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“Hey Sam!” called Dean as he left the bathroom of their newest shit motel room. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
“C’mon Sam, I need the holy water. Where is it?”
“Sam? The hell are you, man? We’re gonna need to soak these bullets in holy water if we wanna stop this demon.”
Dean spotted Sam out the window. He was across the parking lot, looking around in the trunk of the Impala. Whatever, Dean could find the damn water himself. Dean began pawing through Sam’s duffel. It was Sam’s job to keep up the supply of holy water; he had to have some in there somewhere. As Dean searched, he found a small outside pocket with a hole. Sam had clearly tried to patch the hole with duct tape, but the tape had slipped off. He reached down past the pocket and his hand hit something small, cool, and hard. His fingers tangled in the cord attached to it, and he pulled it out. It was the amulet Sam had given him all those years ago, the one Cas had tried to use to find God or whatever. The one Dean had dropped in a trashcan three years previously. The one that Sam had apparently saved. The one Sam had kept in his duffel. The one Sam was almost certainly now searching for. The only physical object, besides the Impala, that tied them together. Dean looked at the necklace. Such a silly little thing. He didn't even know whether it really had the glowing-in-the-presence-of-god power, since God wasn't showing his face these days. But he’d worn it every day of his life for over 20 years. And it clearly meant something to Sam, judging by the miserable look on his face as trudged back from the car, empty-handed. Dean turned away from the window, hiding his hands and face from Sam.
As Sam walked back into the motel room, he couldn't believe his own carelessness. The amulet’s pocket had gotten a hole, and instead of patching it properly, he’d just slapped a piece of tape over it, and now the amulet was gone. He’d searched the pocket, then the trunk of the car, and even under the seats, though there was no way the necklace could have gotten up there. He knew keeping the amulet was stupid, but it was his reminder of when he and Dean had shared happier times. He couldn't just let it lie in a trash can. Go to a landfill. Be buried in piles of dirt. His brother had been buried in dirt enough. It would have been like burying Dean again. So he’d grabbed the stupid thing from the can, and carried it with him from then on. But now he had lost it.
Dean turned to face Sam as he walked in. “Hey Sammy. Find what you were looking for?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, no. S’ok. Not impor-” Sam froze as he looked at Dean. The amulet had been missing for three years now, but the place it had lain was still the first place Sam’s eyes went. He blinked. Was that- Could it be- No, he was hallucinating again, or it was a trick of the light. But it wasn't. His eyes slowly crawled up to stare into Dean’s.
“I, uh found it. Looking for holy water, in your duffel. I think it, uh, slipped out of that pocket. The one you had it in. So, well, I thought I’d put it back on. I mean, I wasn't thinking straight when I tossed it away, I shouldn't have, I didn't mean-... You kept it.”
Sam swallowed hard. “Yeah, yeah I did. I couldn't, I mean it didn't seem right to leave...”
“Right, yeah.” Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, no chick flick moments, right?”
“Yeah, ‘course. You, uh, said holy water? It’s just here, I’ll grab it.”