’s touch as the man began to prod and poke on his abdomen.

“It means that if I were you I’d use all my secret spy contacts to track down an antidote before James Bond here croaks.”

“You’ve got a real bedside manner on you there, Bones.”

“I didn’t choose cosmetic surgery just for all the free frills, Kid. It sure the hell ain’t like Nip & Tuck.”

The psychic jerked in his sleep and Dean rested a hand on his head. “Take it easy.”

“It’s not a good sign that he can still register pain with the amount of happy juice you gave him.”

“Can you give him anything else?”

“It probably wouldn’t be the smartest idea,” he sighed, running his fingers through what little bit of hair he had left. “I’ll leave some with you though, in case it gets rough again.” He glanced up at Dean. “If it get’s real bad you can…” He let the words hang in the air, but Dean easily picked up on his insinuation.

“Screw you, Doctor Kevorkian. He’s pulling through this.”

“Perhaps you should take your leave now, Rodney,” Joshua said, helping the doctor quickly gather his things. “We don’t want Phyllis calling the authorities with a report of your kidnapping like last time.”

The doctor nodded, and stood, taking the vials of blood with him. “I’ll get these to the lab in Louisville.” He glanced at Dean. “I’ll tell them to put a rush on it.”

“Thanks,” Sam replied when his brother didn’t. “We appreciate your help.”

“No problem.” Rodney gestured to Joshua. “Slick has helped me out of a few scrapes and out of court more times than I can count. I owed him one.”

“Phyllis owes me, too,” Joshua added as he escorted the doctor to the door. “After that last little scandal at Club Med, I’ll be needing payment before we issue a statement to the press.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rodney waved him off. “Bloodsuckers, the lot of you.”

Joshua closed the door behind him, watching as Dean lifted Caleb up and slipped a T-shirt on him before pulling the blankets over the psychic's shivering form. “So, what now Dynamic Duo?”

Dean stood and crossed the room. “Now you and Sam use what ever information you have about that cult to find the girl who did this.”

“What girl?”

“The girl I saw in my vision.”

Sawyer shoved his hands through this thick, blond hair. “Of course. We’re just all one freaky family now, aren’t we?”

“You have a better idea, Genius?”

“No,” Joshua shook his head. He jutted his chin towards Caleb’s prone form. “Save the Knight, Save the Brotherhood,” he said in a theatrical tone.

When neither brother reacted to his clever reference he sighed in exasperation. “You two really do live in a black hole, don’t you?”

“Just take Sam and go.”

“Yes, sir.” Josh mocked a salute, not daring to say what came to his mind. Dean sounded just like his father in that moment.

“And Sawyer,” Dean reached out and caught his arm, waiting for the older hunter to meet his gaze. “If Caleb doesn’t pull through this, then I wouldn’t worry about those holiday plans you were going on and on about. You won‘t be making them.”

Joshua swallowed thickly, not sure if the words were an empty threat or a certain promise of doom. “Just so long as you realize I’m usually only good for one miracle a year.”

Dean smirked at the little reminder that Sawyer had been a part in saving his life by getting Sam in touch with the Reverend Roy LeGrange. “And if my little brother comes back with so much as one hair out of place, so help me God, Sawyer…”

“You’ll kick my ass.” Joshua pulled free, wiping at his fancy jacket as if Dean had soiled it with his touch. “I know. I’ve heard it all before.” He waved a hand towards the younger Winchester. “I’ll take care of little Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” the younger hunter snapped, grabbing his coat and sharing a quick look with his brother. “And I can take care of myself.”

“I really should be allowed a nickname, you know,” Joshua grumbled as he grabbed his keys from the table. “It’s only fair.”

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