Sucker Punch

by K Hanna Korossy

Sam goes alone to meet an old friend from college. What can go wrong?

Originally appeared in A Small Circle of Friends 15 (2012), from Neon Rainbow Press.

Based on the Sentinel episode, "Reunion"

Sucker Punch
K Hanna Korossy

"I don't know how you two managed to grow up in this car. No offense, Dean, but I've seen better leg room in a Volkswagen."

Sam Winchester grinned over his shoulder into the back seat at their old friend Bobby Singer, then at his brother Dean, who painted on a scowl. "Right," he growled. "So says the man who drives a Chevelle."

"It's not so bad," Sam chimed in, still looking way too amused. "The feeling starts coming back into your feet about an hour after you get out."

Bobby chuckled at that, and Dean gave them both a sour look. "Hey, no making fun of the Impala. And anyway, Goliath here wouldn't fit those stilts he calls legs inside a Humvee."

Sam shook his head, ignoring him effortlessly. "You sure you don't wanna switch, Bobby? There's more room up front. And a lot more hot air."

"Which is why you're stayin' up there, Goliath," Bobby retorted. It was Dean's turn to laugh, while Sam rolled his eyes. "Besides, this way I can keep my eye on you two."

"Aw, Bobby, you care," Dean chortled.

"Darn right, I care. I care about not having ice down my back and Latin porn scribbled on the back of my hat." He subsided into a grumble. "And wouldn't look right, you two not together up front."

Dean saw his brother's playful smile soften into something more heartfelt, even as he felt a lump nestle against his own Adam's apple. Sometimes he managed to forget, at least for a little while, that their dad was gone and it was just the two of them now, him and Sam. But Bobby brought back better memories of John Winchester, and Sammy seemed pretty set on sticking around this time and…sometimes it was more than Dean could grasp, the losses and gains.

He cleared his throat. "So, Sammy. This Melody, she hot?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "She's married, Dean."

"Hey, nothing wrong with window shopping."

"She's married to the town sheriff, Kent." Sam's mouth turned down a little.

Dean noticed. Hey, even Bobby noticed from the back. "Not a prize catch, huh?" the older hunter drawled.

"He's all right." Which in Sam's reluctant tones meant the guy was a jerk. "Mel just…she could've done a lot better."

"Uh-huh." Dean's mouth tugged up. "Was this before or after you met Jessica, huh?"

Sam gave him an exasperated look. "Give it up, man, she's not my type. She always thought law was too bourgeoisie. Wanted to save the world through grassroots kind of stuff—you know, activism, environmentalism…"

Dean frowned. "Boorish— What?"

Sam made a face and waved him off. "Never mind."

"So what made you two wanna meet up now?" Bobby asked from the back.

Sam shrugged his shoulders a little inside his shirt. "I don't know. I mean, we exchanged a couple of emails, but it kinda surprised me, too, when she said she wanted to get together. She didn't say why."

"Maybe she and Kent split up," Dean said hopefully. "She is meeting you at a hotel."

"Dude, you're confusing porn and reality again," Sam said flatly, then twisted around to look at Bobby. "Hey, you sure you're gonna be all right doing this hunt? I could tell Mel I'll meet her later."

"I think between our fifty-plus years combined experience, we can manage one lamia without you," Bobby deadpanned.

Dean snickered. "'Sides, if you stand your girl up, you're definitely not getting laid," he added.

"She's not—" Sam huffed, face puckering shrewishly. "Man, I don't know why I even bother."

Yeah, Dean wondered that sometimes, too. But what he said was, "Oh, come on, you know you love it."

"I hate you," Sam muttered.

"Yeah, I hate you, too," Dean agreed pleasantly.

"I'm not exactly loving you two right now, either," Bobby grunted from the back.

In all, Dean thought it was turning out to be good day.

The hotel was a couple of grades above their usual: ten stories high, a valet who backed off when Dean glared at him, and staff in actual uniforms. He and Sam had gone through their credit card stash that morning to find a card that could support a couple of nights at a place like this, if it came to it. And Dean rather hoped it would. Besides the time he'd spent with that chick Sarah, Sam was turning into a monk on him. Dean was starting to feel like a failure of a big brother.

"You got a piece on you?" Dean asked as Sam checked through his bag once more before opening the car door.

"Dean, I'm going to meet an old friend, not a werewolf," Sam said patiently.

Dean put up a finger. "That you know of. Can't ever be too careful, dude."

"No, I'm not taking a gun. But I've got my knife with me," Sam quickly added as Dean opened his mouth to protest. "And my flask, and some wards from Bobby. I'll be fine, man."

"Your cell phone charged?"

Sam turned back to look at him. "Seriously? You want to ask me if I have clean underwear, too?"

Dean made a face. "Ew, gross, no." He squinted thoughtfully. "Although, Melody might…"

Sam groaned and heaved himself out of the car. "Goodbye, Dean."

Bobby was already sliding into his place, but Dean leaned past him to yell after Sam, "Call in every three. Unless, you know, you're in the middle of something." He leered briefly. "We'll be back day after tomorrow, latest."

Sam leveled a serious look at him. "You call in, too, all right? You two are the ones going after something that eats children." He dropped his voice at the end, conscious of being in public.

Dean was tempted to a sarcastic response, but Sam looked so earnest, and it hadn't been too long since they'd said goodbye to Dad. So he just nodded, meaning it. "Yeah. And call me if you get any visions."

Sam flinched a little but nodded, then gave Dean a shadow of a smile. "Don't give Bobby too much trouble, jerk."

Dad's final words of warning about Sam flashed through his mind, but Dean ignored it, concentrated instead on the rush of love he felt for this kid. "Don't let the sheriff find you making out with his girl, bitch."

"You two finished professing your love for each other?" Bobby cut in witheringly. "'Cause I can take a walk if you're not."

Dean flushed and gave Sam a look that his brother returned. And then Sam was slamming the door shut, swinging his ever-present satchel up onto his shoulder before he headed inside.

Dean watched him as far as the door, feeling like he had years ago when he'd walk Sammy to school and send him inside, antsy over their separation.

"He'll be fine, Dean." Bobby again, no sarcasm in his voice this time, just understanding.

"Yeah," Dean breathed, and resettled in the seat. Sam would. Dean gunned the engine satisfyingly, and peeled away from the curb. "So, Bobby. You more of a Motorhead or a Black Sabbath kinda guy?"

00000

It'd been a long time since he'd been in a place this nice, let alone stayed the night. Sam shifted a little from foot to foot as he waited in line at registration, feeling out of place even in his nicest button-down and least-tattered jeans.

His gaze shifted around the maroon and gold lobby, looking for any sign of Mel, automatically noting the layout and exits. He was a little early, thanks to Dean's driving, but he'd been a hunter too long not to appreciate the chance to scope out new terrain. It also gave him something to do when it was his turn and he nervously waited for them to run his card. Or rather, Carl Poe's card.

"Everything looks good, Mr. Poe. Your room is 814—"

"Oh, uh." He gave the woman a sheepish smile. "Could I, uh, get the lowest floor you have? I'm kinda scared of heights." Sam turned on the charm to cover the lie. This was training, too, being as near the exits as possible.

The woman didn't even blink. "Of course. The second floor's undergoing renovation, but I can give you something on the third."

"That'd be good, thanks." He offered her a thin, grateful smile when he was handed a plastic key card. Sam turned away from the front desk, relieved, and glanced around once more. And saw her just coming out of the bar.

Melody Bralove—now Melody Koehler—was half-Japanese, which gave her face a hint of exoticness. With her waist-length dark hair and small figure, she'd been pursued by half of Stanford's football team back in school. Sam might've been interested in her, too, if Jessica Moore hadn't made him a total convert to leggy blondes by then. Besides, Melody only ever had eyes for jock Kent Koehler. Sam had never understood the attraction, but then, he hadn't ever really gotten what Jess had seen in him, either.

He smiled as he caught Mel's eye, and moved across the lobby to meet her.

"Hey, Mel. Good to see you." He offered her a hug, and his smile dimmed a little as she felt unusually…fragile in his arms. Almost shaky. He pulled back to look at her face.

"Hi, Sam. Thanks for coming."

Something was definitely up. Up close, the circles under her eyes were unmistakable, and Mel's face was pale and strained. Her voice was also tired, although the determination in it was the Melody Sam remembered.

She caught his concerned look and her mouth twisted. "I'll tell you everything, just…not here, all right?" Her eyes darted around the room, then returned to Sam.

She was afraid. Sam unconsciously wrapped his arm a little more around her small frame. "Yeah, sure. Uh, I got a room."

"All right." She smiled more for real this time and went with him to the elevator.

They rode up in silence, Sam trying not to catalog the changes out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't seen Mel in almost two years; she'd graduated the year before Sam's school career had come to a sudden end. She'd been engaged then, so full of passion and exuberance. Jess used to laugh and say she envied her energy. But now she looked worn, skittish, drained of life. She played with her wedding band nervously and tugged at her blouse.

On the third floor, Sam checked the numbers, then found his room about halfway down the hall. Would've been better close to the stairs, but whatever. Wasn't like he and Dean would be dragging in here in the middle of the night bloody and limping. He opened the lock, then ushered Mel inside, thinking fleetingly of what Dean would say that five minutes after they'd met, Mel was in his room. Although, even Dean knew when to stow it—usually—and would've respected a girl who was this obviously shaken up.

Inside the room, Mel took a few steps in, looking around, then turned back to Sam. Her arms had come up to hug herself, as if she missed Sam's protective half-embrace, and she looked tiny when she sank down onto the edge of the queen-sized bed. "Sam," she said softly. "I'm in trouble."

He dumped his bags haphazardly at the foot of the bed and took the chair across from her, leaning forward. "Okay. Can I do something to help?"

"I hope so." She picked at a loose thread in her jeans, which were actually more worn than Sam's. "Rebecca…she said you and your brother helped her and Zach out with something last year, and I just… I'm scared—I didn't know who else to call, Sam." She looked up at him beseechingly.

Sam shifted, hands clasping over his knees. Becky? Becky and Zach had tangled with a shapeshifter. Was Mel saying she was in the kind of trouble that Winchesters usually dealt with? "I'm glad you did," he soothed. "You wanna tell me about it?"

She took a breath. "I found out about two weeks—"

The phone beside the bed rang, startling them both. Mel actually jumped, and Sam touched her shoulder as he got to his feet, frowning, and reached for the phone. "Hello?"

"Mr. Poe?" A man's voice, formal and polite. "Could you please come down to the front desk for a moment? We've had some trouble with your credit card."

Sam cursed under his breath. Dean had sworn up and down this one was clean, and Sam's online check seemed to confirm that. Besides, it was lousy timing. "Uh, yeah, all right. I'll be right down."

This was normally the point where he and Dean would cut and run. Not like you could really explain your way out of credit card fraud, and Sam didn't have another card with Poe's name on it to switch out. Somehow he kinda thought that offering Tim Lindquist's VISA instead might raise some eyebrows.

But Mel was sitting there looking worriedly at him, and Sam found a reassuring smile for her. "It's fine, it's just the front desk. They had a question about my credit card. Uh, could you wait a few minutes while I—?"

She gave him a small smile. "Sure, yeah, no problem. I'll just wait here, okay?"

"Yeah, great. Listen, anything you want from the mini-bar or anything, just help yourself, all right?" Sam hesitated, almost at the door but hating to leave her.

Mel's smile grew, more the grin he remembered. "Just go already. I can wait five more minutes."

Sam smiled back and hurried out, making sure the door locked after him before he headed down the hallway.

He'd been half-looking for it, between Mel's nerves and his own lifetime of living on guard. But the blur of movement still took him by surprise as he rounded the corner to the elevator. Sam swung an arm up to block the attack.

But there were at least two of them, and he never even saw the blow that took him down from behind.

It didn't feel like he was out long. One moment he was going down in the hallway. The next, he was pushing himself up from the floor with a groan, the familiar feel of warm blood sticky against the side of his face and his neck.

Sam groaned, panting through the nausea as he straightened up, tilting dizzily against the wall beside him. He rubbed at his eyes, blinking to clear them.

He was back in his room. Or what looked like his room after someone had tossed the place: pictures askew, the chair he'd sat in earlier knocked over, the window cracked and the bed disheveled. And no one else in sight.

Fear cleared Sam's head in a spurt of adrenaline. "Mel?" he croaked, then cleared his throat. His head sloshed with every movement, echoed by his stomach, but Sam made himself stand, one hand against the wall for support. "Mel? Hey!" His bag's contents were scattered nearby, and Sam scanned the floor quickly, heart sinking even more when he didn't see his knife. "No no no," he muttered, pushing forward until he could glimpse the floor past the bed.

His stomach lurched as Mel's dead eyes met his eyes. Her face was frozen with fear and pain, and her hands were wrapped around…around…

Sam lurched back to the bathroom, vomiting his short-stack breakfast into the sink. Tears welled in his eyes. His knife looked obscenely large, buried in her stomach like that.

Sam's ears were ringing, his legs wobbly. This would be where Dean would be urging him to sit down and drop his head between his knees, only, Dean wasn't here. He was off on a relatively safe hunt with Bobby as backup, while Sam was on his own, a girl—oh, God, Mel—lying murdered in the other room.

Someone pounded on the door.

"Police! Open up!"

Sam groaned. Great. Someone had killed Melody, and the very people who should've been helping find the killer were not on Sam's side. Even if they didn't figure out who he was—and that wouldn't take long at all—how was he going to not be suspicious with his knife as the murder weapon?

"Open up or we'll break the door down!"

Sam pushed himself more or less upright and, hanging onto walls for balance, stumbled out of the bathroom and to the door. He fumbled it open, thrown back an unsteady step as it was immediately pushed in.

And he came face to face with a livid Kent Koehler.

The next few minutes were kind of a blur. Sam quickly found himself facedown on the bed, his arms twisted back behind him. Nothing he couldn't have gotten himself out of if he hadn't been feeling so dizzy and weak, flinching at Kent's every exclamations of grief. Every groan that came out of the sheriff was followed by an additional jerk of Sam's arms, until they strained against their sockets.

Then he was being yanked up and shoved into a righted chair on the opposite side of the bed from Melody's body. Even as Sam tried to swallow his nausea from the abrupt change of altitude, Koehler's red face swam into view, his linebacker build looming ominously.

"Carl Poe, huh? More like Winchester. What a surprise."

Sam swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth and looked the sheriff in the eye. "Kent. Wish I could say the same."

Koehler's face twisted into a bitter grin. "Mel didn't mention she'd be meeting you, or I could've warned her you were trouble. Been keeping an eye on you and your brother for a while now—Dean, right? Too bad he kicked off a while back and can't share the blame. But I guess you can take on one helpless woman by yourself, huh, tough guy? Just couldn't help yourself, could you, Winchester."

Sam shook his head wearily. "Kent, man, I'm sorry about Mel, really. But I didn't kill her. Somebody knocked me out first."

"Right." Blunt fingers jabbed at the side of his head, making Sam's vision swim and drawing a hiss from him. "Looks to me like Mel got a few licks in. She always was a fighter, my girl."

Sam was about to answer—not that he had a lot to say in his defense—when he noticed the other two men in the room, uniformed deputies, were filing out, leaving him and Kent alone. Which Sam was pretty sure wasn't standard procedure. Neither was the lack of cuffs on him if he was under arrest, which he was really sure he was. Sam's throat bobbed, a suspicious warning tickling the back of his mind.

The door swung shut behind the deputies. Kent seemed to be waiting for the click, then he straightened up, hand casually on his gun. And a smile on his face that didn't look very grief-stricken anymore. "I guess she told you everything, huh? I tried to stop her, but you know Mel, always has—had—to do the right thing. Too bad it got her killed." He drew the gun, icy blue eyes tight. The cold eyes, Sam realized with a rush of heat, of a guy who was capable of murdering his wife. "And you. Shouldn't've tried to escape custody, Winchester."

Sam had always been quiet at school. He'd avoided confrontations rather than fought them out and kept his peace when the occasional insult drifted his way. At the time, he thought he'd just been rejecting his father and brother's violent way of life. It had taken the clarity of hindsight to realize he'd been scared and uncertain in that new world of college life, and unused to being without backup.

And that he'd never stopped being John Winchester's boy, lulling others into false superiority. Kent Koehler probably thought he was some soft, helpless geek. And, well, Sam was one out of three on that one.

Sam shot off the chair already swinging.

Koehler reacted faster than he'd expected, his dodge allowing Sam's fist to only graze his head instead of plowing into it. Still, it threw the sheriff off, and he tumbled back, the gun jostled from his grasp.

He wasn't helpless, though. He pulled his leg up instantly, kicking Sam back when Sam would've gone down after him.

They probably only grappled for a few seconds, even though time always slowed when you were fighting for your life. Sam knew he got one good blow in, and managed to avoid the worst of Koehler's clumsy returns, but his head was not in the best shape already and he was slower and less powerful than usual. Koehler was gaining ground.

The gun. It was his best chance. Sam reached for it, and felt Kent jerk him back, landing him painfully onto his stomach. Sam instantly rolled over, grabbing the arms that were reaching for him and putting all his effort into flipping the big man.

Koehler flew over his head, hitting the ground hard. Squarely on top of the gun.

His deputies were probably close. Not to mention that Sam wasn't ready to play judge and executioner and kill the man. He had to get out of there, hide and regroup with Dean, figure out what to do about this. The gun would've helped, but he wasn't about to risk the opening he had. Sam scooped up his cell from the floor and ran for the door, listening to Kent stirring behind him.

Amazingly, there was no one in the hallway. Surely he couldn't be this lucky? Sam took two steps toward the stairs.

He thought he'd been shoved for a second as he skewed sideways into the wall, blinking in confusion. Then the fading sound registered, and he glanced down to see red starting to spread over his right thigh. Sam almost laughed in disbelief. Kent had shot him, through the door.

It didn't hurt yet, just felt numb and tight and weak. The pain would come soon enough. And by then, Sam had to be long gone or Kent would make sure the next bullet was someplace a lot more lethal.

Dean, man, now would be good time to show up.

But Dean wasn't there. Sam hobbled quickly down the hall on his own, cursing the distance to the stairs now, in too much of a hurry to even stem the bleeding. Hopefully he could find someplace to hide before he started to drip a blood trail.

He couldn't help wishing now he'd gone along on that milk-run little hunt, after all.

00000

Bobby, unsurprisingly, was no Sam when it came to traveling companions.

The older hunter hadn't lasted through all of "Stairway to Heaven" before he'd ejected the tape with a growl and started scanning through the local radio stations. Dean's argument of driver picking the music had been shot down with a glare, and he'd been the one shutting his cakehole instead. It was hard when Bobby settled on classical music—classical—and sat back to listen.

Dean's attempts at conversation had been about as successful. And when Bobby had said something about John, it was Dean who'd shut him down. In all, it was looking to be a long trip, and Dean swallowed a sigh and tried to imagine what Sam was doing instead. Especially since Melody had sounded totally hot despite Sam's efforts to downplay her looks.

The ringing of his cell phone was a mercy, and Dean felt his spirits rise when he saw Sam on the phone's screen. He turned the radio down with a totally fake look of apology at Bobby—which, if Singer's glare was anything to go by, the older hunter saw right through—and flipped his phone open with a grin.

"Hey, dude, miss us already? Don't tell me she stood you up."

Sam was breathing wrong; Dean heard it immediately. He'd been listening to the guy all his life, and these short, sharp pants were definitely not happy sounds. Out of breath, maybe, but possibly in pain, even panic.

Dean's eyebrows turned down. "Sam? What's wrong? Talk to me."

"Dean… She's dead."

Dean pulled the car onto the gravel shoulder as cold settled over him, an ugly déjà vu to a year ago. Sam had often woken from nightmares disoriented and in tears, murmuring those same words over and over: She's dead. She's dead, Dean. But he didn't think they were talking about Jessica this time. "Who, Melody? What happened? Are you all right?"

"Kent killed her. Something was wrong—she was scared, man. He knocked me out and killed Mel."

"Whoa, wait." Dean put up a hand, as if Sam were there to see it. Bobby had leaned forward to listen, but Dean ignored him. "He knocked you out? Sam, are you okay? Are you safe?"

There was a pause. Then, breathlessly, "I kinda got shot. In the leg."

Dean cursed briefly out loud and at creative length silently as he slammed his foot on the gas, swinging the car around in a tight arc to head back the way they'd come. Which had been…what, an hour ago, ninety minutes? How could Sam get into that much trouble so friggin' fast? "Sam, are you safe?" he barked into the phone.

"'M all right. I'm off the kitchen—it'll take 'em a while to find me… Dean, man, he killed her with my knife."

Dean's mouth twisted. Awesome. As if Sam didn't have enough bad memories and weight of guilt to carry around. "Yeah, well, don't take this the wrong way, Sammy, but some of your Stanford pals suck."

Sam barked a laugh. He sounded a little high, like he did when he was hurting, and more than a little scared, and Dean's grip tightened on the phone. "You're just jealous, man."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean snorted. The kicker was, sometimes he had been. But not now. "Listen to me, did you get the bleeding stopped? You gonna be okay until we get back there?"

"I know first aid, Dean."

Now that was the petulant Sam he knew. Dean almost smiled. "Okay. How's the head? You seeing two of everything?"

"…not 'nymore." There was a soft groan as Sam moved.

Oh so reassuring. Not. "Hang in there, Sammy." Dean wanted to make it an order, but that always just made Sam mulish, so he softened it into a plea. "Is there someplace you can hole up until we get there?"

He listened to Sam's painful breathing for a few moments. "They're…renovating the second floor."

"Perfect." Dean nodded his approval. "Get up there, keep out of sight, and try not to bleed on everything. Bobby 'n me'll be there soon."

"Dean?"

Sam sounded…young. Dean bit his lip. "I'm here."

"I didn't mean it, man. 'Bout being jealous. You know?"

Dean swore at that moment to beat Kent Koehler's face in. "Yeah, Sammy. I know. Hang up now—we'll call you when we get there."

There was a sound of assent, then the line disconnected.

Dean's jaw bunched, fingers curled over his closed cell. "Lamia's gonna have to wait." He tossed the phone to Bobby as he pressed the gas harder. "Sam's in trouble."

Bobby, wisely, didn't argue, not even when Dean shoved his tape back in and turned the volume up high.

00000

The relief that Dean was on his way was so profound that Sam coasted on it for a while, mind slipping out of gear. But the shocked numbness of the initial injury had been giving way to increasingly burning, pulsing pain up and down his leg, and sweat trickled along his spine as he fought it down.

The distant banging of doors and yells yanked Sam with a soft groan back to the here and now. He had to get out of there, before Dean returned to find him in a body bag. Second floor—that was only two flights up, right? Piece of cake.

He just had to stand first.

Sam began to ease himself up, letting his arms pull and push most of his body weight, locking his jaw against the sounds of pain that wanted to spill out. The first thing he'd done after reaching the kitchen had been to cannibalize his button-down into a makeshift bandage, trying to get it tight enough to stop the bleeding without actually cutting off the blood supply to his leg. It had turned completely red nonetheless, blood still seeping out even as Sam had sat, and he felt fresh warmth as he moved now. Correspondingly, a wave of lightheadness passed through him, making him weave in place, and his skin prickled with cold. Blood loss: he had to get out of there and someplace safe so he could put his leg up and rest a little. Turn Dean loose on this mess Sam had gotten himself into, and the thought that would have bruised his pride hours before, only brought comfort now.

He tested his weight on the leg, face crumpling a little at the flashburn that zinged all the way to his feet. But the voices were getting closer and he didn't have a lot of options. Hop-limping, Sam moved toward the door of the pantry.

Where the handle was just moving as someone started to open the door from the other side.

Cursing his slowness and lousy luck, Sam's eyes darted around the small room. He was looking for a weapon, and was surprised to find instead an escape: a square door set halfway up into the wall. Had to be an old hotel to have a dumbwaiter, but Sam wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The door began to swing open.

He reacted without thinking, shoving the nearest wire shelf of canned goods at the door. It fell against it heavily, slamming the door shut and knocking back whoever was on the other side. Sam heard exclamations, then banging, but the shelf was now a heavy prop against the door. Praying it would hold long enough, Sam turned and lunged for the dumbwaiter.

It was a tight fit for his six-four frame, and the amount of stretching and squeezing that it took to fold his bad leg in left him bathed in a cold sweat and moaning on every breath, but he finally fit, then reached out and pushed the button and slid the door down after him.

He bumped along slowly, imagining pursuit at any moment.

The small lift finally stopped at Three, as Sam had intended. There'd be no refuge on the second floor if Kent saw that was where the dumbwaiter had stopped. Sam was taking a chance as it was, going back to the floor his room had been on, but it was either that or traveling two or more flights of stairs down to the second floor where he was to meet Dean, and Sam was pretty sure he wasn't up for that.

He was cautious as he slid the door open, half-expecting someone with a gun to be waiting on the other side. Luck seemed to have befriended him for once, however, and the alcove by the stairs that he looked out onto was deserted and quiet. Chewing his lip to keep from making a sound, Sam pried himself out of the dumbwaiter and promptly collapsed to the floor.

Tears swam in his eyes. Man, that hurt.

His thoughts wandered for a moment, back to the mangled remains of the Impala. Dad had sat beside him, shot in almost the same place Sam was now, unconscious. And Dean, so still in the back seat, face peaceful as it hadn't been when Sam had first loaded him back there, bloody and broken by their possessed father's attack. For a minute, Sam had been completely and terrifyingly certain he was the last survivor of his family.

And now he was threatening Dean with that same fate.

Choking on the pain and bile that rose in his throat, Sam pulled first his arms under him, then his good leg. He could do this. He would do this. He was a Winchester, taught by John and Dean to never give up, not on yourself and especially not on your family. He'd do this, for Dean if nothing else.

He couldn't control the silent tears of pain, nor his harsh breathing. But Sam didn't make another sound as he staggered into the stairwell and made his way to sanctuary to wait for his brother.

Not seeing the blood he left behind on the stairway door.

00000

Dean's heart was already somewhere near his boots, but it managed to sink a little lower when he pulled up to the hotel and saw the collection of police cars parked haphazardly in front of it.

"Crap," Bobby echoed his thoughts quietly beside him. "You think they found him?"

Dean's eyes scanned the crowd of uniforms, noting the tension, the ambulance that sat empty and silent. "No." He shook his head, hope held tight. "He'd be out here in a bag if they had."

Bobby nodded. "How do you wanna play this?"

That was a good question. They both had a dozen IDs that could be useful in a situation like this. But anything official would mean an escort and time wasted on explanations and delay that Sam couldn't afford. Dean looked over at his old friend and twisted his mouth up into a humorless grin. "I hear there's good fishing around here, Dad."

Bobby's eyebrows rose, but the old man wasn't slow on the uptake. Nor unaware of the significance of what Dean was offering. His "I'll go grab our bags, son" was only part ironic, part emotion that clogged Dean's throat a second. He just nodded and slid out of the car.

Two uniforms looked up as the two of them approached the front door of the hotel, and Dean put on his best wide-eyed innocent look. "Something wrong, officers?" he asked. Always take the lead, John had taught them. Throw the enemy off, make them react to you instead of the other way around.

"You two staying here?" one of the officers asked politely in response. Neither was named Koehler nor had sheriff's badges, Dean noted.

Bobby took that one. "Got kind of a late start for the day. Told this one you have to go after the fish early or you'll end up with a whole lotta nothing, but you know kids." Dean put on an appropriately sheepish look. "Thought we'd stop here for the night. Something happen?"

"Nothing we haven't got under control," a smooth voice interrupted. "But there's another place about ten miles up the road, why don't you try there?"

Dean turned and eyed the new speaker. He was a good ten years younger than the deputies, but his uniform and bearing told Dean he was the guy in charge. The nameplate just confirmed what Dean had already guessed. Eyes dead, he smiled at the man who'd tried to kill Sam. "We'd like to, but…well, Dad's got this thing with his leg…he gets back in that car and I'm never gonna pry him out again, you know?" He grinned at Bobby, got an eye roll back, but Bobby subtly shifted his weight so he was standing hipshot now, grimacing slightly as if in pain. "He's gotta lie down a little. We'll stay out of the way, whatever's going on."

Koehler was watching him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Dean felt himself sweat a little under the gaze; it wasn't that long ago he'd been a wanted man. But one benefit of being supposedly dead was that people stopped looking for you, even if they thought you looked familiar. And Dean kinda doubted Sam had showed off family pictures to the guy, anyway. He did his best to look innocent and clueless, and felt a vicious satisfaction as the sheriff's face eased.

"Yeah, all right. Just try to stay in your rooms, folks. We've got an investigation going on here."

Dean nodded, feeling Bobby's tightly mirrored motion. They were both humming with tension, anxious to find Sam and spoiling for a fight, and he was suddenly grateful to have Bobby there backing him up. "Yes, sir," Dean said, barely respectful, then took Bobby's elbow. "Come on, Dad."

If the local police department didn't take him down, Bobby Singer just might after all this.

They got a room for appearances' sake, then headed for the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Dean was dialing.

"Dean?"

Sam sounded weaker, his voice wrecked with pain. Dean threw Bobby a grimace, then half-turned away, as if he could give his brother some privacy for his suffering. "We're here, Sam. Where are you?"

"Two-twelve."

Dean glanced up at the numbers, which were just ticking up to three. "Got it. We'll be there in a minute—don't shoot us, okay?"

"Don'…have a gun." But there was a soft humor in Sam's voice that even injury hadn't squelched.

"Okay, well, then don't fall on us or anything. Bobby's kinda delicate."

Bobby growled something very indelicate next to him, and Dean's mouth twitched despite the situation. The elevator ding-ed on four, and the doors began to open.

"Hang on, brother," Dean said quickly, and snapped the phone shut.

There was a young couple a few doors down, struggling with an apparently defective key card. They didn't even give Dean and Bobby a glance. The two hunters headed for the stairs.

Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, fast and regular. Probably men looking for Sam, Dean thought tensely, and he waited until their echo faded before pushing the door open. Glancing back at Bobby, whose dark eyes were only sober and concerned now, they silently eased downstairs.

The second floor was empty, only dimly lit and with some tarps and ladders scattered along its length. Still, Dean moved cautiously, even as his heart yanked him hard toward 212. He couldn't get there soon enough, but glanced around one more time before he knelt to examine the lock.

The door was ajar. Not enough to be obvious to any but a close glance, but enough that the lock hadn't engaged. Pulling in a breath, Dean pushed the door open.

Nothing. More tarps, a few boxes, and a couple of cans of paint, but no signs of life. "Sam?" he whispered harshly.

And then a tousled brown head peered around the corner of the small entry hall, and Dean felt his lungs expand for the first time in too long.

Two strides took him to Sam, just in time to grab his brother's arms as Sam began to slide down the wall. A nest of tarps, some streaked with blood, showed where he'd been waiting, and he clutched his cell in one hand and a paint roller in the other, probably a desperate attempt at a weapon. They both clattered to the floor as he relaxed into Dean's grip.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean murmured, momentarily not a hunter or a ticked-off protector or even a tough adult, just a big brother. He could feel Sam shaking, saw the utter exhaustion in the kid's face. When Sam sagged a little more, Dean moved an arm down to his waist and held him tighter, just feeling him breathe for a minute. Promising Sam he was there and himself that he wasn't too late.

"'M okay," Sam sighed back, but one of his hands twitched up to Dean's jacket, and he leaned heavily against his brother.

"Yeah, I can see that," Dean said dryly, even as he shifted to balance Sam's weight. Pulling back would've sent him toppling, so Dean more or less lowered them both to the floor, easing Sam down against the tarps and the wall. With the help of that extra support, he could free one hand to cup Sam's jaw, studying his face and especially his eyes a moment, then sliding up into the shaggy hair. Both of them flinched at the lump Dean found. He left his hand there as he sat back on his heels and took in Sam's leg next, feeling along the damp dressing both front and back, checking the pulse in Sam's ankle, then palpating up his thigh to his hip. The bleeding was only mostly stopped, and the loss of blood had taken a substantial toll, Sam's face waxy and cool. The pain had to be nudging him into shock, too, and those two would get him long before any kind of infection set in. Dean had to get him out of there.

Yeah, past a dozen cops all gunning for them. No problem.

Sam's eyes were dull and heavy, but they watched Dean's every move. He looked…completely trusting. Dean had practically gotten their dad killed, had punched Sam not long ago for daring to talk about him, and had kept from him the horrific final instructions about Sam that John had laid on Dean before his death…but he still trusted Dean to fix this.

It didn't really make sense to Dean how he felt both terrified and fortified by that trust.

"Seen you looking better, kid," came the low voice behind him, and Dean started, almost having forgotten Bobby was there.

Sam's eyes slid to Dean's left, a pale smile curling his mouth. "Hey, Bobby. Sorry 'bout th' hunt."

Bobby snorted. "Your brother has lousy taste in music, anyway."

Dean interjected the requisite insulted "hey," but his attention was already fully back on Sam. "Let's take care of that leg, dude, then we'll figure out how to get you out of here." He shifted his weight, reaching for the piled tarps, and found a surprisingly strong grip around his wrist.

"He has to pay, Dean," Sam said thickly. "Kent. He can't get away with this."

Dean shook his head. "He's not," he vowed, even though he knew they were talking about two different things. Sam's heart was bleeding over his dead friend, and Dean got that. But his only priority now was his brother, and the son of a bitch who'd done this to him. In that order.

Together, Dean and Bobby collected all the tarps and got them folded up to make a more-or-less comfortable pallet for Sam. The injured man lay back with a sigh, eyes sinking shut, and Dean squeezed his forearm once before focusing on the leg.

Normally, you weren't supposed to mess with field bandages at the risk of starting the bleeding again. But Sam had most of his shirt bunched awkwardly around the limb and it wasn't doing the job. Dean got to work easing off the makeshift pressure wrap as carefully as possible, while Bobby unpacked the first aid kit he'd brought up in their bags.

Sam's fingers curled into the tarps, throat working under a sheen of clammy perspiration.

Dean made a face. "Easy, kiddo." He and Bobby dampened the last layer of the ruined shirt to unglue it as painlessly as possible. "Dude, only you would go meet a hot girl and end up with a bullet instead."

Sam was panting through his teeth. "Talla-ahassee," he grunted out. "Roanoke. Denver. That girl…Pas'r Jim's parish."

"Right," grumbled Dean. "Half bled out, and you still remember all that. But, man, Roanoke was so not my fault. She said she was single!"

Sam groaned a laugh.

"Hang in there," Dean soothed. He'd gotten the shirt off and sliced Sam's jeans up to his hip. "Bobby?"

"Through-and-through," Singer concurred with a cursory exam. "Looks like it was going slow by the time it hit him—exit wound's not too bad."

"Feels…like it," Sam exhaled, a shudder running through his body. His bangs were stuck to his forehead, and his chest stuttered up and down.

"Hey, Bobby," Dean said quietly. "You think you can…?"

"Sure." The hunter slid into his place as Dean moved up, shaking Sam's fist loose of the tarp and wrapping it around his own hand. He used the leverage to lift Sam a little to offer him some water but didn't let go after.

His knees nudged into Sam's ribs, and Sam rolled a little closer to him. He hadn't stopped shivering since Dean had gotten there, his undershirt damp from perspiration even in the temperate room. Dean pulled his own denim jacket off, then the flannel shirt he had on over his tee, and began working Sam's arms into it like when he'd been little. "Told you school was bad for your health, dude," Dean chided softly, rolling him just enough to get the clothing around him. "You wanna tell me what exactly happened?" He started on the buttons, brushing away Sam's fumbling attempt to do it.

Sam launched into the story with halting words, sometimes fading briefly, sometimes interrupted by a gasp or a stifled cry as Bobby worked. Dean looked away long enough to see that Singer was doing as good a job as possible on the ragged, bloody holes in Sam's leg given the supplies they had, then focused on his brother's face again. Melody's death clearly hurt Sam at least as much as the bullet had, and Dean's hatred of Kent Koehler grew a little with every line of Sam's story.

Dean combed the kid's hair back from his damp forehead to keep him grounded as Sam started to drift near the end. "Hey." He patted Sam's cheek, grinning when he peeled his eyes open to glare at Dean. Then grew serious again. "Listen, I think you're right about being safe here for now. You stay put and rest, and Bobby and I'll figure this thing out, okay? We'll get you out of here, Sam."

Sam's eyes were open wide now and scared. He clearly didn't want Dean to go anymore than Dean wanted to leave. But he felt a shot of pride as Sam visibly pulled himself together. "Yeah," he muttered. "Okay. Be careful." He dragged his hand out of Dean's and wrapped it in the flannel shirt instead.

He was still trembling. Dean grimaced and shucked off his jacket again, this time laying it over Sam as well. The gesture felt a little sappy, but when Sam immediately clamped his hand around the collar and curled into the warmth, Dean felt a wave of relief that he could leave his brother at least that small bit of comfort.

Still, he looked his incapacitated brother over uncertainly, then his leg. Bobby had swathed it in layers of gauze and propped it up with his own bunched jacket, and the bandage was pristine so far. There was a water bottle by Sam's head. Dean pressed the cell into his open hand and his own handgun into his pocket, and he was resting as comfortably and hidden as possible. This was good.

This sucked.

"I'll be back," he promised quietly, squeezing Sam's shoulder, bowled over again at the trust he saw in his brother's eyes. "Gotta come back for my jacket, right?"

Sam smirked. "Dude, Arnold?"

"Hey, no making fun of Arnold," Dean warned.

Sam just huffed at that.

Dean rested a hand on the denim, over his brother's steadily beating heart. "Don't go anywhere without me, Sam," he said huskily. "I mean it."

Sam nodded a little, already dozing.

Yeah, Dean thought as he made himself climb to his feet and follow Bobby out of the room, leaving his injured and vulnerable brother behind. Sucked summed it up pretty well.

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There weren't a lot worse feelings than being helpless, in pain and alone.

But he wasn't really alone, Sam reminded himself, sinking further into Dean's jacket. His brother was there now, and Bobby, and they were working to fix this mess. Maybe Dean wasn't in the room with Sam, but he was there.

But, crap, Sam still wanted his brother.

Sam's hand clenched and loosened convulsively around his cell. He'd known all through his time in college that if he called, Dean would answer and come. He'd wondered since if Dean had known the reverse. Or if Sam would even have answered if Dean had called. Not out of disinterest—never that—but out of fear of what he'd hear. Sorry, Sam, the hunt went bad… Endless variations of that call haunted his nightmares even now.

Dean, however, always came. For selfless reasons, just because Sam needed him, but maybe, Sam thought now, maybe for selfish ones, too. Maybe he also wanted to be with Sam. It wasn't a weakness to want the company of your loved ones, after all, especially when you were hurting. For all Dean hadn't been talking to him or sometimes even looking at him since Dad's death, he also hadn't been farther than shouting distance in all that time. It was just human nature to want the comfort of your brother when you were in pain. Didn't make Sam a hopeless little brother or anything.

Well, okay, between him and the wall, maybe just a little.

The distant sounds of banging and voices reached him.

Sam frowned. Dean and Bobby couldn't be back already. They'd just left… He squinted at the cell's screen, giving up when he realized he could neither read the numbers nor knew when Dean had left. But it hadn't been long, he was pretty sure. And they wouldn't be that loud, anyway. This was something else.

Danger.

Sam rolled onto his side, then pushed gingerly up, reluctantly letting Dean's jacket pool around his waist. Even that much exertion had him sweating and panting anyway. He managed to get his weight up on the knee of his good leg, then more or less clumsily crawl toward the door, bad leg dragging to the side like a wounded dog's. Sam's head was swimming as he finally reached the entrance, burning pain stabbing deep into his thigh muscles with each breath, and he swallowed against rising nausea. The voices were louder here, though, and there wasn't any time left to spare. Choking back his deep, hoarse breaths, Sam cracked the door open and peered out.

Three uniforms were crowded around the stairwell down the hall. Even from there, Sam could see a blur of red on the door between them, and silently cursed. He'd left a trail after all. Already one of the officers had moved to the nearest room door and was trying the lock. It would only be a matter of time before they searched all the rooms on the floor.

Sam eased the door silently shut again and sank back against the wall. Great. Just great. What was he going to do now? His eyes trailed disconsolately over the room, the locked back window that was two stories up, the dead-end bathroom.

The ventilation grill on the wall.

By the time the door opened again, the room was empty.

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He hadn't really expected to find anything in Sam's room, but Dean was still disappointed to be right.

Melody's body had already been removed, but the large bloodstain on the carpet showed where she'd died. A smaller patch of blood at the end of the small entry hall and the lingering odor of vomit in the bathroom told Sam's story. Dean's lips thinned. Sam had a few inches on the sheriff, but Koehler was broader and heavier. He'd managed to take Sam down, even if only because the kid had probably been in shock; Melody wouldn't have had a chance. Attacking Sam was bad enough, but to kill your own wife, the one person you were supposed to protect? Kent was going down, Dean swore it.

He finished his cursory exam of the room, finding nothing else helpful, glancing out the window as he passed it. Then frowning and looking again.

Koehler stood on the sidewalk below, talking with a guy in a suit. They were hunched in toward each other, their postures secretive and totally suspicious.

Interesting. Dean moved swiftly toward the room door. He had another ten minutes before he was supposed to meet Bobby back at 212; Singer had gone down to the car for a few more "supplies." That gave Dean enough time to try to figure out what Koehler's little powwow was about.

He was halfway through the lobby when he caught sight of another familiar face.

"Trudy?" His stride faltered, face creasing in puzzlement.

The girl slumped on the lobby sofa looked up, blinked, then straightened. "Dean? Dean Winchester?"

Seriously, what were the chances of another of Sam's Stanford buddies showing up here? They were in the middle of Arizona, for Pete's sake, not exactly in the neighborhood of Palo Alto. Dean didn't believe in coincidence, especially not when he saw Trudy's drawn face. He sat down on the couch next to her. "Hey. Let me guess—you were coming here to meet Melody."

He was surprised to see wariness flicker through her face…but then, maybe not so much, considering what had happened to Melody. "Yeah, actually. Before she…" Trudy bit her lip. "How did you know? Is…is Sam really here?"

So, she already knew the official story about who'd killed Melody Koehler. Dean rubbed his forehead, glancing around the lobby. He was probably too late to catch Koehler and his sidekick now, and he had precious few other leads to go on. And Sam had always trusted Trudy, Dean's instincts backing that up. He turned back to the girl. "Sam's…around. He didn't hurt Melody, Trudy."

She searched his face a moment, looking for something, then seemed to pull herself together with a nod. "Yeah, I know. And I know who did, and why."

Dean's eyebrows climbed. Okay, so maybe he could be a few minutes late to meet Bobby. "Sweetheart," he said soberly, "we need to talk."

Almost fifteen minutes later, Dean was tucked into the shadows at the end of the second floor, chewing on his lip as he watched the room-by-room search going on down the hall. The small knot of officers was already past 212 and they were still looking, so they hadn't found Sam. Which was great, but…why not?

"Well, that don't look good."

Bobby's murmur behind him didn't come as a surprise; Dean had been following the old man's approach since the stairwell door had ghosted open thirty seconds before. He doubted anyone else would've caught it, though. "They didn't find him," he responded, voice low.

"You think he changed rooms?"

He thought of Sam lying shaking and weak on the room floor, and Dean's unease grew. "Yeah, maybe," he said, unconvinced.

The searchers turned the corner, still audible but no longer in sight.

Dean crept forward, Bobby at his heels. The door to 212 was propped open just as the others were, and in seconds he and Bobby were inside.

Empty. The bathroom was pristine, and even the pile of tarps had been rearranged so the blood was hidden. Which was a good sign Sam hadn't been taken against his will, for all the freaking good it did. Dean kicked the pile of covers, then turned away from the evidence of Sam's absence with a frustrated growl. "Where is he?"

Bobby was eyeing the window but turned back to Dean. "Maybe he cleared out before they got here? Made it up or down a floor."

Dean shook his head. There would've been no reason for Sam to leave, not where they'd thought him safe, not where he expected to meet Dean again, not in his condition. Not unless the cops were closing in, and by then it would've been too late to leave the room. Dean pulled his phone out as his eyes swept the room once more, starting to dial Sam.

Something caught his gaze, and Dean frowned as he stepped closer. "Bobby."

The other hunter hurried to his side, just as Dean reached to pull free the sagging ventilation grate from the wall. The screws lay just inside the duct; the grill had been reattached by…

Paper tape. The kind Bobby had used on the bandages on Sam's leg. It hadn't held long, but the grate had been wedged tight into the opening and the tape had apparently held just enough. Dean felt a proud grin tug at his mouth.

And then he saw the smudges of blood along the inside of the ventilation tunnel, marking his injured brother's trail. Dean cringed, muttering a curse, and lifted the cell again.

"Wait." Bobby's hand closed around it. "It gets worse. Saw your buddy Koehler when I went out to car. He was talking to some guy in a suit, and I got close enough to hear what they were saying. They're getting desperate to find Sam, think he knows what Melody was up to that got her killed. Dean," Bobby's eyebrows pulled together, "if they don't find him soon, they're going to Plan B. They're gonna smoke him out."

Dean stared at him blankly. "Smoke? You mean like, Towering Inferno smoke him out?"

Bobby ducked his head. "They're willing to kill to keep their secret—you think burning down a building's gonna make 'em think twice?"

No, Dean sagged, he didn't. He suddenly felt the exhaustion and lurking panic of those past few months return to crush him under their weight. Sammy was bleeding out somewhere in ten stories' worth of ventilation system, the hotel was about to burn down, cops with itchy trigger fingers were guarding every exit, and Dean had to come up with the plan to get them safely out. And Dad, his backup, his failsafe, his rescuer, was gone.

"Dean," Bobby said gently.

Dean shook it off. He didn't have time for a panic attack. He gave Bobby what he at least intended as a smile and half-turned to finish dialing his cell.

He'd made sure Sam's was set on vibrate before he'd left, but Dean still held his breath as it rang two, three, four times. It went to voicemail. He swore and redialed, eyes flicking from Bobby's worried face and away again as he held his breath. One ring, two, three—

Then the line was open, but only labored breathing came across.

"Sam?" Dean said softly.

A few seconds ticked by, each marked by a new twist of Dean's gut, before Sam wheezed back, "Dean?"

"Hey," Dean sighed in relief, meeting Bobby's eyes again. "Just couldn't wait for us, huh?"

Sam's breath was a sob; the kid had to be near the end of his rope. "They were…they were coming."

"I know." He said it gently. "I'm gonna come get you, man, all right? Where are you, Sammy?"

There was a soft clank, like Sam had shifted and struck metal. Still in the ducts then. "Don' know." Sam sounded blurred, unsure. "Dean, somethin'…something's wrong with m'leg. It hurts."

God. Dean swallowed, gripped the phone tighter, and dropped his head, shaking it a little. "Yeah, little brother, I got that. Let's get you out of here first and then I'll take care of your leg, all right? Just…stop where you are and wait for me. Dude, can you see any markings around you, any signs?"

Each time Sam spoke, there was a delay, like he was trying to make sense of Dean's words, or gather the strength for his own. "Not 'xactly lot to…see here, man."

Dean barked a surprised laugh at the moment of levity, realizing, duh, Sam was probably in pitch black wherever he was. "Yeah, all right. Just stay there and I'll find you, okay?"

"Always do." Sam sounded distant, like he was talking to himself, or maybe didn't even know he was talking. "Always…"

"Hang in there, Sam," Dean whispered, then snapped his phone shut. He pressed it for a second to his mouth before he turned back to face Bobby. "He's not gonna make it out of there on his own. You got the flashlight?"

Bobby silently held out the MagLite to him, face creased with worry. "If you find him, head for the kitchen on the first floor," he told Dean gruffly. "That's gonna be our best bet to get him out."

Dean nodded distractedly as he double-checked his weapons, his phone, trying not to think about the small space he was about to crawl into. "Where're you gonna be?"

"I don't know what kinda secret the sheriff's hiding, but he's probably got the whole department duped. So I'm calling in reinforcements." Dean frowned up at him, and Bobby smiled just a little. "What, you think nobody in the FBI knows what we really do?"

Oh. Dean breathed a laugh. "You've been holding out on me, Bobby." Which reminded him, "And yeah, I'm thinking the Feds are gonna be interested in a sheriff whose been looking the other way while the local factory's been dumping sludge in the water for the last decade. The suit he was talking to's probably a factory exec or something."

Bobby's face creased. "You're kidding me. That's what this is about, a couple of two-headed frogs?"

Dean shook his head, gaze darkening. "It's not just that. There's a whole possible friggin' cancer epidemic going on in the area's kids," he added darkly.

Bobby cocked his head. "You got some proof of that?"

Dean tried out the light. "There's a girl named Trudy in the lobby. Tell her I sent you."

Bobby nodded. "All right, then, I'll take care of this end. You just go take care of your brother."

That made him scoff. "Dude, story of my life." But he wasn't really complaining.

As Dean took a breath and boosted himself up into the duct that would lead him to Sam, all he felt was worry.

00000

The metal under his cheek was hot.

Sam groaned, shifting away from the discomfort, but there was no relief. The furnace had turned on at some point, and heat was being pumped through the narrow duct he lay in. Every breath he took, every surface he touched was scorching. The chills of before had become a distant, insubstantial memory.

"Dean?" It came out as cracked and dry as his skin felt. He was pretty sure he'd twisted back at one point where the tunnel widened, trying to head back to where he'd last seen Dean, but he had no idea where he was anymore. He had been talking to his brother before, hadn't he? Now, however, there was only silence. Dark, silent burning. Maybe this was Hell?

Sam groaned, shifting, bumping into hot metal walls wherever he turned. It felt like a coffin, but coffins weren't hot, were they? And why would he be in a coffin when he was hurting so badly? You didn't hurt when you were dead. Unless you were in Hell. A coffin in Hell?

Sam huffed a laugh that turned into a brittle cough. His lungs felt like they were baking.

He stirred again, seeking relief, but that was a bad idea. Something was stabbed through his leg, something sharp and flaming and… God. Everything was melting him, charring him, cooking him. Was this how Jess had felt? Where Dad was now?

"Dean…" He moaned it, tugging at the jacket he'd dragged along with difficulty but couldn't seem to let go. Sam's head dropped back to the simmering metal of the duct, tears evaporating before they even left his eyes.

He missed…he wanted…he hurt…

"Sam?"

It echoed around him, eerie enough that Sam blinked languidly into the dark, not sure he was imagining, wishing too hard. His hair was dried stuck to his eyelashes, tickling him unseen. Dean said he wanted him to cut it but Sam didn't think he really did because Dean was always ruffling and pulling and shoving back his hair and he'd probably miss it if he couldn't do that anymore. Sam would, anyway.

"Sammy? You hear me?"

His eyes burned, too, but not from the heat. He'd tried so hard to replace his family with friends at school, to find support and love and contentment to restore what he'd lost. And he'd found all that…but it had never filled the hole in his heart. No one knew him like Dean, no one had taken care of him like Dad. And no amount of wishing or imagining had been able to take the place of that history, that blood tie. Now Dad was gone, and Sam would never get that piece of him back.

"Sam, c'mon, man, answer me. Please."

Sam's cheek rubbed against the denim of the jacket. No desperate need of his heart had ever been able to conjure a Dean, either. But the real deal always came if Sam just called.

"Sa—"

"Dean." He whispered it, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Dean!"

A pause, then a shuffle of sound and quiet cursing. "You better be as close as you sound, dude. My elbows are killing me."

He didn't have the strength to do much else, but Sam smiled.

Something flickered in his vision. Which wasn't unusual; what his eyes lacked in stimulus, they made up for in mirages of color and light. But this was different, a pale beam of light sweeping over a metal surface that reflected it dully. When it finally landed on Sam's face, he squinted, chin tucking protectively down.

"Sam?" Dean's face was flushed as he crept into sight, his hair flat with perspiration. "Thank God. Thought I was gonna have to climb all over this friggin' hotel to find you." He wriggled closer, tilting his head to one side to meet Sam's eyes. "Hey, Sammy. Don't know about you, but I'm ready to get out of this sauna."

Sam blinked at him.

Dean paused, still a good arm's length away. "Sam? You with me? Gonna need your help here, man."

There was a grate between them, Sam lazily saw. He vaguely remembered slithering over it, the hard ridges digging into his palms and stomach as it creaked under his weight. Dean's arm was stretched across it now, fingers curled out to Sam, offering, inviting.

"Give me your hand, Sam."

He wanted to, but his muscles felt cooked, his head thick with heat and pain. He tried to lick his lips, but his dry tongue caught on split skin. He blinked again, forcing his eyes to stay open so he could keep Dean in sight. "N'wan'ed." The words were catching in his throat, on his teeth. Sam wrinkled his nose and tried again. "N'r wan'd…lee v'you."

There was a deep frown line between Dean's eyes, just like the one Dad so often wore before Sam left. "It's okay, bro." There was a tenderness in Dean's voice that Dad's had never had, though. "Nobody's leaving anybody. I came after you, right? Just give me your hand and I'll get out of here and fixed up, huh? Sam?"

Sam's eyes fluttered, exhaustion creeping over him like a suffocating blanket.

He could feel Dean move closer, the grate groaning below him. "Oh, no you don't. Sam, give me your hand. Now!"

"Yessir," he mumbled and automatically twitched out the limb. He felt it knock against flesh, and then his hand was enfolded in a cool, tight grasp. His body was rolled, and he groaned at the agonizing pressure on his leg.

"I've got you. I've got you, dude."

Who's got you? was all he had the time to dully wonder, before the question was asked for him.

There was a loud shriek of metal, and the grip on his hand became painfully tight.

And then he was falling, into cold, empty air.

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He probably could have caught himself, slid farther back into the duct to safety as the grate gave way under them. But there was no way he was going to be able to keep them both from falling, nor that he would let Sam take the plunge alone. In that split-second of decision, Dean grabbed for his brother's waist and followed him down into darkness.

It was disconcerting, tumbling in pitch black, and the ground hit faster than Dean had expected. Which was probably a good thing because long falls rarely ended well. Still, he lay stunned breathless for a moment, listening to Sam gasp in concert beside him.

And then Sam went a little berserk.

Considering he'd been disoriented and barely conscious a minute earlier, and that was before he'd fallen through the ceiling from a blast furnace into someplace cool and just as dark, that wasn't too surprising. Dean shook the sluggishness off as he grappled invisibly with his flailing octopus of a brother, trying to get Sam calmed down.

"Shh, it's all right. You're all right." Sam's fist clocked him in the chin, but Dean looped his arm around it and used it to draw Sam in. "Don't fight me, dude."

Sam growled low in his throat, in full fight mode now that flight was being denied, and Dean was keenly aware how precarious their safety was. He had to settle Sam fast and keep him quiet or they were both in trouble.

"Uncle, Sammy—I'm saying uncle. Stop fighting and relax." He snagged his brother's other arm and finally pulled Sam in close, feeling the rabbiting thump of his racing heart. "It's me, Sammy, it's me. You're safe." He pressed Sam's heated face against his neck, muffling the soft sounds spilling from his mouth. "Shh. You're okay."

Sam kept struggling for another few seconds, almost succeeding in ramming his knee up into a place that would not have been good at all, but Dean twisted away and took the hit in the thigh, grunting. Even mostly out of it, his Sam was no pushover.

And then Sam suddenly stilled, only his uneven breaths audible over Dean's shushing. He shifted his face up against Dean's throat, the flutter of his eyelashes tickling.

"Dean?"

He sounded totally enervated, and twice as confused. Dean rubbed the back of his neck and dared release him enough to dip into Sam's pocket for the handgun. He set it in easy reach on the floor beside him and, feeling much better, put his arm again around Sam. "Yeah, I'm here. You back?" He kept his voice low, at least as much for outside ears as for Sam. He waited until Sam's head bobbed uncertainly. "Keep it down, Sammy, okay?" He pulled one leg up to prop Sam's back and started feeling around for the flashlight.

Sam stirred a little, no longer resisting, just trying to figure things out. "Wher're we?"
Good question. Dean finally gave up the search for the flashlight and wriggled his lighter out of his pocket instead. The dim light confirmed what his other senses had already guessed: they were in a storage room. Shelves lined the small space, each packed with boxes, bottles, cans, and bags. "Kitchen pantry, looks like," he muttered. "Lucky we didn't end up on the stove."

Sam gave a feeble snort that was probably meant to be a laugh, then he sucked a breath in as his leg moved. He ground his nose into Dean's collarbone, palm catching damply on Dean's t-shirt. "Y'need me…do s'methin'?" he breathed finally.

"No." Dean smiled into his hair and shook his head. "Just rest a minute. I got it covered." By some miracle, no one seemed to have reacted to their crash landing thus far, so they were probably as safe as possible for the moment. Sam sighed and sank into him, and Dean absently patted his chest as he thought about their next move.

He could call Bobby, but Dean already more or less knew the situation out there: hotel surrounded, the clock ticking down to bonfire time, and them still pretty much screwed by the local law enforcement. Dean hoped to God the FBI had sent someone over immediately; their nearest office was only fifteen or so minutes away. Assuming Bobby had pulled the right strings. Well, at least they'd managed to make it to the kitchen, the first floor. Things were finally looking up.

That was when the fire alarm started blaring.

Sam started violently against him, and Dean cursed, tightening his grip and hoping they weren't starting this over again. But Sam quieted just as fast. "Fire 'larm?" he mumbled.

"Yup."

"Fire drill?" Wistful.

"Nope."

Sam echoed his curse.

"Yeah," Dean agreed wholeheartedly. He shifted, silently concerned at how boneless Sam was against him. He appreciated his brother's trust, he really did, but they still needed to get out of there and Dean wasn't looking forward to moving both of them. "You think you can stand?" he asked hopefully.

Sam's head tipped forward, his hair catching on the stubble of Dean's chin. "No," he whispered with chagrin. "Dean—"

"Sam, man, if you tell me to leave you here, I swear, I'm shredding that stupid dog shirt of yours."

Sam laughed silently, then pulled a little away from him. "Le's go."

What he lacked in strength, he made up in fortitude, Dean had to give him that. As Sam struggled to rise, Dean pulled his own feet under him, then scooted around to Sam's other side so the bad right leg was between them. That moved him closer to the door, and Dean could smell the first wafts of smoke there. He ignored it, pulling one clumsily grasping arm over his shoulder where he gripped it hard, then wrapped his free arm around Sam's waist, jamming two fingers into his belt loop. "This is gonna hurt, dude."

Sam grabbed hold of his shirt and shuffled his good leg closer.

"One, two…" On three, Dean hoisted them both up.

Sam's moan hummed in his throat, trapped behind clenched teeth. Dean managed a few reassuring words past his own rigid jaw as he tried to help Sam find his balance. The bad leg was useless, limp against the floor, but once Sam locked his other knee, that limb held some of his weight.

Now they just had to move.

The door, thankfully, wasn't locked. The kitchen beyond it was lit with low-powered emergency lights, hazy with smoke that instantly stung Dean's eyes and sent Sam into weak coughs. But they were alone, the kitchen apparently already evacuated. Dean gave thanks for that bit of good fortune and limped them forward, Sam trying and failing to do more than just hang on to him and not drag his feet.

There was a hallway behind the kitchen, far more smoky here as the open back doors fed the fire with fresh air. A cluster of people, kitchen workers from their white garb, pressed their way outside. No one noticed them in the chaos, and Dean prayed for that to continue. He joined the throng, turning Sam's face more inward toward him when his brother couldn't seem to stop coughing, and hurried as best he could with four legs to coordinate, one of them deadweight and another wobbly.

The smoke was just starting to gather in his lungs and shorten his breaths when they finally broke out of the building. Dimly through the screen of smoke and people, Dean made out a uniform or two, but there was too much pandemonium for the cops to get a good look at everyone who was streaming out. Dean ducked his head, laid a hand on top of Sam's ginormous frame to make sure it was tucked in low against him, and hobbled them both along in the center of the crowd.

They made it around the corner of the hotel, Sam stumbling and listing more and more, when their luck finally ran out.

"There he is!"

Dean's head shot up at the strident call, and he stifled a moment of panic as his eyes met that of a sneering Sheriff Koehler. He'd retrieved the gun in the pantry, its reassuring weight sandwiched between his body and Sam's, but there were dozens of civilians around and at least a handful of cops. And Sam was barely conscious, logistically more a liability than an asset. Emotionally…

Dean shifted his brother a little and moved between Sam and Koehler, one arm curling behind him to keep Sam on his feet. His brother leaned into his back, his breath warm against the nape of Dean's neck.

"Step away, sir." That was another cop, one of the ones who had searched the second floor for Sam, Dean recognized. He'd come up next to his boss, gun outstretched, face impassively stern. Just following orders, and Dean swung his glare back to the real enemy here.

"What's the matter, Koehler," he taunted. "It's not enough you killed your wife, you gotta kill all the witnesses, too?"

"Yeah. And you're just here fishing with your dad," Koehler scoffed. "Move away from him or we'll shoot you both."

Sam made a soft sound against Dean's back that he took for a protest. He squeezed Sam's arm tighter. "Not a chance," Dean snarled. "You already put some holes in him—I'm not giving you a chance to finish the job."

Another deputy had appeared on Koehler's other side, also aiming at them. Koehler hadn't pulled his gun yet; he didn't need to. His nasty smile clearly said he knew he had the upper hand. "Fine. You wanna go down with a murderer? I can live with that." He unsnapped his holster almost casually.

"Hold it, Sheriff Koehler."

The new voice came from Dean's left, and he flicked his eyes over to see a guy in a suit step out of the smoky gloom, two more suits behind them…and Bobby bringing up the rear, Trudy next to him. Dean took a breath, feeling the prickle of smoke in his throat, and moved enough to one side that he could slide his arm all the way around Sam again, still angled between him and the sheriff.

Kent Koehler's eyes had narrowed, his face flushed in the flashing emergency lights of the fire engines and ambulance parked haphazardly around them. "And who are you?" he spat.

The lead suit calmly held up a leather fold just like the dozen or so Dean had tucked away in the glove compartment. "Special Agent Bryan Thompson, FBI. Kent Koehler, you're under arrest for the suspected murder of Melody Koehler, conspiracy to commit environmental crimes, bribery, and about a half-dozen other charges."

The deputies' aim tilted uncertainly away from Sam and Dean and toward their boss, who'd flushed a livid red. "Are you serious? Mel was killed with his knife, in his room! She'd trusted—"

"—you."

The quiet, thready voice cut through the noise like a bullhorn. Dean startled, turning back to Sam, who'd straightened with effort and was grimly staring down Koehler. He lurched a step past Dean, dragging his bad leg, eyes never leaving the sheriff's face.

"Mel trusted you. She loved you. You'd promised to protect her…and you murdered her. Why would…?" Sam shook his head. He was visibly shuddering, a mix of adrenaline and weakness. His eyes burned in his pale face, and Dean was seared with pride. "I've seen some monsters in my life, Kent. But you? You're the worst because you knew better and you-you killed her…killed her…anyw-way." And then his head was rolling back on his neck as he crashed down to his knees.

Dean jolted to life as Sam collapsed, darting around his brother to catch him before he completely laid himself out on the sidewalk. Sam's head tipped forward to hit Dean's shoulder as he slumped against him, his skin clammy cold, eyes flickering, the brief burst of energy bottomed out. Dean wrapped him close, muttering a few words of reassurance and praise into his ear, then twisted around to glare at Koehler. "Yeah, he's a real threat, you son of a bitch. But your kind always likes to go after women and the helpless, don't you?"

Koehler's eyes bulged and he took a step forward. Several guns snapped up to halt him in his tracks, however, and he glowered impotently at Dean over them.

Dean couldn't care less. Finally content that the danger had passed, he turned his back on the murdering sheriff and concentrated fully on Sam. "Hey." He jiggled his shoulder. "You with me?"

"…no…" The feeble response was followed by a weak cough that jerked Sam's body.

Dean smiled. "Yeah, okay. Think it might be time to head to the hospital, dude." He stroked the damp hair out of Sam's face, watching the heavy eyes close.

"He all right?" Bobby had come up in Dean's eyeline, casting a cautious glance over them both but lingering on Sam.

"He's alive," Dean answered simply.

"Ambulance is over there." Bobby dipped his head. "I'll get us some help."

"Thanks." Dean weighted the word with feeling, meeting the older man's eyes.

Bobby gave him a small smile and a nod and moved off again.

Dean sighed, hearing Koehler being arrested and cuffed behind him. "Seriously, man, do we ever do things the easy way?"

It was a rhetorical question. Sam was out like a light, chest hitching against Dean's.

"Yeah. That's what I thought." And Dean sat back on his heels to wait for them to come peel his brother away.

00000

The first thing he remembered—sort of—was waking in the hospital. Dean was standing with his back to him, talking to someone in a low voice. He was close enough to touch, and that was fine. Sam let himself get dragged back under by unconsciousness.

The next time—at least, so he thought—was in a motel, immediately identifiable by the bland smells of bleach and air freshener, and striped wallpaper in shades of avocado and harvest gold. Dean was sitting at the foot of the bed, doing something with Sam's leg that he was pretty sure he didn't want to be awake for. His brother saw him this time, smiled, said something. Sam had no idea what, but he tried to smile back and fell asleep midway through the effort.

He was pretty sure he was in the car at some point, too. Bundled in blankets and wedged into the corner of back door and seat, leg stretched out on the vinyl. Dean was humming along to the radio up front. Sam dozed off before he could figure out what the song was.

Motel again, Dean spoonfeeding him something warm and salty with noodles in it. Car, front seat this time, buried in about three layers of clothing and a pillow under his thigh. Parking lot, Dean acting as his crutch. Sam was pretty sure he at least mumbled something in response to Dean's query that time.

It was all kind of fuzzy. So when he opened his eyes to see Dean writing in his journal, and asked where Bobby was, it was kind of a surprise when Dean answered, "Dude, for the sixth time, he went home. Not like we're gonna go hunting with him anytime soon."

Sam frowned at him. "Why not?"

Dean's eyebrows climbed, and he left the table to come sit on the edge of Sam's bed. "Well, at least you're staying awake for more than two words. If you don't know why we're grounded, though, your brain must still be half-asleep."

Sam turned toward him, hissing when his leg flared warningly. Dean immediately slid a hand under his knee and lifted, maneuvering the leg carefully onto the pillow beside it. Sam breathed out slow as the pain eased.

"That answer your question?" Dean asked pointedly.

"Doesn't mean you can't go," Sam said impatiently. "Dude, I'm fine."

"Uh-huh. What's the date today, tough guy?"

Sam blinked. It was a trick question. He had no idea how much he'd been sleeping, and any guess was sure to be off by days. "Whatever," he finally muttered.

Dean's mouth quirked. "Glad you see it my way. So, your leg feel okay?" He pushed the covers aside and eyed the bandages critically. "It's been looking good, but no sharp pain, nothing hurting anywhere else?"

Sam wedged a hand under his cheek, looking tiredly at Dean. "'M fine. What happened with Kent?"

"Arrested," Dean said flatly, still poking at Sam's leg. "Him and his partner in crime. You know Trudy, from school? She'd been doing some digging around for Melody, came up with some pretty questionable stuff, and now that the good sheriff's under arrest, they think they'll have a solid case."

Sam snorted softly. "So she died for nothing."

Dean covered the leg and rested a hand on Sam's knee, his expression sympathetic. "She died because she was married to a monster, like you said." Dean smiled again. "On national television, no less."

Sam groaned, burying his face in the pillow. "What about…?" Dean had been a wanted man.

"Hey, nobody's looking for a dead guy, right? It's fine, Sam."

It wasn't, really. Mel had called him for help, scared and looking for protection, and he'd let her get killed in his room with his knife. Sam didn't even know why. His brother no doubt did, but Dean was easing him into things. He was being kind; Dad would have torn Sam a new one for being that sloppy. But his body ached and he was tired and he couldn't really think about it now.

"Funeral's in three days," Dean quietly interrupted his thoughts.

Sam sniffed and tilted up to look at him.

Dean nodded at him, hand light now on Sam's side. "Melody. Her folks wanted to bury her back in Cali so it took a while."

"Where're we?" Sam whispered. Seemed he'd woken up a lot in the car…

Dean pressed his lips together and peered upward like he was calculating. "Uh…about three hours away?"

The laugh caught in Sam's chest and came out a little ragged. "Right. Just happened to be in the neighborhood, huh?"

"Hey, it's not like we have to be anywhere." Dean shrugged innocently.

Sure. And he'd only come after Sam in the hotel—twice—because Dad would've been disappointed he hadn't looked after his little brother. Sam had some fairly reliable memories of Dean climbing into ductwork—claustrophobia be damned—falling through a ceiling, braving a fire, and standing between Sam and a gun, all for him. All for the same reason he wasn't leaving Sam to go on a hunt: because he had nowhere to be…but at Sam's side.

He cleared his throat, startling himself. Dean's hand had started a lazy crawl up and down his side, and he hadn't realized how near to sleep it had lulled him.

"Dean," he whispered.

"Get some sleep, Sammy. I'm here."

Sam forced his eyes open. "Y'know I am, too. Right?" he insisted. "'M not leaving, Dean."

Dean gave him a hard long look as Sam's eyelids crept down, unable to fight their own weight. Finally, he ruffled Sam's hair. "No kidding, Dr. House. If you tried, you'd faceplant after, like, two steps."

But Dean also would've been there to catch him.

The End