Purposes Mistook
Summary: Sam and Dean finish a hunt only to find there was a witness to the showdown, a witness who makes a demand of his own…
Poor Sam… Somehow both of our boys just always seem to get the short end of the stick. But we finally get a new episode tonight! Woohoo!
Chapter Three
Sam lay on his back staring at the motel room ceiling. The little red light on the smoke detector was blinking and the bathroom sink was leaking. Plink, plink. Blink. Plink, plink. Blink. They were nearly perfectly timed and it was really starting to annoy him. The swirls in the plaster on the ceiling were bothering him too. They were in a swoosh pattern that was sort of like a series of rainbows. What did the ceiling have to be so freaking happy about? It was permanently stuck in a room that plinked and blinked and probably saw all kinds of things that Sam didn't even want to think about.
Which seemed to be the theme of his night. He just couldn't seem to get his brain to shut up.
Sam wasn't responsible for the man's death. He knew it. He really did. It didn't change the fact that the man had used Sam to kill himself. Instead of taking care of his own problems, the world-class jerk had used Sam to do the dirty work.
Sam was seriously tired of being used to do other people's dirty work. He was tired of being used, period. It was one of the biggest reasons why he'd left the hunting life in the first place and gone to Stanford. His dad had been using him to fight a war. Sam hadn't felt like a son. He'd been another body, another soldier in the fight against the evil that had killed his mother.
The problem was that the frontlines were no different than the home front had been. Ghosts, demons… they all just loved to use him to do their dirty little deeds. Dr. Ellicott at the asylum, Meg… each using him to hurt the people he cared about most. Yellow Eyes had planned since Sam was six months old to use him to lead the Army of Darkness. He'd used Sam to death. Literally.
And then there was Dean. Desperate, sloppy, needy Dean. Who used Sam to keep himself sane. Who used Sam to keep himself grounded. Who used Sam because he couldn't bear to be alone. Sam felt the weight of it. He felt the full burden of that need, that responsibility.
Unlike the others though, Dean's reliance on him was an acceptable burden. Sam wouldn't say it was easy. Nothing about their lives was easy. Sometimes he wanted to kick Dean into the next time zone. No, it wasn't easy, but it was acceptable. It was necessary. It was even comforting in a way. Dean was always there, weighing on his mind.
It worked both ways, too. Sam used Dean to keep him sane when times got tough. Dean's sense of humor, his light-heartedness, or at least his ability to brush things off that they couldn't do anything about, his ruthlessness in the face of evil, his kindness for its victims… Sam used them, clung to them when he didn't think he could carry on anymore. They relied on each other, used each other's strengths to keep going. Sam would do anything for Dean and Dean felt the exact same way. He had given everything for him. It wasn't really even fair to call what they shared being used. Sam couldn't really call something a burden when it was so willingly, so overwhelmingly, given and reciprocated.
But not the jerk from the office. He'd used Sam to kill him because he was too cowardly to do the deed himself. To top that off, he'd chosen to leave his wife alone, thinking money was what she really needed. His wife would have her house, but no husband to share it with. How was that all right?
Sam had tried not to be angry with Dean. He really had. But Dean's deal was going to leave him alone. Sam would have a life, a car, a job, but no brother to share it with.
Sam didn't suppose he really had a right to be angry. Sam's death had left Dean alone and he just hadn't been able to handle it. Sam wasn't really handling the prospect of his brother's death any better. Thanks to the Trickster he knew he hadn't handled it any better and probably wouldn't again.
Logical or not, it didn't stop him from being angry at Dean for making the deal in the first place. After all the mess their dad's deal had caused, Dean had made another one and was leaving Sam alone to make whatever pathetic excuse for a life he could without him.
"Hey, Sam?"
Sam turned his head toward Dean's bed though he couldn't really see him in the dark. "Yeah?"
"You managed to work this around to bein' pissed off at me yet?"
Sam could hear the smile in Dean's voice and it just reminded him in every painful way possible of why he was going to miss his brother. "Yup."
"Good. Thought it was taking a little longer than usual."
Sam closed his eyes. "I'm not really mad, Dean. I'm frustrated."
"Fine." Dean snorted. "You be frustrated. I'll stick with being pissed off."
"Anything in particular today?" Sam was going to miss this. He was going to miss being able to just sit and talk to the one person who knew him almost as well as he knew himself.
"Death and Hell are pretty much runnin' neck and neck right now," Dean said casually.
Sam sighed and opened his eyes. They immediately widened and he scrambled backwards, running into the headboard. Joshua Calvert was standing at the foot of the bed staring at him.
"Dean!"
"Holy crap!"
Sam heard Dean throw the covers back and fling himself out of his bed on the other side. Two seconds later a deafening shotgun blast filled the little room and the ghost disappeared in a cloud of rock salt.
Sam reached a hand, shaking from the sudden adrenalin rush, toward the lamp and turned it on to see Dean kneeling beside his duffel bag, his favorite sawed-off shotgun in his hands aiming toward the end of the bed where the ghost had been standing.
"Just once!" Dean said, angrily getting to his feet, "just once, could somebody freakin' stay dead!" He grabbed his keys off the table by the door, threw open the motel room door and stomped outside although he was only wearing a t-shirt and boxers. Sam heard the trunk open and then almost immediately close before Dean stomped back into the room.
He kicked the door closed with his heel, tore the top off the canister and poured a thick line of salt in front of the door and then across the window sill, muttering to himself the entire time.
"Get dressed!" he snapped, already pulling on his jeans.
"What?" Sam was still stunned, sitting close to the headboard.
"I just fired a friggin' shotgun in a full motel, Sam. I'm pretty sure somebody's gonna call the cops. We've only got a couple of minutes to get out of here before they show up to make sure we haven't murdered someone."
Realizing his brother was right, Sam flew into motion, dragging on a pair of jeans and a shirt before jamming everything else he owned back into his duffel bag. Dean was doing the same, finishing first since he had a slight head start. He stopped to stand by the door and wait on Sam. He looked through the peephole and Sam heard him start muttering again.
"Dean?"
"Hurry up," Dean ordered. He set down the bag he was carrying long enough to reload his shotgun.
Sam came to stand behind him and took one last look around the room to make sure they hadn't left anything. If they had they'd just have to replace it. Sam could hear the sound of sirens in the distance.
"Ready?" Dean asked.
"Yeah," Sam answered slightly winded.
"Good. Back up a bit, I need some elbow room."
Sam frowned in confusion, but did as his brother asked. Dean looked through the peephole once again and shook his head, as if in disbelief.
Dean backed up, threw the door open and brought his shotgun up. Sam had only a second to see that the office worker's ghost was standing right outside their door beyond the salt.
Dean growled. "Josh, you are really starting to piss me off." He fired and then stepped forward, the ghost dissipating just as Dean crossed the threshold. "Come on, Sam."
"Where are we going?"
"The morgue."
More soon…
