Three hundred dollars in crumpled mixed bills in Dean’s duffle. Tucked into a small green-leather medicine bag along with aspirin, stolen Percocet, condoms. Lubricant, in a sticky bottle. Not the dopp kit Dean pulls out when he steals the first shower from Sam, grinning and slamming the bathroom door. John counts the money again, finds he was a little under. Mostly twenties. Some fives, extra crumpled, even if they’re all folded together into a half-neat bundle. John looks at the cash and refolds it, and it’s sticky, too, kind of, from being in the same mess as all the rest. He zips up the kit and puts it back in the very bottom of the bag where he found it, bundled up in dirty jeans, underneath Dean’s spare pair of shoes. He drags his fingers over his palm and the stickiness of the lube has lingered, unclean.
Sam comes out of the bathroom, wet-haired. Surprised to see John and then, immediately, suspicious. “What are you doing with Dean’s bag?”
“Mind your tone,” John says. He rubs his thumb over his fingers. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know.” Sullen. He drops onto the room’s couch, where his backpack’s all spread out, paper exploded everywhere. “Out. I’m not his keeper.”
He isn’t. Dean’s meant to be the one doing the looking out. It’s ten o’clock and John’s day is only half-done but Dean’s meant to be here. “Clear up that mess before you go to bed,” is all he says, and Sam rolls his eyes, but John’s got his keys and a thought and a direction, and he doesn’t bother to correct Sam. He’s got a boy to look for.