Hi! It's been a crazy few weeks. Between preparing for my vacation and a death in the family, I haven't had much time to devote to my in-progress fics or anything else, really. Things will hopefully calm down when I return.

I actually loved this week's episode. I kind of love and hate RoboSam, because he's snarkier than Sam ever was but he can't connect to people like he used to. Here is a quick tag to tonight's fic. Please let me know what you think!

Winchester Math

It was a fleeting pain, but it was one that always threatened to double him over in grief: Dean missed his brother more now that his body was there, but his soul wasn't.

Sam's hands were the same, big and weathered. He still had horrible posture, back bowing when he read or researched on the computer. He still sung off-key in the shower.

But it was wrong, an imposter under wearing Sam like a Halloween costume. The soft-hearted twinkle that had dimmed significantly since Lucifer rose, was completely gone. His eyes were just a cold blue, dark and lifeless. Without having the ability to feel out of place, Sam walked tall and imposing.

For the first time in his life, Dean wanted to tuck tail and run, leave this Sammy-shaped freak to collect all the Alphas, and pull slave-duty for Crowley. Except that the damn thing was at least apart of Sam, and it wasn't his fault, not in the long-run.

The grating pain was still there. Dean seemed to be feeling enough for both them. "If we're gonna hunt together, there are going to be rules. If you don't follow them, I'm hightailin' it to Atlantic City for the bender I deserve, ya hear?" Dean barked with all the nastiness he felt, because Sam couldn't get angry or hurt.

Sam managed to dig his head out of piles of research, looking rested even after he'd been at it for nearly seventeen hours. "Like what?"

"Like you need to know how those with souls are supposed to hunt?"

Soul-free Sammy lifted an eyebrow. Dean continued, "When civilians are in the mix, they are never under any circumstances collateral damage. I don't care what the pay-off is. We don't kill innocents, got it?"

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Even if…"

"Never, Sam."

"What else?"

"Sometimes getting out alive is more important that getting the prize. Alpha or no alpha, we need your heart pumping for that soul to mean anything."

"Self-preservation's at the top of my list, Dean. Don't worry about that one," Sam smiled.

Dean shuddered, even that was cold and tainted with sinister.

"Okay, kids trump everything, Sam. Even partners."

"But you have to help me get my soul back."

Dean's brown knitted together in disgust. "Kids are most important. If you don't save a kid, if you abandon a kid for ANY reason, I'm gone, Sam. I won't care what happens to you."

He chuffed a laugh before standing to stretch and pace. "Wow, dude, relax."

"Don't even push it, freakshow."

"Were you always this uptight before?"

"Before what? Before you fell, and were replaced with a giant tinman? Probably not." Dean hissed. He ached for a drink, a cigarette, some pills, anything to take the edge off.

Sam sighed, and Dean lifted his head to see his brother sit down in that smooth, lethal glide and crack his knuckles—it was something Sammy did when he was tense or scared—but Sam still seemed indifferent, if not pensive.

But there. Dean might of imagined it, but there was a flicker or something—regret, horror, anguish. It was a split-second of humanity. "You want to be pissed at me, go ahead. I can't really care one way or another. But sometimes…I don't want it back. I remember everything He did to me, what he made me do before…and this is easier." Sam rubbed his chin. "I've done the math." It was Sam's way of saying he was weighing his options, using logic in place of a hijacked soul. "And I can do this on my own. You…can go if you want. I don't need you to save me."

Dean blinked, astonished that Sam's emotionless math had come out with a selfless product.

It was all he needed to bare it that much long, to hang in and hunker down.

He clapped Sam on the back and continued. "Rule Three—we always need absolute proof before we hand people over to Crowley…"