First published in Grimmoire 3 (2015), from Ashton Press
Never Even Saw Him
K Hanna Korossy
He was still as a statue, listening for anything unusual in the forest noises, studying the trail for the signs of something large having passed by, like his dad had taught him. His crossbow was ready in his grip, rifle slung on his back as back-up. He was a hunter, stalking his prey.
Trying to tune out Gigantor trudging behind him.
"Hey, Kenny. How you gonna spend your half of the reward money?"
Kenny sighed, tongue pressed against his teeth, and went into a crouch at a flutter of movement ahead. "What money?" he whispered back.
Trev crouched beside him, but that was about all he was doing to conceal himself. His whisper was louder than Kenny's regular voice. "You didn't hear? Farmers in the valley got together, offered two thousand dollars to whoever gets the bear." An elbow jabbed Kenny's ribs. "Two-K, dude!"
A wild turkey strutted into view, and Kenny breathed out and rose to his feet. "Great, now will you shut up? The bear's gonna hear us a mile away."
"Yeah. Sorry."
Kenny shook his head but he was smiling. Trev was an idiot, but he meant well.
There were two distant cracks of a gun, then an odd shriek that reverberated through the forest.
Kenny stopped breathing. It didn't sound like a human or an animal, and it sent a shiver up his back.
Trev gave a low whistle. "You ever heard anything like that before?"
Kenny shook his head, waiting, listening. But there was no more.
"Wasn't a bear," Trev continued, unusually quiet.
"Nope," Kenny agreed. Definitely not what they were hunting. He glanced over his shoulder. "You comin'?"
Trev shrugged a yes.
They crept on. Kenny had never hunted bear before, nothing bigger than deer, but there'd be no deer while something was tearing up the livestock in the area. Two people had already been attacked, too, both miraculously surviving but full of crazy talk about a bear with red eyes, smart as a man. Whatever it was had the valley spooked, and Kenny was aiming to bring it down, reward or not. His dad would've been proud to see him using the skills he'd taught him to help people, and Cal would've hunted it with him...before. Trev was along for the ride just because he was Kenny's best friend and game for anything, even if he couldn't have hit the side of a barn.
There, another flash of movement. Kenny ducked down, pulling Trev with him. The forest had gone quiet, too. He held his breath, listening.
The snap of a branch broke the silence. Something tall and brown was moving beyond the stand of trees, no flash of orange safety vest visible. Maybe this was it. Kenny's heart raced even as his hands stayed steady and he took careful aim. Even if it was just a deer, at least he'd have game for the winter.
He was a statue, watching. Another movement. Still brown, no orange. But something about it wasn't quite...
Trev suddenly bumped into him. Kenny caught his balance, tightening up, and the crossbow went off. Nuts, he hadn't even—
Another cry echoed through the forest, this one awfully human.
Trev started chanting cuss words under his breath.
"Shut up," Kenny said fiercely, even as he was thinking those same words. Had he really hit someone? Killed someone? Doug Winters had accidentally shot Georgie Dunne one spring, and even though Georgie just ended up with a limp, Doug never really got over it. "Come on." Kenny grabbed Trev's arm and towed him toward the source of the cry. They wouldn't know until they looked, no matter how much he didn't want to.
Trev was moaning quietly as he followed, feet dragging even as Kenny pulled him along. "We should go. Nobody saw us—they won't know. We should go, dude. He wasn't wearing a vest—it's his fault, not yours. Let's go, man."
Kenny set his jaw and kept going. Around the big stand of spruce that he'd glimpsed the movement through, to find...
Aw, no. No, no, no.
He barely registered the guy at first, just saw his black-and-gray fletched bolt sticking out from just under the guy's left collarbone. That was bad enough, but it had gone clean through him and hit the tree behind him, pinning him like a bug. His head was hanging but swaying side to side, right hand plucking at the arrow. Alive, just...skewered.
Kenny tasted bile in his mouth.
"I'm not... I can't... Sorry, bud, I..." And Trev was bolting, running full out back the way they'd come.
Kenny swore, making a fruitless grab after him. So much for his hunting partner. It wasn't like he wanted to be there, either, but he'd shot— Kenny flinched. His feet turned unconsciously the way Trev had gone, every bit of him wanting to escape, too.
The guy moaned behind him, garbled something.
Kenny chewed his lip, then shook his head and made his way to the guy, dropping his bow and rifle as he went.
"Hey. Hey, mister?" He ducked down, trying to see the guy's face. Man, his jacket, the shirt under it were already deep red. Not spurting blood, but not good. "Hey. You hear me?"
The guy was not in a vest, had on a brown leather jacket instead, and had dark blond hair and brown boots. Even his jeans were dark. It was like he was trying to get shot and, well, he'd succeeded. The sheriff would still chew Kenny out later, probably after he arrested him. But first the guy needed help, and Kenny didn't have a clue how to get him to it.
The stranger moaned again, good arm reaching for the bolt once more. His eyes were rolling, the heels of his boots digging in the dirt and his chest heaving, which had to hurt. If he grabbed that arrow...
"Hey, don't touch that, okay?" Kenny stopped the man's hand, pushed it back with effort. The dude was maybe in his thirties, had muscles and calluses. Not a weekend warrior then, but Kenny was sure he hadn't seen him before. So what in Sam Hill had he been doing in the woods in that get-up?
That was when Kenny spotted the shotgun on the ground. Sawed-off and well-used and well-tended. A hunter then—with illegal gear—after all? What the—?
"'am." The guy was whispering something. "Mm." A shiver went through him, making him grunt. "'am. Ca-c'll...'am."
Pam? Call his girl? Or maybe 'Nam? Guy wasn't old enough to be a vet, although he looked like one. Kenny looked desperately around, searching for anyone else in the area, some kind of plan. His walkie-talkie was set to Trev, the coward, but maybe he could reach someone else?
But he didn't have a free hand. Kenny hadn't even realized he'd bunched his fist in the guy's shirt until he felt the warm wet of blood. It made his stomach heave, but he couldn't make himself let go. Not when the guy's head tipped back and his eyes had the same look Ma's had in the hospital near the end, confused and hurting and asking Kenny if he could stop—
"Hey!"
Kenny gasped, half shock and half relief at the voice. Not so much relief when he turned and saw the new arrival.
"Get. Away. From. Him." A shotgun, trained dead on him. Another stranger behind it. Big, cold eyes.
"He, uh... I-I didn't... I mean..." No one had ever pointed a gun at him before.
The new guy aimed at his face. "I'm not gonna say it again."
Kenny gulped and let go of arrow-guy, stepping back.
The guy sagged against the tree without the support, his weight back on the bolt that was speared through him. The sound he made was like nothing Kenny had ever heard before, and it made him whimper in turn.
The other guy rushed them then, and just as Kenny braced himself, the big guy dropped his gun and grabbed arrow-guy with both hands to support his weight.
"Dean. Dean. Hey."
The pinned guy—Dean's—hand was moving blind, bumping against the big guy's arms, slipping off. "'am. Ngh. Hit."
"Yeah, I got it." Soft. "I'll fix it." Reassuring. "Hold on, man."
Then he turned to Kenny.
His eyes were like flint, nothing soft there. "You shot him." Not a question.
"N-no, I mean, yeah, but it was an accident! My buddy—" At the darkening look on big guy's face, Kenny stopped thinking about what he was saying. "We thought he was a bear—he wasn't wearing a vest! We were looking for a vest and—"
A groan silenced him, and thankfully turned the big guy's attention back to Dean. "Take it easy, take it easy," he chanted. Soft again, but Kenny was pretty sure now he could hear a little fear behind it. Now that he really looked at the guy, he saw he wasn't that old, maybe had a few years on Kenny.
"'am. Geddit..." Dean's one arm hung limp, but the other kept jerking, toward his buddy's arm, the bolt, the tree trunk. His head sagged like it was too heavy to hold. "Geddit out."
"I will, man, hang on."
"I'm sorry," Kenny said quietly.
Big guy's—'am? Sam, maybe?—eyes darted back to him, hard again, then maybe softening a little. "What's your name?"
"Kenny. Kenny Hempstock."
"Kenny, our car's about a quarter mile that way," his head jerked to the west, "off Quince Road. There are bolt-cutters in the trunk, under the liner. Get 'em and come back as fast as you can."
Kenny nodded dumbly. That he could do. That wasn't even that bad.
"Kenny," the guy repeated. "You don't come back..." His eyes were stone again. "I'll find you."
Kenny swallowed, nodded again. He had zero doubt about that. He started to turn away.
"Hey." Big guy focused back on Dean, said something to him too softly to hear. Kenny wasn't sure if Dean heard him, breathing in pained pants with his eyes shut, until he nodded, just a bobble of his head. Sam—Kenny was just going to think of him as Sam—dug into Dean's jeans pocket then, pulled out some keys, and tossed them to Kenny, who caught them. "Black Impala."
He nodded, then turned and ran.
It was a relief getting away from those two, even though he knew Dean's life depended on him getting those bolt-cutters and fast. The trees whipped by, and Kenny blanked his mind, focusing on his errand. Not on Ma in the hospital, or how Cal's eyes had been as wounded as the big guy's when they last talked or how Dad had always told him never to aim his weapon at something he wasn't ready to kill or Trev running off on him or the sounds Dean made or...
He sobbed once, rubbed his eyes clear angrily when the scenery blurred, and kept running.
He saw the car as soon as the trees thinned. She was no country car, clean under the thin layer of dust from the trip up, low and pretty. Didn't really fit the two...hunters? But whatever, didn't matter, long as she had what he was looking for. He opened her trunk with shaking hands, stared perplexed at the emptiness for a moment before recalling what the big guy had said about the liner. There, an almost invisible seam. He found a handhold and lifted.
And whistled. Okay, so maybe they were hunters; that arsenal even beat Old Pete's. But...there was weird stuff, too, little bottles, pouches with symbols, freakin' ninja stars. What were these dudes, some kind of Indian shaman hunters or something?
Muttering, Kenny pawed through the layers of shovels and rifles and, holy cow, was that a flamethrower? And then there, next to a wicked axe, a pair of bolt-cutters that had seen some use, like most everything in the trunk. Kenny grabbed them, hesitated a moment, then dropped the hidden lid down and slammed the trunk shut. Whatever these guys might be, Dean was definitely trapped and hurt, and Kenny was going to focus on that right now. He could freak out later about maybe having helped Satanist serial killers.
He made it back almost as fast as he'd gone, familiar enough with the woods to find the two men without much trouble. Sam was in a lighter coat, easier to spot, but he was tucked up against Dean, propping him up against the tree. Dean wasn't a small guy, but Sam was holding his weight like he could do it all day, darker head bent close to Dean's as he talked to him. They looked like one person until he got closer, and even then the big guy just lifted his head and watched Kenny, grip flexing in Dean's shirt like he was itching to go for his gun.
Kenny quickly thrust the bolt-cutters toward Sam before he could get any ideas.
"Thank God," the guy surprised him by muttering. Then he freed one hand to lift Dean's jaw, looking into his glazed eyes. "Hey. We're gonna get you free now, okay? Dean? It's gonna hurt, but it'll be okay, I've got it."
Kenny realized to his surprise that Dean was looking back at Sam even through the haze. He didn't quite nod this time; it looked like it was all he could do to keep his eyes on his buddy. But there was some kind of comprehension, even Kenny could see it, and he wasn't surprised—much—when Sam turned to him and asked, "Can you cut him loose?"
"Oh. Uh, yeah, okay, lemme see." Kenny chewed on the inside of his mouth as he ducked around behind Dean. Crap. The guy was pretty snug up against the tree trunk, which meant Kenny would have to wedge the tool behind him, then try to cut it in one fast move because it would hurt like hellfire and he really didn't want the big guy killing him for hurting his buddy. Kenny licked the sweat off his lip and swallowed. "I'm, uh...It's gonna be hard to get behind him. Can you lean him toward you any?"
He heard the guy murmur again, then Dean's head and shoulders curled forward. It made him groan, his ragged breaths making Kenny cringe, but he didn't draw it out. He shoved the bolt-cutters in, scraping bark as he went and ignoring Dean's pained jerk. Then he took a breath, and cut fast and hard.
The trapped man screamed, body arching, fists and legs blindly swinging. Kenny was pretty sure one would've clipped him, but Sam was grabbing him, pulling him in. The bolt snapped, and without the pin to hold him there, Dean fell forward, shaking.
Sam already had him, eased him down to the ground. He had Dean half-turned so the fletching still sticking out of him wasn't hitting anything, but a big hand around the back of his neck held him close while he shivered and convulsed and keened. Sam was talking quietly, words Kenny couldn't hear and wouldn't've felt right listening to anyway.
He stood, awkward, bolt-cutter dangling from his hands, as he tried not to watch the two of them.
He only realized what Sam had been doing when Dean's shoulder was half-wound with a handkerchief, pressure on the back where the ragged edge of the arrow disappeared into him. Teeth clicking shut, Kenny quickly pulled out his own handkerchief and offered it in silence.
The guy stared at him a second, then took it and wrapped that around the shoulder, too.
"I'm Sam," the big guy startled him by saying a few moments later. "This is Dean."
"Yeah, I... Hi," Kenny said meekly. So it was Sam. The only Sam he knew was Gideon's kid, up on the hill, and that Sammy was small and quiet and smart. Didn't fit the big guy at all. But "Sam" made more sense than a war Dean couldn't have been around yet.
Dean was still taut, breathing harshly, but Kenny was surprised to see he'd had enough presence of mind and coordination to grab the big guy—Sam's—arm and hold on with white knuckles. Every time his body jerked, Sam smoothed a hand down his shuddering flank, up his clenched back, trying to make it better. It looked...intimate, like when Kenny had come across Cal and Mindy that one time, and he wondered again if they were, you know, together. But then it dawned on him that what it really reminded him of was how he'd soothe Cal after his brother had a nightmare or banged himself up. Kenny looked away again, uncomfortable.
"You, uh..."
Kenny blinked. "Kenny," he provided.
Sam nodded distractedly. "Kenny. Can you help me get him out of here?"
The guy's voice was quiet now, requesting instead of ordering. Kenny nodded, then realized Sam wasn't looking at him and wouldn't see. "Yeah. Two-person carry?"
Sam worried his lip. "I don't want to pull on his shoulder. You know how to do a four-handed seat?"
"Yeah. Yes." He realized Sam had picked up his and Dean's weapons and stowed them...somewhere. Kenny gulped but didn't ask.
The big guy nodded. "You parked closer?"
Kenny didn't bother to tell him that bastard Trev was probably long gone in the truck; they'd parked at least a half-mile out anyway. "No, sorry," he said instead, meaning it.
Sam just nodded again. Then, weirdly, smiled a little. "He'd miss his baby anyway."
He didn't even know what that meant, but he wasn't sure Sam had even been talking to him.
When Dean was finally more or less quiet, slumped against Sam and breathing laboredly but regularly and only the occasional tremor, Sam motioned Kenny over with his head. He slowly rearranged the two of them so he was on Dean's left, his bad side, and Kenny on the right. Kenny was close enough to catch bits of what he was saying this time, "...gonna get you out of here..." and "...carry you like a..." girl? Could he have heard that right? "Pie" and "hot nurses" and "got you" were promised, and maybe this Dean wasn't so different from him because that all sounded good to him. He was pretty sure Trev would've stuck with him if he'd been shot, maybe even carried him out, but Kenny would've probably had to tell him what to do and the moron would've been panicked to get blood on himself. Sam's shirt already looked as soaked as Dean's.
Kenny crouched on Dean's other side, sliding an arm under his folded legs, grasping Sam's forearm. Jeez, this guy was all muscle, too. They did the same behind Dean's back, making sure they had a good grip on each other and were well below the arrow.
"On three, dude. One. Two. Three." He tipped his head at Kenny, and they lifted together.
Dean gave a faint groan, like he was too drained to do more, then his head lolled against Sam's shoulder.
"About time he passed out," Sam said tersely. "Stubborn jerk."
It made it only a little easier to carry him out of the woods.
Sam's arms flexed in Kenny's grip. He was doing the bigger share of the lifting, besides the fact Dean was leaned against him, and Kenny knew it. But he tried to do his part, leading them around trees and logs, trying to keep the injured man steady and not slowing even when he was breathing harder than Dean.
He was stumbling more than walking by the time the car finally came into sight again. Sam didn't call him on it, just led them across those last few dozen feet with the same determination he'd showed from the start.
Kenny forgot he still had the keys until he felt Sam let his arms go and slide his arms fully around Dean, taking his whole weight. "Open the back."
"Oh. Right." Kenny did, shaking feeling back into his jellied arms. Maybe Sam was big, but Dean had at least a couple of inches and a few dozen pounds on Kenny. He'd be feeling it the next day.
But not as much as Dean, he chastised himself as he watched Sam carefully ease into the car with the injured man, and heard Dean's breath catch even in unconsciousness.
"How far's the nearest hospital?" Sam asked as he settled into the corner, pulling Dean up against him, keeping his bad shoulder steady.
"Uh...about twenty minutes?" Kenny stammered.
Sam fixed him with a look that wasn't any less intimidating for not being dangerous. "Make it ten."
Kenny didn't argue. He got into the driver's seat and started the car.
He drove like a bat out of Hell, taking one shortcut before he realized the rutted back roads weren't doing Dean any favors and he stuck to asphalt. But he could make faster time there, and he knew where Duane Willis always set up his speed trap, so Kenny could push the pedal to the metal most of the trip. He would've enjoyed it, setting Black Beauty loose like that on the road, if not for the passengers in the back.
He looked sometimes, when the road was straight, eyes drawn like a magnet to the mirror. Dean was maybe borderline awake, hands clutching, body taut as a bowstring, looking clammy and flushed. Sam kept talking to him like he could understand, holding him up so he could breathe right and the bolt didn't touch anything, big hand gripping the side of Dean's neck. There wasn't anybody in his world now but Dean, and Kenny felt a pang he was surprised to realize was jealousy.
He turned back to the road, ducking his chin as he poured on a little more speed.
Their hospital wasn't much to look at, but it saw a lot of people with hunting and farming injuries and could deal with an arrow just fine. Sam didn't seem to be worried about it; the moment Kenny stopped by the emergency entrance, Sam was already shoving his door open. By the time Kenny made it around to help him, the big guy already had Dean up in his arms and was heading for the door.
Kenny stared after him a minute as he went inside. Then he shut Sam's door, crept back around to the driver's side, and went to park Black Beauty.
Carla was at the counter by the door, thank God. He wasn't sure he could deal with Mrs. Healy just then. Her eyes went wide when she saw him and she started to stand.
"Not my blood," he said fast, then quickly added, "not Trev's, either," when he saw her pale. Trev was an idiot, but he was her idiot. "The two guys that came in? I...uh, drove them." No need to tell everyone and their mother that he was also the one who shot him.
"Wow. Right. Uh, he took his brother back, didn't wait for a gurney or anything. I'm guessing he'll be out soon when they take his brother to surgery."
Brother? Kenny's jaw went a little slack. Brother. Intimate but not romantic. Scared. Protective. It made sense, and made his stomach twist. That was how brothers should be, not like him and Cal.
"You...wanna sit down, Kenny? You look kinda pale."
He shook himself and looked at Carla. "Uh, yeah. I'll just sit and...wait for Sam."
"You wanna clean up first?" she suggested, eyebrows high.
"Oh." Glancing down, he realized he had some of Dean's blood on him, too. His stomach lurched, but with guilt, not nausea. He'd done that. Trev might've startled him, but it was Kenny's bolt. He'd just thrown all his dad's training out the window and shot a guy, a brother, who might not make it because of him, or who could always have a bad arm or no arm or...
Carla was suddenly next to him. "Go clean up," she said gently, her hand on his wrist. He was surprised to notice he was shaking. "I'll let you know if there's any news, okay?"
He thought maybe he gave her a smile. Then he headed for the bathroom.
He washed his hands really well first. Then his face because it felt hot. His jacket was... Kenny yanked it off, balled it up, and stuck it in the trashcan. Didn't matter if he could get the blood out; he'd never be able to wear it again. Not after the guy he'd shot had bled on it.
He washed his face again, for a few minutes as he kept crying and messing it up.
He finally pulled himself together and, hesitantly, looked in the mirror. Didn't look like a saint looking back at him, but didn't look like a murderer, either. He rubbed at his puffy eyes. Cal had blubbered when Kenny had cut him off, so mad that he didn't think he could ever look at his brother again. But Cal hadn't done as bad as shoot a man. He'd just been stupid, selfish. And Kenny hadn't been able to forgive him.
He took a deep breath, looked away from the mirror, and left the room.
He almost ran into Sam in the hallway outside.
"Dude," he sputtered. The guy looked lost, and Kenny winced. "Hey. How's Dean?"
Sam stared at him, like he was trying to remember who Kenny was. Which maybe he was; wasn't like they'd had a lot of time to get to know each other, or Sam hadn't been preoccupied with something a lot more important. Sam cleared his throat. "Uh, he's in surgery. They'll get the arrow out, then...we'll see, I guess."
Kenny grimaced. "You should clean up, man."
Sam looked down at himself as Kenny had minutes before. "Oh. Yeah." Unlike Kenny's, his jacket really was a total loss, and it looked like the shirt underneath and probably the jeans were, too.
Kenny made a quick decision. "I'll get you something else to wear, okay? And some coffee."
Sam's eyes seemed to focus on him for the first time since the woods. "Uh, yeah, that sounds good. Thanks."
"No problem," Kenny said, and meant it.
He got extra-large scrubs from Carla and reached into the bathroom to set them on the side of the sink. Their "cafeteria" was just a lunch cart set up in the lobby, but it had hot coffee and, on further thought, Kenny picked up a pair of sandwiches, too. Food was the language of comfort in the valley, and what little he had to offer.
The scrubs were still a little short on Sam when he came out, but nobody cared. He settled into the plastic seat next to Kenny and, with another subdued thanks, worked his way through both sandwiches and the coffee.
Kenny chewed his lip, debating a while before he finally took a breath and spoke up. "Dean's your brother?"
Sam looked at him, surprised, then rueful. "Yeah. Sorry, didn't exactly have a lot of time for introductions." He held out his hand. "Sam...Young. That's my brother Dean." He pointed vaguely toward the doors at the end of the room.
Kenny shook it. Strong grip, but not trying to arm wrestle him. A guy who didn't have to prove himself.
There was another silence.
Kenny cleared his throat. "So, uh, you guys were...hunting?"
That got him a sharper look. But the suspicion quickly faded and Sam just looked tired. "Yeah. Heard about the, uh, bear attacks and wanted to help."
Kenny frowned at him. "With shotguns? And no vests? Dude, what do you guys usually hunt, bad guys?"
It was meant to be a joke, but Sam's face clouded, and Kenny suddenly remembered the contents of Black Beauty's trunk.
He cringed. "I mean, uh... I didn't mean..."
"Weird stuff," Sam said quietly. "We hunt the things others are scared to. Kind of a family job—Dad used to drag us around the country doing it when we were kids."
"Oh." He thought of that weird cry a few minutes before he saw Dean. It sort of explained things but really didn't, but Kenny wasn't about to ask. He redirected instead. "You and your brother, you do that together now?"
A shadow of a smile on Sam's face. It made him look younger, and Kenny realized the big guy was closer to his age than he'd thought. Except for those old eyes. "Yeah. It's just Dean and me now."
"You guys look...close." He'd only intended it to be an observation, but it came out embarrassingly wistful.
"Yeah, kinda have to be when you've gotta watch each other's backs all the time." Sam's wry look pinned him. "You got a brother you're not close to?"
Thinking about Cal usually made him mad, but this time there was just sadness. "That obvious, huh? Little brother. He, uh... He did something. With my girl. Wrecked things between us. We haven't talked since."
Sam nodded. "Because you can't forgive him."
"Because he stabbed me in the back!"
There was an odd look on Sam's face he couldn't figure out. But the big guy's tone was really soft and sure when he said, "If he died tomorrow, would you still think it was worth not talking to him again?"
Kenny opened his mouth, shut it.
The doc came out a few minutes later, just as Duane and another cop walked up to talk to Carla. She pointed to Kenny, and Sam got to his feet to talk to the doctor.
As much as he wanted to know how Dean was, Kenny knew he had to suck it up and face the music.
They wrote down everything he said, and Duane ducked into the bathroom to retrieve Kenny's bloody jacket. They would've taken his crossbow, too, but he remembered then that he'd left it in the woods. He half expected them to make him take them there and then run him into the station, but they left it at that, told him not to go anywhere and to tell Sam they'd be back to talk to him later. Dazed, he watched them go. Huh. Some part of him had been sure he'd be spending the night in a cell.
Carla's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Mr. Young's in a room now—you want to go see him?"
"Oh." He debated the intrusion, the idea of facing the guy he'd shot. Then screwed up his courage. "Yeah. What room's he in?"
It was still the recovery room, which made sense considering he'd had surgery. The place was small enough that they let family sit with patients, and everyone would see you doing it. Which meant the whole town would know by tomorrow that Kenny had shot some poor guy out in the woods. He'd take it if Dean was okay, though, and not dead or handicapped for life, or pressing charges. That would be awesome.
The cubicle curtain was only half-pulled, and Kenny crept close. No point pressing his luck. He hovered, trying to see past...Sam's wide back, turned toward the door.
He couldn't see what the big guy was doing, bent over his brother like that. Not until Sam got up a minute later and moved around the bed to the opposite side, sitting there. It was only after he set to work again that Kenny realized what he was seeing: Sam was carefully scraping out the dried blood from under his brother's fingernails with a pocketknife.
Intimate. Loving. What brothers were supposed to be like. Kenny's throat clogged.
"You can come in."
He didn't realize for a minute that Sam was talking to him; he'd been murmuring to his brother until then, just like out in the woods and in the car, words not meant for anyone but them. He'd raised his voice to address Kenny but it was still muted, his head bowed over his work.
Kenny shuffled inside, hands restlessly rubbing his jeans.
Sam still didn't look up at him. "I didn't want him to see the blood when he wakes up."
"He gonna be okay?"
The shaggy head nodded. "They say it was a lucky shot, didn't do as much damage as it could've. Some therapy and he should be good to go."
"That's great," Kenny said, meaning it. The relief was a release he didn't even know he'd been waiting for. "That's great."
Sam tilted his head up sideways, knife still moving confidently. "So, you're not gonna shoot at something again unless you know what it is, right?"
He wilted. "Aw, man, you kiddin' me? I'm not going hunting again, period!"
But Sam was actually smiling. "It's not that bad, dude. You just gotta make sure you know what you're hunting for." He set his brother's hand down and folded the blade away.
Kenny let himself look at the guy in the bed for the first time. Dean still looked pale, but his face wasn't screwed up in pain like before. His shoulder was buried in white, but his hand was still there and pink and healthy. He hesitated. "Was that, uh, you guys, before I...you know?" Off Sam's incomprehension, he rolled his hand impatiently. "The shots and the scream in the forest few minutes before Dean, uh..."
Sam's eyes were hooded. Whether from the mention of his brother getting shot or their "hunting," Kenny didn't know. "Maybe," he finally said.
"Wasn't a bear, was it?"
He got a faint smile for that.
"Right." Yeah, he probably didn't want to know more than that anyway. "You know there's an award for killing...it?"
Sam had finished with his brother's nails and was checking the bandages like he knew what he was doing. "I don't think we're gonna be bringing that carcass in to claim it," he said, distracted.
"Oh. Right." Kenny cleared his throat and looked away, hands jammed into his pockets.
"Thanks."
Surprise jerked his eyes back up to Sam, who was solemnly peering over one shoulder at him. "For what, shooting your brother?"
Sam shook his head once. "You could've taken off—I wouldn't've even known it was you. But you stayed, helped me get him out. Lot of people wouldn't've bothered."
Kenny's shoulders rounded. It kinda sucked that the dude was thanking him for something like that. "Sounds like you guys deserved it," he mumbled. "Besides, my mama raised me right."
"Like your brother?"
He wouldn't have let just anybody get away with saying that. But considering how much he owed these two, and the fact that Sam was sitting on the edge of his brother's hospital bed like there was no one could move him, humbled Kenny. And kept him honest. "Maybe," he parroted Sam. Okay, mostly honest.
Dean sighed, stirring in his sleep. Unlike his brother, he looked older now that he was at peace, like this wasn't the first time he'd gotten beat up by life. Sam spread a big hand across his brother's chest, and Dean settled back to sleep.
Kenny had had that kind of influence over Cal once. And, if he was being honest already, he missed it.
"I'm gonna go," Kenny said, just loud enough for Sam to hear without disturbing Dean.
Sam raised an eyebrow at him.
"Carla—at the front desk?—she knows how to reach me if you need anything. Anything, I mean it."
Sam nodded, still looking at him like he could see inside him.
It made Kenny squirm. "And I gotta make a phone call," he finally admitted.
The bastard grinned at him.
Kenny rolled his eyes, but he threw Sam a quick salute. "Tell Dean I'm sorry, man. And I'd like to buy him a beer sometime. Both of you."
"Good luck," Sam said.
Kenny shook his head as he walked out the door. Annoying little brothers.
But damned if he wasn't looking forward to hearing his own's voice again.
The End