1.
A couple of months after Sam leaves, Dean caves. He'd held onto that stubborn fury, aimed it all the way towards California, swore he'd leave Sam be. The kid made his choice, after all. Dean is all Dad had left now, and Dean has to live up to the role of two sons. Sam can go play 'normal', cough over dusty text books and write pages and pages of shit that doesn't actually mean anything in the real world. Meanwhile, Dean and Dad will save lives. To Dean, there's no contest.
Things are going well, although the absence of Sam is heavier than anticipated, and the two of them hunt and drink and hunt some more. They save people. Then, at some point near the end of October, November 2nd looming quietly over their heads, Dad tells Dean he's leaving for a hunt. Alone.
"You sure you don't need back up?" Dean asks.
"I'm sure," Dad says. Then, almost like an afterthought, "Take some time off, son."
And with that, Dad is gone, his truck leaving a dry patch in the parking lot next to the Impala. Dean spends a long time wondering what take some time off means. Finally, at the age of 22, Dean actually has some honest-to-God freedom. He can go wherever he likes. He could pay a visit to Lisa in Indiana, or hunt solo, or he could live it up in Vegas. The first option is certainly the most appealing, and yet...
He packs his bag and checks out within the hour, then he's on the road, car pointed to the west coast. Almost a full 24 hour drive and the sky bleeds from wet and spitting grey to bright and clear blue. Everything is so goddamn sunny, the buildings seem to glow, the fucking palm trees, even. For a moment, Dean can imagine why Sam would want to come here, then he thinks of what Sam left behind. The thrill of the hunt, the lives they save, Dad, and Dean himself. Is some fancypants, glowing school that much better than family?
Maybe to Sam it is.
He cruises down the roads, watches students mill about in their flipflops and board shorts, all tanned and smiling dazzlingly. He doesn't recognise any giants among the masses, and he forces himself into the student information centre to sweet talk the receptionist into coughing up Sam's address.
The kid is in another glowing building, one that needs a passkey to enter, so he lingers around outside until someone comes out and leaves the door swinging. Floor B, suite 11. That's Sam's new address, a little more permanent than weekly motels. Dean trots up the stairs, passes some girls on his way and almost makes a u-turn back when one of them checks him out, but then he hears someone up ahead say 'Sam'.
A preppy, blond kid exits suite 11. He's as glowing as the rest of the campus, dressed with his expensive-looking shirt neatly tucked into his expensive-looking pants. He pauses when he catches sight of Dean, eyes drawing down from his worn-out leather jacket to the rip in his jeans, an expression crosses his face that's half amusement and half knowing. How many other people at Stanford have rips in their jeans? He quickly looks away and disappears down the other end of the hall.
There's some crappy pop-rock music coming from suite 8 and Dean quickly passes, resisting the urge to shudder, just about ready to wash off the sparkle of this place. He doesn't bother knocking, jimmies the lock and lets himself in to be met with Sam's startled face. When he realises it's Dean who just broke in, he pales even further.
"Dean?" he says, like maybe he's seeing things.
"The one and only," Dean replies. He shifts to his other foot awkwardly. "Is this all the welcome I get?"
Sam flushes red and glances at his shoes for a second like they might give him the answers. When he looks up, still looking like someone slapped him in the face, he says, "I - I wasn't sure when I'd next see you, if I'd see you..."
Dean shrugs like he didn't just drive fifteen hundred miles because he missed his little brother. "I was in doing a case in LA. Thought I'd drive over since I was nearby."
Sam looks sceptical. "Where's Dad?"
"Working a case."
"What were you hunting in LA?"
Fuck. Dean takes a second too long to think. "Supermodel ghouls. Nasty."
The corner of Sam's mouth twitches up. "You couldn't make that up," he says, neutral. Dean knows he's been caught, but he's not backing down.
"No, you couldn't," he replies firmly.
With that, Sam breaks out into a full grin and Dean can't help himself when he wraps his beanpole of a brother up into a hug. Sam circles his gorilla arms around Dean tightly.
"You got taller," Dean says when they pull apart. "How much growing can you do in three months?"
"I dunno. Been eating nothing but packet noodles and energy bars."
"Speaking of," Dean says, "I'm starving. Whats good around here? And I don't mean green-Taiwanese-vegetarian-tofu shit, I mean real food."
Sam smiles. "Come with me."
There's a diner a few blocks away that fries up a decent burger. Even better, they sell beer. Dean demolishes his double cheese and bacon burger in five minutes and he's wiping up ketchup with french fries when Sam is only on his fourth bite of his chicken club sandwich. The kid's still staring at him like he can't believe he's there. That pokes a little hole in Dean's chest, steadily fills it with guilt. He tamps down on it quickly. Sam chose to leave, didn't he?
"It's good to see you, man," Sam finally says. "Really."
Dean nods. "Yeah. You're looking good here, Sammy. Tanned."
Sam opens his mouth like he wants to spill out a million questions, but he takes another slow bite of his sandwich instead. Dean guzzles his beer and signals the waitress for another.
"How's Dad?" Sam asks quietly, almost like he hopes Dean won't hear.
"He's good," Dean answers, washing it down with more alcohol. The booth they're sitting in suddenly feels a lot smaller and Dean wishes he had whiskey in his bottle.
"Is he..." Coming to see me? Missing me? Regretful? Still mad? Honestly, Dean isn't sure.
"He's quiet," Dean says.
Sam's face drops. "He's pretending I don't exist, then."
There isn't any answer Dean can give that Sam would like. Sam's name has been non-existent since he decided to leave, not one mention of it, not even in passing. Dad has always had a habit of shutting people out, he's got most of the hunting community against him, even Bobby. And now, even his son. But it's different with Sam. Sam chose to leave.
Dean says as much.
Sam sets his jaw as he usually does in preparation for an argument. "Yeah, Dean, I chose to go to college. Is that a crime now?"
"Well, you sort of went behind our backs, Sam. You just up and left without so much as a word."
Sam snorts. "Without so much as a word? Dean, you were there that night. Do you really think that was without so much as a word?"
Dean takes a long drink of his beer. "I'm just saying, you hid it from us. You never said you were applying. You didn't even tell us you got in, we only found out because I found your fucking acceptance letter hidden at the bottom of your bag."
"I was going to tell you," Sam says, hands bunched into fists. "And I didn't tell you I was applying because I knew you wouldn't let me. Dad would never have let me apply, and I had to, Dean."
"You had to come live in Cali and read books all day? Sam, people are dying out there and you could be saving them, but instead you're swanning about here."
Sam shakes his head. "Dad's really got his hooks in you, huh? Just listen to yourself, Dean. I got into Stanford. You realise most parents would be proud, right?"
"Yeah, well, we're not most people!" Dean almost bellows, and heads turn in their direction. He lowers his voice. "What you did was selfish. You didn't think about me or Dad or anyone else."
Sam sighs. "I didn't commit a crime. I went to school, like most kids do. It's not a - a betrayal. You say it like I'm the one who decided to leave, but I had every intention of staying in contact, visiting during holidays. Dad's the one who shut me out."
"You can't have one or the other, Sam. The life, the hunting life, it's in or out."
"And I want out," Sam says firmly. "I just didn't want out of our family. We're still brothers, aren't we?"
"Yeah, dumbass, we're still brothers," Dean replies, then finishes off the last of his beer. "We done talking about this now?"
Sam furrows his brow sadly. "You have to understand, Dean, hunting was killing me. One day, that life was going to kill me. Whether it was getting my guts ripped out, or rotting on whiskey, or... or if it was me. I couldn't do it anymore."
He looks so young, long hair and soft cheeks, a little bit of peach fuzz on his chin. He's just a kid. They both are.
"And what about me?" Dean asks. "I know this life will kill me, but at least I'll save someone else doing it."
Then, he leaves, and Sam doesn't follow. He isn't exactly sure why he's so mad. Sam is wicked smart and he deserves to go to a shiny school like this, he deserves normal. Maybe it just hurts that he left, that he decided he'd rather be somewhere else. Maybe Dean just misses him like crazy. And maybe Dean knows that if the situation were reversed, he would have picked family. Just like he did at Sonny's.
2.
It's the first Christmas without Sam, which shouldn't be that big of a deal since they never did celebrate Christmas anyway. And yet, Sam is all Dean thinks about as he lies half-asleep and filled up with pain pills on Bobby Singer's couch.
The hunt was a particularly messy one and Dean was just a second too slow. It had taken him a few minutes to realise he'd been hurt, that the reason he couldn't get up was because he'd been gashed from his right shoulder to the left side of his chest. The pain seemed to magnify once he saw his blood pulsing and spilling out all over the forest floor, and things were grey fuzzed and fading in and out after that.
Bobby's house was the closest place and Dad almost got his ass shot off trying to get in there, but once Bobby saw Dean bleeding all over John's truck he put old grudges aside long enough to stitch him up. Once Dean had been pulled away from near-death, Dad was pointed to the door. Dean still doesn't know why the two men fell out, but it must have been pretty bad on John's part for Bobby to still be holding a grudge.
Dean doesn't remember much of the past few days and it's all kinds of trippy when Bobby comes down one morning and wishes him a merry Christmas.
"Christmas?" Dean repeats, mouth full of cotton, syllables tripping over one another.
Bobby nods as he cleans and re-wraps Dean's chest and shoulder. "December 25th," he confirms. "Good tidings and all that."
"But Dad..."
"I'll let him in, if you want," Bobby says. "I might have to lock my guns up first to keep from shooting the bastard."
Dean laughs, instantly regretting it when his the skin on his chest burns.
"Easy," Bobby cautions. "I thought maybe I could set us up in here tonight. I don't have a turkey, but I've got potatoes and steak."
"Christmas dinner?"
"Yeah, that thing you usually eat on Christmas day."
Dean smiles. "Don't remember the last time I had Christmas dinner."
Bobby stares at him for a moment, then mumbles almost inaudibly under his breath, "John Winchester, you ass."
Dean feels the need to say, "Dad tries, Bobby. He always tried."
It's quiet for a moment, Bobby still studying him expressionlessly. Finally, he strokes one heavy hand through Dean's hair and gets to his feet. He says, "Not hard enough."
Dean must fall asleep after that because next time he opens his eyes he feels five times crappier than before and it's suddenly five in the evening. He can hear pots boiling in the kitchen, Bobby humming something unfamiliar under his breath. Dean finds his jacket on the coffee table beside him and he fumbles around the pockets until he finds his phone. Scrolling down his contact list, he pauses at Dad, thumb hovering over the call button. Instead, he scrolls further until he lands on Sam.
Sam picks up after two rings.
"Hello?"
Dean can't opens his mouth, then closes it again.
"Hello?"
And again, he doesn't answer.
"Is that you, Dean?"
He isn't sure why he can't say anything, his mouth just won't cooperate.
"Dean, are you alright? Please tell me you're okay."
The worried strain in Sam's voice gets Dean to speak. "I'm fine, Sammy. Don't worry."
There's a long sigh of relief on the other end. "Thank God. Dean, it's so good to hear your voice. I wish... I wish we didn't end things like we did last time."
"Let's not talk about that, huh? Merry Christmas, right? How're you celebrating?"
There's a long pause, then, "Not much. Just studying."
Dean pictures Sam all alone in a dorm room, eating packet noodles from a mug. It's not all that different from their other Christmases, only that Dean isn't there.
I miss you, Dean wants to stay. Instead he says, "Same here. Just resting up after a hunt. I'm with Bobby."
"Really? He and Dad made up?"
Dean snorts. "No, Dad is... somewhere. Definitely not on Bobby's premises."
"And you're okay? You and Dad?"
"We're both fine."
"Good. That's good."
The longer he stays on the phone, the more it hurts, the more he feels the urge to hightail it down to Cali. He tells Sam he has to go, and Sam says he has things he needs to do, then Dean is listening to nothing but the dial tone. He flips his phone shut, tossing it onto the coffee table, and he realises he didn't ask Sam if he was okay.
3.
It's not stalking. It's concerned. Dean is slumped low in the Impala, parked just out of sight as he watches Sam across the street. Sam hasn't noticed him.
It's summer and Palo Alto is hot as the Devil's ass crack. Sam is lounging in the shade of a large tree on campus, a huge book spread across his knee as he scribbles down notes. His hair is a little shorter, his skin is a little darker, he's wearing goddamn flipflops.
Dean could go over right now and say hi. He's only a few meters away from Sam. He almost does, hand on the door, but then a group of kids pass him by and head straight over to Sam, who greets them brightly. They settle themselves into a circle of five and Sam is smiling brightly and chatting away, laughing with the others. He seems to glow right along with the rest of this place now. Sam finally fits in.
But Dean... Dean doesn't belong here.
Sam chose to leave. Dean doesn't have that choice. He's nothing but the back roads he trails along, the bogs he wades through, the monsters he kills. Sam doesn't want any part of that life anymore, and that life includes Dean. He starts the car and drives, sees Sam stare at him in the rear view and get to his feet, but Dean is already gone.
4.
His phone rings at 4.36am. Only a select few people know his number, and those people know only to use it in the case of an emergency. Dean rubs sleep from his eyes and blinks away fuzz until he sees Sam's name shining up at him. It's April, a year and a half since Sam left, a couple of weeks until Sam turns twenty.
Dean answers the phone. "Sammy?"
"No. No, this is a friend of his," a girl answers. "I, uh, I'm at Stanford University hospital."
Dean sits up. "Where's Sam?"
The girl sobs. "He - he just collapsed. I don't know what's wrong with him and the doctors won't say. They just told me I should call his family."
Dean is already pulling on his jeans, phone pressed between his chin and shoulder.
"I didn't know who to call," the girl says shakily. "I remembered Sam mentioning he had a brother called Dean, then I saw your name in his contacts and... I'm sorry. I just didn't know who to call."
"Where is Sam now?"
"I don't know... they - they took him for tests or something. Sam wasn't really conscious, they couldn't wake him up, and then - then he was throwing up everywhere."
Dean stuffs his duffel in the back seat of the Impala. He's on the highway five minutes later, the girl still giving him a commentary of what is, or isn't, happening.
"Listen..."
"Jess."
"Jess, I need to hang up now. I'll be there in a few hours. Okay?"
"Okay. I - I'll see you soon."
He hangs up without a goodbye and focuses on driving, cutting his journey down by two hours. By the time he gets to the hospital, he's starving and exhausted and running on pure adrenaline as he's pointed to the ER waiting room. There are a few people sitting in the hard plastic chairs, all worrying their nails down to the bone. A pretty girl with bright blond curls and salt-stained cheeks makes her hesitant way over to Dean.
"You Jess?" he asks. She nods, looking about ready to cry again.
"They still won't say what's happening," she says. Her face crumples. "He was - he was having a seizure in the car on the way over. I thought he was going to die."
Fear is burrowing itself deep in Dean's chest and he's losing patience quickly. "Is he okay? Is he - "
"He's... they're trying their best. They said his family should be here."
"That means Sam might die," another kid pipes up from behind. He's red eyed and miserable like the rest of them.
"Was I talking to you?" Dean asks, voice sharper than the knife he keeps strapped to his boot. The kid quickly looks away.
Jess chooses to ignore the other kid, turning back to Dean. "They won't tell us much because we aren't family. They'll talk to you. Please."
Dean nods and makes his way over to the nurses' desk, eager to get away from weeping college kids. Once Dean explains who he is, he's just told to wait.
It's several long hours before the doctor turns up. She talks to Dean in private.
"Your brother has a case of bacterial Meningitis. This is more dangerous than viral, but I think we caught it in time. We're administering antibiotics right now and we'll monitor him closely. He's not conscious right now, but he's stable. The others in the waiting room, are they Sam's friends?"
"Uh, yeah."
"We might have to test anyone who's been in close proximity with Sam for a long period of time, just to make sure the infection hasn't spread."
"Right. Well, uh, I haven't seen Sam in a long time..."
The doctor nods. "I'll talk to the others."
Dean parks himself in a seat on the other side of the waiting room, flipping through his phone until he reaches his dad's name. After a moment's thought, he stuffs his cell back into his pocket. He hasn't been able to reach Dad for the past week anyway. He tries not to dwell on that too much.
He's there well into the night, Sam's friends come and go, and eventually they don't come back. The girl is the only one who stays and she sits on the opposite side of the room ignoring Dean as much as he ignores her. Eventually, his curiosity gets the best of him.
"You Sammy's girl?"
She glances up, surprised he's speaking to her. "Uh, I'm not anyone's girl," she says. "But if you're asking if me and Sam are dating, the answer is no. We're just friends."
"All his other friends left," Dean points out.
"They needed sleep, or they have classes. I don't know."
"What about you? Don't you have classes?"
Jess shrugs. "There're more important things right now."
He suppresses a smile. It's only a matter of time for Jess and Sammy, even if the two of them don't know it yet.
He must doze off at some point because he startles awake when the same doctor from earlier nudges his shoulder. The sun is rising outside and Dean rubs sleeps from his eyes.
"Is Sammy okay?" he asks.
"The antibiotics are doing their job and the outlook is positive. He's going to be fine, but there's a long recovery ahead," she says. Behind them, Jess lets out a shaky sigh of relief. "You could go in to see him for a moment," the doctor offers.
Jess isn't allowed into the ICU since she isn't family, but she makes Dean promise to report back. She sits back down in the same seat she's been in all night long, staring blankly at the wall opposite, eyes still red and wet.
Once he's washed his hands a million times and strapped on a mask, he's directed to Sam's room. The kid looks just about melded to the bed, boneless and pale, wires coming out of God-knows-where, in his arm, up his nose, under the sheets. Dean tries to tread carefully, but Sam wakes up anyway, eyes purple-rimmed and foggy.
"Jess?" he asks.
Dean is out the door in the next second. He bails without a word, not to the doctor, not to Jess, and not to Sam. The drive back takes him twice as long.
5.
It's warm late in October. The windows are unsalted and easy to unlock. He isn't greeted with a face full of holy water, rather a baseball bat swinging at his head. Sam is slow, easy to disarm and pin to the floor, but he looks healthy, more than that ghostly imitation of himself that Dean saw last.
Dean grins, feels Sam's heart thumping under his hand.
"Woah. Easy, tiger."
A/N: I got stuck on Next of Kin so I took a little break to write something else. I've written from Dean's POV a few times before, but I don't think I've ever written something so Dean-centric, although there was plenty hurt!Sam. This one was pretty tough to get into Dean's head and how he felt about Sam going to college, I admit I'm totally in disagreement with both Dean and John about the whole thing. Anyway, thanks for reading!