Author's Note: Hey guys! This is my first attempt at something pre-series, so I'm not too sure how I did. I'm hoping to make this a two or three parter, but who knows lol Knowing me, it could go on forever. Anyway, I'll try to have the next one posted soon. Hope you like it, and as always, feedback makes my day! :o)

Disclaimer: I love Sammy and Dean, but unfortunately, I don't own them. Bummer.

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The car practically tore its way into the small city of Palo Alto, its driver hardly sparing a single second for any of the sights around him. He didn't care. He was on a mission and reaching his destination was the only thought he could stomach.

It was well after midnight and the California humidity was already feeling like a second skin under his t-shirt and leather jacket.

He hated humidity.

Coupled with the anxiousness he'd been feeling throughout the entire eight hour drive, there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that he was well on his way to going completely crackers.

It was only a matter of time.

Dean Winchester had gotten the phone call at three o'clock that afternoon and his brain had been operating in fast forward ever since. His name had been Matt Wise and he'd talked for nearly twenty minutes; he was calling from Stanford, he was roommates with Dean's kid brother…and he was, at that moment, sitting at said little brother's bedside at Stanford University Medical Center.

That was all it took for Dean to pull a U-turn—faster than what was probably safe—and head in the opposite direction, towards the Golden State he'd been avoiding like the plague for nearly a year.

When Dean asked how Wise had known to call him, the kid explained that he'd picked up Sam's phone when first arriving at the hospital. Sam had apparently mentioned his older brother's name at some point in conversation, and his friend had searched for the correct number in Sam's phonebook.

Even though Dean had asked the question, it was irrelevant.

Sammy was lying in a hospital bed and that was all that mattered.

Torn hamstring, broken fingers…hay fever or the flu. It wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference. Dean knew he would've made the drive no matter what.

It had been the longest year of the twenty-three year old's life. He still remembered in vivid detail the day his little brother had left, boarding a bus in Phoenix with nothing but his army issue duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. Dean had watched him pack what little he had; a few pairs of incredibly worn jeans, a small variety of shirts, boxers and socks. At his first opportunity, the older boy had managed to covertly slip what little money he himself had into a side pocket of Sam's bag—somewhere around three-hundred dollars.

It wasn't much, but it was, at that time, all Dean could offer.

Three-hundred dollars and a drive to the nearest bus station, filled with as much silent support and encouragement as he could muster.

He wouldn't have been able to deal with opening his mouth and saying out loud that he was proud or that for the first time in his life he wished he had the strength that Sam had. To know exactly what he wanted and to go for it, to hell with what everyone else thought.

Dean knew what it felt like to have dreams.

He knew what it felt like to have goals.

But unlike Sam, he would never know what it felt like to go against the orders of his father and go after them. He would never know what it felt like to do something for himself.

Sam was strong enough to leave, and Dean knew that he wasn't.

They'd kept in touch religiously for the first couple months, calling each other as often as they could—each man using the phone calls as a way of making sure his brother was safe and healthy.

Even though neither one said it out loud, they both had reasons to worry; Dean worried about Sam because he was on his own in a new town, a new state, surrounded by new people and invisible threats…Sam worried because Dean was out hunting, occasionally on his own, with only a shotgun and a bag of rock salt for protection.

Not unexpectedly, the abyss between the Winchester brothers grew with each month that went by, and despite the efforts of both men to keep it from happening, a festering bitterness blossomed.

Bitterness that Sam had left.

And bitterness that Dean had stayed.

But despite the heated feelings, they were still brothers. And being brothers trumped everything else.

Even stubbornness.

The day that Sam had gone off to college was the day that an important piece of Dean had gone missing; Sam had held that piece of his older brother in his hands since they were kids, and he'd taken it to California with him.

Dean knew what it was like to walk around without any real purpose, pretending that there wasn't a gaping hole in his chest that everyone was staring through. And no matter how hard he'd tried to cover it up with charming smiles and cheap thrills, it never went away.

As Dean drove through Palo Alto, he couldn't help but think that it felt good to be needed—even though he'd rather eat cat litter than admit it out loud. After months of suppressing his instinctual big brother drive, Dean was once again coming to the rescue.

Even if an unconscious little brother didn't know it yet.

Sam's friend had given Dean directions to the hospital from Palo Alto's boarder, and along with his uncanny ability to navigate even the most obscure towns, he found it without a problem.

After parking the car in the first spot he could find, Dean took off across the small parking lot at a run.

Matt had told him over the phone that he would be waiting just inside the emergency's entrance and when Dean pushed his way through a small crowd standing just inside the door, he was approached immediately by a tall kid—about Sam's age—with dark auburn hair.

The guy gave a quick nod as a means of welcome and extended his hand politely. "Dean. Matt Wise. Good to meet you."

Dean was way too overcome with his reawakening big brother protectiveness to reciprocate the gesture, let alone ask how Wise had recognized him.

All he could do was abruptly nod his head in acknowledgement. "Where's Sam?"

"He's in a room upstairs; he was asleep when I left-"

"What the hell happened?" Dean didn't care one bit that his voice was quickly rising, and Matt ran his hand through his hair. It was obviously a nervous habit and the older Winchester related immediately. It was something he and the kid had in common. "You didn't tell me a damn thing on the phone."

"I know, I'm sorry about that, things have been cra-"

"Look, can you walk and talk at the same time? I wanna see my brother."

Hesitating slightly at Dean's abrupt interruption, Matt nodded and motioned for Dean to follow him.

The older Winchester brother did without question.

"A couple nights ago, a friend of ours threw a party at her apartment off campus. I talked Sam into going."

"And?"

"Rob McAllister."

"Who the hell is that?"

Reaching the elevators, Matt made quick work of pushing the "up" button. "He's a wide receiver for the Stanford Cardinals-"

"Football player."

"Yeah, he and Sam haven't exactly been…vibing lately."

The elevator dinged loudly and the door slid open. A small crowd of people stepped off and as soon as the coast was clear, Matt and Dean quickly got on. As the door slid closed, Matt hit the button for the third floor.

"Keep talkin'."

He nodded and swallowed hard. "He's been on Sam's case since the beginning of the year-"

"For what?"

Matt let out a breath and Dean turned to look at him.

"Sam's been spending a lot of time with this chick from his Ethics class--Mary Jane, he said her name was." He shook his head for a second, as if to get his thoughts straight. "Anyway, McAllister's been into her since we moved into rez, he didn't like that Sam was around her so much."

Dean internally rolled his eyes.

Only Sammy would pick a girl with relationship baggage in the form of a wide receiver.

"McAllister had a few too many beers and flipped his shit when he saw Sammy and Mary Jane talking-"

Dean felt a sudden and violent stab of jealousy; he narrowed his eyes dangerously. "His name is Sam."

Matt stopped talking mid-sentence and studied Dean's face. He instantly recognized the warning for what it was because he nodded and started talking again, this time, much faster. "Yeah, sure man, that's cool…no offense meant."

Trying his best to keep himself from crack-pounding the annoying teenager into the elevator's floor out of sheer principle, Dean said, "So this son of a bitch went after my brother?"

"Yeah-"

"Over a girl?"

Matt nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. Grabbed an empty forty-ounce and cracked Sam over the head with it-"

As the pair stepped off the elevator, Dean convulsively started flexing his fingers.

A new feeling blossomed in Dean's chest, pushing whatever bitterness he was feeling directly aside.

It was fury.

Uncontained and unadulterated fury.

It rushed through his veins like scalding hot water; every nerve-ending in his body jump-started, every muscle tightened instinctively. He was subconsciously planning the ass-kicking of the century; all he needed was an outlet.

Dean's pace quickened, the flaring desire to see Sam urging him forward. Matt jogged slightly in an effort to keep up with him.

He kept on talking.

"A fight started after that, the cops showed up and everyone bailed. I didn't know how bad he was, so we didn't wait for an ambulance; a buddy and me loaded him into my car and brought him here." Matt cleared his throat slightly. "The doctor said he's got a concussion, they had to give him stitches."

That couldn't have been everything.

Dean nearly snarled, "That all?"

"Rob got a few good kicks in before I pulled him off. Sam's got a couple bruised ribs-"

Dean actually snarled this time. "Fantastic. What room?"

"306."

Hardly caring whether or not Matt was behind him, Dean found room 306 and pushed his way in.

The first thing he was aware of was the light beeping of a heart monitor. The second thing he was aware of was the sickening smell of antiseptic that he'd come to associate with hospitals.

The third and final thing he was aware of—because he couldn't stand looking at anything else— was the still sleeping form of his little brother, snuggled into a pile of scratchy hospital blankets. His face was pale, but throughout their lives, Dean had seen worse…there was a series of cuts across his right cheek and forehead, freshly stitched and covered with butterfly bandages…and a white bandage was wrapped around his head, holding a gauze pad in place over, what Dean assumed, was the concussion-causing head injury.

Moving closer to Sam's bed, he let out a breath and rested his hands on the thick plastic bedrail. "Dammit, Sammy." He whispered, near-silently, focusing his eyes on Sam's face.

Dean Winchester was not a man who was used to showing outward emotion. He just didn't do it. Chick-flick moments were the bane of existence, sentimental conversations gave him the fidgets and tears of any kind were damn near traumatizing.

It wasn't that he himself wasn't affectionate or loving, because in his own way, he was. His feelings—when he allowed them to bubble close to the surface—were fierce and unrelenting. But it wasn't often that he let people into that part of himself.

That particular part of him was guarded and protected viciously; you had to be damn special in order to get the smallest glimpse of it.

And the little twerp—who had only recently exceeded the official little brother height restriction—was one of those few special people.

Sammy was the exception to every one of Dean's rules.

Dean's emotions, at that moment, were waging war in his chest. His guilt, his fear, his love and his anger…all fighting for control of the battlefield that was his consciousness. Dean knew without a doubt that it was a tie between his love and his anger; love for the kid sleeping peacefully in the bed in front of him…and anger for the soon-to-be-dead kid that had put Sam in that bed in the first place.

Both had to be dealt with.

Dean's eyes, which had slipped closed, snapped open at the sound of a sleepy sigh coming from the lump of blankets. Sam's head had turned towards him, as if he subconsciously recognized the presence of someone familiar.

"Sammy?" Dean spoke in a quiet voice, not wanting to startle his slowly waking brother. Sam sighed again, his nose wiggling just slightly; it was a sure sign that the younger brother was starting to wake up, and the sight was recognized and cherished immediately.

Dean suddenly found himself having a flashback of a five-year-old Sammy, looking up with wide eyes from underneath his big brother's arm and asking in a shy whisper what they were going to do about the monster lurking under the bed.

The tall and lanky teenager that that adorable five-year-old had grown into was completely lost on Dean. Whenever he looked at Sam, all he saw was his baby brother; the dimply-faced kid who was waiting impatiently to grow into his feet.

"Dean?"

Dean had been so lost in his memories that he hadn't even noticed Sam's eyes tiredly flutter open…and then immediately widen.

Locking gazes with his brother for the first time in nearly twelve months, Dean instantly found himself ridiculously nervous.

He cleared his throat and nodded. "Hey, Sammy."

"Dean." The younger Winchester's voice was quiet and raspy with sleep as he shifted around slowly beneath his blankets. "What…are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" He sighed and shook his head. "So…a wide receiver, huh?"

Sam grimaced. "Matt called you."

"And he told me every little dirty detail, dude. I gotta tell you…you sure can pick 'em."

"Yeah, look whose talking."

Dean snorted and took the opportunity to look at his little brother. To really look at him.

Sam was still lanky, he was still tall…but Dean could tell that he was different.

He'd spent years watching Sam— studying every facial expression, every movement, every word and inflection of his voice—dammit, Dean could've made a career out of it if he'd wanted to. It was his responsibility to know and understand. It was his job to recognize bad moods and problems so he could fix them, and it was his job to recognize good moods and goings-on so he could celebrate them.

He was an expert, even if he had a year's worth of rust on his little brother antennae.

Nudging Sam's arm gently with his hand, he asked quietly, "How are you feelin'?"

"Ok, I guess."

"How's the head?"

"Surprisingly enough, it's still there." Sam swallowed and blinked somewhat slowly. "Kinda feels like it's gonna pop off and float away."

"Gotta love forty-ouncers-"

"Does dad even know you're here?"

And he'll be damned if those words weren't like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. It took all Dean had to keep from flinching. "Uh---" He let out an awkward breath. "What dad doesn't know won't kill him."

"So he doesn't know?"

"No, Sam, he doesn't know."

"And you're gonna explain that, how?"

The bitterness in Sam's voice hadn't gone unnoticed and Dean instantly narrowed his eyes, his muscles tensing all over again in preparation for an entirely different and far more familiar fight. "We really gonna get into this?"

Sam cast his eyes downward. "Why ignore the elephant in the room, Dean?"

"Because what's the point in talkin' about it? You left, dad's still pissed and I'm still stuck in the middle. Nothing's changed."

"A lot's changed."

Dean couldn't deny that harsh truth.

Things had changed.

Everything had changed.

The family that Dean had come to rely on for most of his life—the small threesome that was his life? It was gone. Dwindled down to two. A father and his oldest son who barely spoke, except when it came to work and the supernatural…and a youngest son, off on his own, trying to manipulate his existence into what everyone else considered normal.

Life had been a thousand times easier before Sam had decided to become his own person.

Rubbing his eyes wearily, Dean sighed. "I know that."

"You and I haven't talked in more than five months, Dean."

"I know that, Sam."

Sam swallowed hard and lowered his eyes again as Dean dropped his hands back to the bedrail and sighed helplessly.

And there was that damn elephant again, pink and polka-dotted, advertising every single thing that they didn't want to think or talk about.

It was right there, standing between them.

And it had been there since their dad had practically dared Sam to leave.

"Can I tell you something without you giving me crap for it?"

Sam's voice was small, and for a second, he sounded like he had when he was eleven and had gotten a massive mud stain on Dean's newly inherited leather jacket.

Dean found himself nodding. "Maybe, it depends."

Sam's mouth twitched just the tiniest bit and he let out a breath, twisting his fingers nervously in the blankets. Dean instinctively wanted to reach out and rub Sam's arms to get rid of the tension, but he restrained himself; things between them were tense and awkward enough without Dean getting all touchy-feely—undoubtedly— against his will.

"I'm uh-" Sam paused uncomfortably for the slightest second before dropping the bomb. "I'm glad you're here, man."

And there it was.

The little brother hiding in the long-limbed teenager.

It was the little brother that Dean missed the most; the tiny little companion that followed him everywhere he went and believed him to have every answer to every question. The innocence and the unabashed trust…the unfailing faith and confidence in big brother to make everything right.

Shutting off that part of himself had been one of the hardest things Dean had ever done—in fact, it ranked up there on his top ten list, alongside watching and letting Sam leave in the first place.

Sam had left to pursue something else…something more…and even though Dean would never admit it out loud, it felt damn good to hear that he'd been missed.

"I just…don't want you getting static from dad for comin' out here."

And just like that, the moment was destroyed.

Dean decided that silence was the best policy, pointedly ignoring Sam's words. "So, tell me." Sam looked up and met his eyes. "This...son of a bitch wide receiver that knocked you on your ass? Where is he now?"

Sam's shoulders drooped just slightly. "Why?"

"Just curious."

"Dean, I don't need you going all militant, ok?"

"Militant? What the hell does that even mean?"

"You know what it means."

"Sam, just tell me where the asshat is."

Sam sighed and shook his head. "It doesn't really matter."

"Dude." Dean frowned in annoyance. "The guy hits you over the head with a forty-ounce, and you're sayin' it doesn't matter? Is he with the cops?"

"As far as I know he's at the dorm. A cop came by this morning, said that he's probably gonna be expelled from the school."

"That's it?"

Sam looked genuinely confused. "What else did you expect?"

"Oh, I dunno. Charges up the ass. Maybe a cell-mate named Buster in the state penn? Somethin' along those lines?"

"Since when do you think cops and jail-time is the best policy?"

"Never."

Sam nodded quickly. "Exactly."

"You pressin' charges?"

"There's no point. McAllister has no criminal record, he'll get probation and community service at the most."

"How do you know that?"

"The cop told me." Sam quirked an eyebrow. "And I'm studying it, remember?"

Oh yeah, I remember.

Dean sighed, running a hand through his short hair. He could feel his anger rebuilding in his chest—wanting nothing more than to deliver his own personal brand of justice—so he tried to casually change the subject. "You still feelin' ok? That Matt kid said somethin' about bruised ribs?"

Sam shrugged a shoulder and let out a quick breath. "It's no big deal. Doc said it wasn't a problem; shortness of breath, that's about it."

"Yeah. But how do you feel?"

"I have a headache the size of Dallas, but otherwise, I'm ok."

Dean leaned forward just slightly. "You should try and get some sleep. I'm gonna go and find your doctor, find out what the hell's goin' on."

"You're gonna stick around?"

Sam's voice was small again.

It caught Dean's attention.

Looking down at the younger man's face, Dean saw it right away; the subtle need in Sam's face to know that Dean would be there whenever he woke up.

It was then that Dean realized just how exhausted Sam looked; the blue bruises underneath his eyes, how his blinking got slower and slower as he sank further into his blankets.

From a big brother to a little brother, the nod that Dean gave was as iron clad a promise as he ever could've made.

"Yeah, I'll be here."

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I'll have chapter 2 posted soon! Thanks! :)