That very night in Max's room a forest grew and grew and grew

"Sam?" Dean's voice is rough; he's right on the edge of sleep but denied it by the heat of Southern summer. Sam hears but ignores it as he bundles together dirty clothes, palms a half dozen quarters and slips out of the cardboard box they're sharing for the night. Dean had said "a regular palace!" when they saw the plywood structure with a padlock and shredded mosquito-netting windows, causing Sam to roll his eyes and heave their stuff inside. They're lucky this place has a washer and dryer; Sam's out of clean underwear, socks, and t-shirts, and with the amount of swamp water his jeans have absorbed, he knows they'll go at least twice through the wash before they're clean. He's wearing nothing but a pair of nylon shorts and still sweats at 2 a.m., Virginia heat unlocking his pores in a most unfamiliar way; summer in Palo Alto is warm and dry.

His feet taste the grass as he pads toward the laundry -- he can't bring himself to call it a "room", just a porch screened on three sides and abutting the showers on the other -- and just in time he remembers to catch the door before its spring sends it slamming into its frame, waking everyone who's managed to fall asleep. There's exactly half a box of powdered detergent sitting on the ancient washer and he doesn't hesitate to use it. Only half their clothes will fit in the washer at once, so he shoves in the cleaner ones, deposits his quarters, and heads to the sink to try and rescue half a dozen badly bloodstained shirts, all of them Dean's.

There's a moment where he wishes for a good old-fashioned washboard, but he settles for turning on the sink (ice cold, of course, just like the dribbly showers on the other side of the wall) and doing his best with a handful of detergent powder. He cleans as best he can in the flickering fluorescent light, and finds himself talking to Dean, distractedly. "I can't believe you got clawed by that thing. You're gonna have to pitch this shirt," he says, holding up a tee with three curved lacerations, matching the ones he'd spent part of the afternoon bandaging on Dean's back. He balls up the shirt and tosses it onto the dryer before attacking the next, scowling at its recalcitrant stains. He hears, from behind him, "You know, talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity."

His first instinct is to whip around with his gun out, but he doesn't have a gun, and about three-tenths of a second after he hears what's actually being said, he recognizes the voice. He's too late to stop his turn, and finds himself staring across the porch at his brother. "I didn't mean to wake you."

and an ocean tumbled by with a boat for Max

"Nah, you didn't. It's too fucking hot to sleep." Amen to that.

Dean brushes some kid's forgotten flip-flop, some trashy thing by Danielle Steel with no cover, and three issues of Good Housekeeping's 1984 series on floral prints to the floor and sits down on the bench next to the dryer. He too is in nothing but shorts -- boxers, at that -- and carries his last clean t-shirt and, in classic Dean fashion, a six-inch Bowie knife, half-hidden under the shirt. Sam turns back to his scrubbing and hears the rustle of fabric. When he looks back, the knife is fully hidden. No sense spooking their fellow campers.

Sam leaves the shirts to soak and takes a seat on the dryer. "Yeah. I hate this humidity." But not really; it takes him away from west coast summer.

"Go west, young man," Dean says, and Sam hopes Dean's too sleepy to notice his quick intake of breath. "We got that tip about a Bigfoot up in Montana. We could go there next."

"As long as there're no swamps. I still have grit in my..." and he pauses lamely, realizing that there are still some things you don't tell even your brother. "My everywhere, really."

"Thanks, Sammy, that's a bit of info I really needed. Just don't ask me to help you bathe. I stopped doing that when you were five." Dean shifts a little so he's leaning up against the wall, carefully avoiding touching the raw cuts on his back to the wood.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Trust me, I won't." He listens to the music of the crickets and cicadas over the mostly-rhythmic swish and spin of the washer, sees Dean lost in thought. The washer cycle ends and he transfers the clothes to the dryer, extracting his jeans and dumping them right back in the washer along with the soaking shirts and the rest of his clothes. When they're both started, he relaxes into the more regular beats of the dryer and lets the night play music as he waits.

And he sailed in and out of days

"Do you remember," he says, distractedly. Dean's head turns to face him.

"Remember what?"

Shit. "Nothing. No big deal."

"What?" Dean's voice is firmer this time.

"Never mind. I was just..."

"C'mon. What?"

when he came to the place where the wild things are

"Do you remember the first time Dad left us alone to go on a hunt?" Sam's not sure exactly why that image is resting at the forefront of his mind, but it's there and won't go away: Dad closing the door, the crashes of thunder.

"Yeah, I remember. Why?"

"No reason. I was just thinking..." Just thinking about it and don't know why. That's a great reason.

"Okay." Then Dean cracks a grin. "There was that thunderstorm. Man, you were scared shitless, hiding under the blankets and everything."

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them

Sam resists the urge to throw the box of detergent at Dean's head. "I was, what, three, four? Shut up. Of course I was scared. And then you built that blanket fort--" thick cotton and wool walls, pillow doors, the two of them huddled inside against the flashes and crashes.

"--just to get you to stop your whining. Jeez, you made me read that stupid book over and over again, like fifty times. God. I still have that fucking book memorized, thanks to you."

"Hey, what can I say, it's a great work of literature." He can still see the pictures in his mind, the wolf suit, the crown, the horns. Sam knew Max just wanted friends. Friends who would stick with him no matter where they went or how wild things got.

"Pastor Jim's wife never did figure out why you were so happy when she threatened to send you to bed without supper."

"It never worked," Sam says, his smile fading. "Never did get to have a monster party." Never did get to have a party, period, just Dean explaining it was Max's mom who brought him his dinner in the end, Dean with the toothbrush, and Dean helping Dad with the first aid kit. He pauses for a few minutes, lost in thought, and Dean's eyes trace some erratic pattern on the ceiling.

And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all

"Can I ask you something?" The washer has changed again, arrhythmic, and it jolts Sam forward.

"Dude, this is a laundry room, not a sharing room." He pauses. "What?"

Not today, then. "Never mind."

"Really, what?"

Sam can out-stubborn Dean, really he can. "Never mind. It's noth--"

"Oh, god, not this again. What do you want?"

Dean's face is set in a "do not fuck with me" glare, and Sam's way too tired to argue with him, even as immovable as he wants to pretend he is. "The night -- the night Jessica died..." Sam sees his brother's head move out of the corner of his eye, but he can't look over there or he'll never get this question out. There's a stain on the concrete floor and he stares resolutely at it, willing himself to continue. "Why did you come back, after you drove off?" Dean sits forward on the bench, hissing a little as his cut back changes position. "I mean..." Sam's babbling now and trying to weasel his way out of having asked the question. "I meant to ask you, I should have asked ages ago, but..."

"Um." Now Sam can look, and it's Dean with his head toward the floor. "It was the day, you know, the same day Mom died... and, um, the same time, I noticed on the clock, and..." Dean trails off. "It didn't feel right."

where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot.

A beat, then, "Thanks."

"Uh... you're welcome?"

"For saving my life, moron." Sometimes his brother could be so thick.

"Oh. Yeah. Well, you know, anytime you need somebody to drag your ass out of a burning building, I'm your man."

Sam fixes his brother with the classic "you've got to be kidding me" look, but Dean's never been apologetic for his own bad jokes. "So, Montana?"

"Absaroka Range, man. Sasquatch is bothering hikers again."

"Dumb ape. Why does he always do that?" The dryer shuts off and Sam starts removing clothes and folding them.

"'cause he's a dumb ape."

"Right. Kind of like most people."

"Oh, that's nice, college boy. Just because not everybody has a huge pulsing brain like you do. Besides, how do you know Bigfoot can't read? He's probably bothering the backpackers to steal their books." Sam just shakes his head and keeps folding. "Hitting the sack now. Got a lot of driving tomorrow. Make sure you get all those stains out. I'm tired of you ruining my shirts."

"Whatever, dude. Next time, do your own fucking laundry." He grins.

Dean's voice gets all soft and apologetic. "But, Sammy, you're such a good little washerwoman..."

"Shut up."

Dean laughs and starts to leave. "Good night, honey."

"Hey, take this with you," Sam says, and tosses him the shredded t-shirt. Even in the crappy fluorescent light he can see Dean's face pale.

"What, you think I need a trophy? Like the scars I'm gonna have on my back won't be enough?"

Sam's voice is light. "Don't pitch it just yet -- time to change the oil in a couple hundred miles, isn't it?"

Dean nods. "'specially with as long a trip as we've got ahead of us." He turns toward the door. "'night, Sammy."

"'night, Dean." And Sam loads the last of the laundry into the dryer.