Amsterdam

by K Hanna Korossy

Nightshifter tag story: Thanks to Dean's new popularity with the feds, Sam couldn't just take him to the ER. But he has to do something.

Amsterdam
K Hanna Korossy

Dean was prowling the room when Sam got back.

There was no other word for the predatory stalk that followed the walls, dipped into the bathroom, paused at the windows. Dean was like an animal in a cage, restless and testing the bars, and Sam knew the analogy was a little too close to the mark.

"You find anything?" Dean asked without preamble, abandoning yet another circuit of the room to stride over to Sam. His agitation usually calmed with the presence of his little brother, a fact Sam found both intimidating and humbling. It wasn't the first time he'd been smacked in the face by his importance to Dean.

He shook his head regretfully, watching Dean's jaw tighten. "Both victims died in front of other people, Carol Ellis in her own living room, and no one saw a thing."

"So," Dean canted his head, "spirit, just like we thought."

Sam shrugged out of his jacket and dropped his journal onto his brother's bed. "Yeah, but there should be some connection between the victims then—a place, someone they both knew, a pattern in time of deaths." Sam nodded at the laptop on the table. "You find anything, 'cause I've got nothing."

Dean shook his head. He brushed against a napkin on the table, picked it up and balled it. "Nada. No history of hauntings in the town, no violence in either family or location. Neither victim had so much as a speeding ticket in their past." He tossed the napkin at the offending computer.

Sam sank down on the bed and shook his head. "All right, so… What next?"

Dean shrugged. "Something's there, we just haven't found it yet. We keep digging—local histories, legends, town gossip." His face lit up. "I could hit the—"

"No," Sam said flatly. "No bars."

Dean's expression went dark again. "Sam, you can't expect me to stay here all the time. Someone needs to watch your back and, dude, I'm going friggin' nuts stuck in here."

"Not permanently," Sam said wearily. "You were on national news three days ago, Dean, and we're not that far from Milwaukee. Just…lay low on this one, okay? Then we'll take it from there. Please. A bar's a roomful of people who might recognize you."

"I'm not gonna stay out of bars from now on," Dean said warningly.

"No, just this town, okay? I'll feel better when we get farther from Wisconsin." They'd planned to until the deaths had caught their attention.

Dean growled low in his throat and spun away from Sam, but he wasn't arguing, and Sam knew he'd won this round. He couldn't keep a free spirit like his brother caged forever nor would want to, but there was no point in tempting fate, either. They had done enough of that already.

Dean was at the other end of the room, peering out the window. He finally turned back, took a deep breath.

"Fine. But can we please just go somewhere? Check out the cemetery, the morgue, I don't care. I need to get out of here for a while, Sam."

Claustrophobia and being a wanted man weren't a good combination, Sam reflected not for the first time. He was bone-tired and only wanted to crawl into bed. But his mouth drew into a half-smile. "Yeah, all right. Wanna take a walk?"

"A walk?" Dean said incredulously.

"Ask nicely and I'll even stop in a bar and pick you up some beer on the way," Sam said, smile growing.

Dean grimaced, but he wasn't in any position to argue. He grumbled under his breath on the way out the door, though, about bossy little brothers and stupid FBI agents and people-eating rooms.

"Pollyanna," Sam said fondly as he shut the door behind them.

00000

Nightmares sort of came with the job, besides the whole vision thing. Sam fought his silently, indistinct threats looming over him and the sound of Dean's strained voice in his ear.

But the last one wasn't a dream.

Sam snapped awake to the moonlit sight of his brother thrashing in the bed next to his. Not a wholly unusual occurrence, but this didn't look like a nightmare. Dean's eyes were open wide, his knife in his hand, and he was struggling against something as if pinned.

Something invisible.

"Sam!"

"On it," Sam yelled back, and threw himself toward their weapons bag. Dean's rock salt-loaded shotgun was right on top, and Sam snapped it up and aimed in one motion, about a foot above Dean's writhing figure. The gunshot was a loud roar in the silence of the night. He wondered idly if anyone would realize it had come from their room. Probably not. Ignorance was bliss.

There was no puff of dispersal, however, no respite for Dean that Sam could see. His brother finally managed to heave himself off the bed, but whatever it was just followed him, pressing Dean against the wall behind the bed now.

With a curse, Sam dropped the gun and grabbed his axe, then threw himself at the invisible intruder. His blade slid cleanly off the transparent bulk, and he got the impression of strength and limbs and a ripple of dark rage before it threw him aside, to the floor.

"Sam," Dean gasped, and Sam wasn't sure if it was worry or panic or both.

He jumped back to his feet, feeling his own panic rise. Rock salt hadn't fazed the thing, which meant it wasn't a spirit. But they didn't come across a lot of other invisible beings, even in their line of work. There had been the rhakshasa, but this MO didn't fit, and they certainly hadn't invited the thing in. No, this attacker was…

Attacker. Sam blinked, then lunged for their dad's journal. "Hold on, Dean," he called as he went. Dean grunted.

Sam snapped on the light on his way, and the scene in the room was even more disconcerting with illumination. Dean had managed to draw his leg up between himself and his assailant, and kicked out seemingly into thin air, managing to shove whatever it was away long enough to peel himself from the wall. He threw out his knife hand, but the weapon slid off the invisible skin just as Sam's had. A second later, Dean hit the wall again, hard, muscles cording as he fought to free himself.

Phantom attackers, phantom attackers… There was an entry on them somewhere in the journal. Their dad had never encountered one, but he'd had some sort of theory… There. Sam scanned the page: possible relation to jinn, random summoning and victims…banish with sage. That was it?

Sam dropped the journal and grabbed their supply bag, thanking their recent need for caution for his having brought in half the contents of the trunk. Sage…he found it. Sam glanced up, looking for a place to sprinkle and burn it.

Just in time to witness Dean being lifted and thrown against the dresser opposite their beds.

His hip hit hard, and Sam winced in empathy as his brother's arms flailed to keep his balance. He took a step toward Dean, bag of sage in hand.

And felt his heart seize as their transparent guest apparently tired of the game. As Sam watched helplessly, Dean's right arm was slammed back into the old TV atop the dresser. The shatter of the picture tube glass and Dean's cry seemed to come at the same time as what sounded like cracking bone.

Horror washed through Sam, followed by rage. Screw this. He yanked out his lighter and lit the whole bag, not flinching when it flared into flame. Sam waved it once over the deceptively empty space between himself and his brother, then dropped it into the metal trashcan by the dresser.

The air seemed to shimmer. And then Dean sagged to the floor with a groan.

Sam darted cautiously toward him, but there was no invisible wall between them now, no uninvited guest in the room. Thank God for Dad and his theories, Sam thought fleetingly, and then he was dropping to his knees, his only attention on his brother.

Sam's stomach turned at the puddle of blood that had already collected under Dean's arm. It saturated the carpet, pooled on top of it, and continued to pump out of the gashed skin. For it to be that much, it had to be a nicked vein—no arterial spurt—which meant Dean could die from blood loss in minutes. Sam shot back to his feet and into the bathroom for bandaging material, tearing a threadbare bath towel in half with little effort and wadding it into a pad.

"Dean?"

Dean cursed, ground out Sam's name, and groaned again, his good hand scrabbling weakly against the carpet. His back arched and his eyes shot open with another cry when Sam lay the folded towel against his arm and pressed. It had to be grinding some glass into the wound, not to mention injured bone, but there was nothing to be done, no other recourse if he was to keep Dean from bleeding out.

"I know it hurts, Dean. Just try to relax," he soothed with his voice since he couldn't with his hands. The towel was turning red, but Sam focused on his brother's face and clouded eyes. "I need to stop the bleeding."

Dean was panting through the pain, jaw gritting at the worst of it. He had to screw his eyes open to finally look at Sam. "Told ya…room would…kill me." He was breathing too fast, his heartbeat a gallop as Sam fumbled for his neck with bloody fingers.

"You're not dying," Sam scolded gently. But as he looked up, scanning the room while he scrolled through options, there weren't many. Thanks to Dean's new nationally wanted status, going to the ER even with fake IDs was a big risk. And if being stuck in a motel room was killing him now, being separated from Sam and locked up in a jail cell would doom Dean. Sam couldn't fix a broken arm by himself, however, and Dean had lost too much blood to recover on his own, not to mention the damaged vein. No, they needed professional help. But there had to be another way.

The towel was totally saturated. Sam quickly folded another and placed it over the first, pressing down even harder. Dean moaned, coughed, strengthless fingers brushing uselessly at Sam's arm.

Sam looked back down at him again. Confusion and distress from the pain and blood loss was starting to filter into his eyes. "Sorry, man," Sam whispered. "Hang in there for me, all right?" And then, because he knew what would bring Dean real comfort, "I'm here. I'm here with you."

No hospital—a clinic? But they would report him, too, and besides, Sam didn't know where there was one. Wait, they knew some doctors. Dean's friend in Maryland…but that was half the country away. Fitz? He was a hunter; he would help no questions asked. But he was down in Florida last Sam had heard. Who was local? Andrew, but Andrew wasn't a doctor. A doctor in Minnesota…

Jill. Jill…Vander-something.

Pressing down with one hand, Sam again reached for their dad's journal with the other.

"Sam, what…?" Dean's head lifted from the floor only to fall back. The second compress was half soaked through, but the bleeding seemed to be slowing. Still, Dean had lost a couple of pints already. Soon, he'd be slipping into shock.

Sam set the open journal down on top of the shattered glass on the floor and reached over for one of their duffel bags. He stuffed it under Dean's feet, then snagged a blanket off the bed to lay it over him. He detoured briefly to rake some glass shards from Dean's hair. His brother's gaze was unfocused, heavy-lidded. "I'm getting us some help," Sam reassured him as he reached to grab his brother's cell phone. "Hang in there, Dean. I'm gonna fix you up, all right?"

Dean sucked in a sobbing breath, his head rolling away.

Sam swallowed, dialing the number from the journal and listening to it ring.

"Hello?" The response sounded sleepy and Sam abruptly remembered the time, but all he could think was, thank God.

"Jill VanderHouk?"

"Yes, who's this?"

"My name is Sam Winchester. I don't know if you remember my dad—"

"Oh, my God."

He took that as a yes. Sam reached for another towel and wound it around the two pads of linens he already had in place over the inside of Dean's arm, ignoring his brother's weak buck as he pulled it taut. "I know this is really out of the blue, but I need some help."

There was a pause. He held his breath. "Sure. Of course. Your dad saved my life—what can I do?"

Dean gasped, lurching, and Sam tucked the phone into his shoulder and slipped his hand into Dean's. It was immediately gripped tight. "Where do you live?" That was the one part he wasn't sure of, and Minnesota was a big state.

"St. Cloud."

Sam's heart sank. "We're in Jackson."

"I'm actually in Windom at the moment—I'm right close to you. What do you need, Sam?"

Sam took a breath for the first time in what seemed like hours. "It's my brother," he began.

Two minutes later, he let the phone drop to the rug, with the doctor's promise she'd be there in less than a half-hour. Dean was almost unconscious, the bleeding close to stopped. He could make it another thirty minutes; Sam could get him through it.

He noticed then Dean's lips were moving, and Sam leaned closer, trying to hear the near-silent murmur.

"…don'…leave, don'…leave…"

Sam's own eyes blurred. He'd heard that mantra before when Dean was too out of it to hide what he feared, what Sam knew he had always feared. And he'd given his brother ample reason of late to think he'd take off again, most recently when Sam had left to look for answers to his destiny. But it was just wrong that this would be what Dean was worried about now, that this was all he could remember while he lay broken and bloody on the floor.

Besides, Sam was the reason they were in this mess in the first place. His insistence on continuing to hunt had nearly cost Dean his life that night, and put him on the feds' radar so that Sam was unable to get him medical help. The room he'd thought would be a shelter for Dean had become a trap instead. Maybe this was how he'd end up getting his brother killed, and Sam shuddered at the thought.

He swallowed, rubbing his thumb over the back of Dean's hand, hoping it would be felt through the pain, and shored up his voice. "I'm not always sure why you want me here, but I'm not going anywhere, Dean. I've got you and I'm staying, all right?"

Dean sighed, not quite unconscious but not present, either.

Sam held on to him, waited, and prayed.

00000

Jill VanderHouk was a nice country doctor; that much Sam had remembered from their brief meeting during his teen years when John had freed her from an abusive boyfriend who happened to be dead. Sam hadn't remembered how matter-of-fact she could be, too, or how good a doctor.

She hadn't even flinched at the bloody scene in the motel room, had just started directing Sam with short, simple orders. Water. Lifting Dean onto the bed. Opening sterile packages of drapes, instruments, sutures for her. Sam looked away while she injected Dean with something and then started cleaning out and sewing up his arm, Sam's grip on his brother his only tether to what was happening.

The surgical drape was painted with blood by the time she was done, and Dean was a chalky white. She'd brought fluids with her, but at Sam's confirmation he and Dean shared a blood type, he soon found himself stretched out beside Dean, a transfusing line now connecting them, too. He didn't even feel dizzy when she finally pinched the line, but there was a little more color in Dean's cheeks, and he was no longer gasping for breath.

"You're sure about this?" Jill—she'd insisted he call her that—asked him one more time, checking the clear bag she'd hung beside the bed. It was on a makeshift IV stand fashioned out of the lamp and a towel bar Sam had ripped from the bathroom wall without a moment's hesitation.

"I've taken out an IV before," Sam assured her.

She shook her head. "The kind of life you boys lead… I don't know, Sam, I couldn't do it."

His mouth twitched. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

They both looked at Dean in silence. He was cleaned up and covered to his chin now, only his IV-infused arm exposed. Under the blankets lay the other arm, heavily bandaged. It hadn't cracked, after all, merely badly bruised, and he hadn't even stirred when Jill checked it out.

"Well, he's stable now, and you've got the meds and the list of warning signs to look out for, so if you're sure…"

Sam nodded. "Thanks. I don't know what…" He ran a freshly scrubbed hand through his hair.

She gave him a look he recognized as maternal despite his lack of personal experience. She was about John's age, blonde hair starting to streak with grey. "I expect to see you both when Dean's up for traveling so I can x-ray that arm, make sure it's all right. You hear? I'll even cook you dinner."

"The x-ray—"

"At my office. Nobody'll have to know." She drew in a breath. "Sam, is there anything I can do to help you with…this? I don't know, somebody I can talk to? Sort of a character witness?"

The simple kindness of people still touched him. "Thanks, Jill, but no, not right now." Sam mustered another smile. "We'll be all right."

"Uh-huh." She looked a little skeptical. "Well, let me know when you're in the neighborhood. The door's always open. For your dad, too."

Sam's throat constricted, but that was a conversation he couldn't handle today on top of everything. He just nodded, tightening his grasp of Dean's wrist.

A minute later, it was just him, Dean, and a bloody room full of memories again. He should have probably started to clean up, but Sam couldn't seem to summon the energy for it. Instead, he eased back into the chair he'd pulled up to Dean's bed, slipped his fingers under his brother's, and watched him sleep. Even with the smell of the burnt sage lingering in the air, one of them had to keep watch.

Or so Sam told himself.

00000

When the IV ran out, Sam took it out and taped Dean's arm. His skin was warmer and no longer dehydrated, his face less sunken, and his pulse and breathing had steadied to near-normal levels. Sam crushed some pills into water for him every six hours and coaxed Dean into swallowing them, otherwise he let him sleep. In between, he collapsed on the other bed and dozed like a new mom, one ear tuned to Dean's every sound.

The next morning, more than twenty-four hours later, Dean had finally stirred. Fine movements turned into ginger stretching, then green eyes had opened to puzzledly take in the bird wallpaper beside the bed.

"Funky hospital."

"It's not a hospital." Sam had said, smiling.

"Oh. Good." His eyes had slid shut, and just like that he was unconscious again.

Sam began looking for new jobs but finally gave that up and read instead, interspersing books with rousing games of solitaire. Unlike Dean, he didn't mind being cooped up for a while.

Like Dean, it went down a lot easier when his brother was awake and with him, though.

By the third day, Dean was up for brief stretches, and Sam had caught his brother's claustrophobia. He waited until Dean had nodded off mid-chapter ofChristine before slipping out the door to sit on the single step down to the parking lot.

It didn't surprise him somehow when the door opened behind him a few minutes later.

Dean still settled gingerly, his injured arm cradled to his stomach. Sam immediately got to his feet and went back inside, returning within seconds with a blanket, which he wrapped around Dean's shoulders.

"Dude, I'm okay. Quit molesting me and sit down." But he didn't shrug the warmth off.

"Shut up, man, I know you're cold." Sam returned to his perch beside his brother. "You lost a lot of blood, even with the transfusion."

"Yeah, and how did that happen again?"

Sam sighed, not having looked forward to this part. "I called up Jill VanderHouk—remember her?" He glanced to his right. "The doctor Dad helped out a few years back?"

Dean's eyes darkened. "You called a doc?"

"She knows about us already, and she owed Dad." At Dean's continued disapproval, Sam felt himself flush. "Dean, you were bleeding out on the carpet, I thought your arm was broken, and it was full of glass. You needed…" He turned away, jaw muscles flexing.

A pause, then a subdued, "Hey, okay, I get it. You did what you had to do."

"What I forced you into," Sam muttered.

"What?"

Sam shook his head, staring out across the parking lot and the tangled mass of trees on the other side of the road.

"Well, you've got that look. What, Sam?"

He shook his head. "I'm just…having second thoughts."

Dean shifted, breath momentarily catching. "Second thoughts about what?"

Sam shook his head again. "I don't know, Dean, maybe you were right, maybe we should stop hunting."

"No."

The simple answer both surprised and irritated him. "You wanted to quit after I almost died in River Grove. I watched you nearly bleed to death on the floor the other day because I couldn't take you to a hospital. Because you're wanted by the FBI. Because of my choice to keep hunting, Dean."

"No," Dean said more quietly but no less firmly. "Not your choice. Not Dad's, or mine. Ours, Sam." He paused, licking his dry lips, and Sam started to get up to fetch him some water. Dean's hand wrapped around his lower arm. "You were right—we need to face this thing head-on. And that means we keep hunting."

Funny how that was as scary as it was a relief. Sam stared at his brother a moment, then dropped his face into his hand to rub his eyes. "You know, we don't have to stop for good, Dean. We could go to ground for a while, think things through."

"You kiddin' me? I was already bouncing off the walls, dude—I need to do something. No more of this hiding crap, okay? We go off the grid if we have to, but we keep going." Dean hesitated. "Unless…you…?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm not quitting."

His brother's relief was obvious. "Okay. Cool. So…are we good then? No crying or blood oaths or anything?"

"You're really okay?" Sam blurted before he could reconsider.

"I'm really okay, Sam," Dean said patiently. "Thank God I can shoot with my left. You doing all right?"

Sam considered that and nodded. "I'm good."

"Super. Can we go back in and get some sleep then? You look like you're the one who ran into Mr. Invisible. What was that thing, anyway?"

"Phantom attacker. Dad thought burning sage might cleanse and banish it, and he was right."

Dean slanted him a small smile. "The man's been gone for months and he's still saving our skins."

Sam nodded silently, grateful they could talk about John again without both of them choking up.

"Let's go turn in." Dean shifted to rise but stopped when Sam didn't move.

"What if one of us does need to go to a hospital?"

Dean's good arm wrapped around the bandaged one. "We won't tonight, okay? After that…we'll go south. Let things die down up here, let me get my arm back up to speed. We'll be old news soon as some celebrity gets drunk and says something stupid, so that won't be long, and no hospital's gonna be checking prints against the FBI database. It'll be fine, Sam."

No matter how old he got, no matter how many times he'd taken charge or how much experience he gained, he still needed to hear that from his older brother sometimes. Sam pulled in a breath and nodded, squeezing Dean's shoulder as he rose to his feet and held out a hand.

"Oh, and Sam?"

He cocked his head, waiting.

"Next time, man, don't take it out on the TV."

Sam gaped at him, inside at the broken shell on the dresser, then at Dean again. Who'd already bypassed his hand and was on his way inside. "Jerk," Sam murmured after him.

"Yeah, love you, too, little brother," Dean called back over his shoulder.

Oddly comforted, Sam shook his head and followed.

The End