Title: In the Lap of the Gods

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: Massachusetts is a lot more inviting without bands of angry little Fae to ruin your day. Post 6x14 "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning" a little hurt, a little comfort and a lot of awesome from our boys and Bobby.

Author's Note: You see what I did there? :P

Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.

**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Hey, ugly." Dean said softly and smiled. "Don't mind me. Just wanna see if midget wedgies got their claws into you." He didn't see any marks out of place on the man's arms or chest and the guy was glaring death at Dean, practically foaming at the mouth. "Easy, killer." Dean moved away down to his feet and quickly tugged up one pant leg. Finding nothing, he pulled it down and yanked the other one up and blew out a breath. "Damn. Sam's right." There were several small punctures on the man's calf, and faint, green lines radiating out from each. He tugged the leg of the man's pants back down to his ankle and stepped away. "Sorry, pal." Dean slipped between the curtains again while the brawler roared in his restraints and went back to his brother.

Sam was starting to rouse when Dean reached the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. "Doc?" Dean asked while the man put held an x-ray up to the light. "He crack any eggs?"

The doctor smiled. "No. Nothing broken. The x-ray's clear." He set it aside and pulled out a prescription pad. "He'll just be sore for a while. Here. Muscle relaxer and a painkiller. These should have him right in a few days provided he takes it easy."

"Thanks, doc." Dean took the slip of paper, tucked it into his pocket and then froze as the brawler roared again only this time it was followed by a chorus of screams. "Son of a bitch. He's loose."

Chapter 3

The sound of things crashing and a nurse's screams echoed through the emergency room, and Dean grabbed Sam's arm, sitting him up. "Time to go, Sammy." The doctor took off toward the commotion and Dean steadied his swaying brother. "Dude. Come on."

Sam shook his head, trying to come out of the drug-induced fog. "M'here. Le's go."

Dean pulled him off the bed, grabbed Sam's jacket from the end, and half dragged, half carried him out of the curtained cubicle and into the aisle. He turned at the sound of another of the brawler's roars and groaned. "Not good." The large man was in the aisle with three men in nurse's scrubs hanging off him, trying to control him. Dean backed them toward the hall with the elevator.

"S'gonna hurt someone." Sam said, voice heavy with concern even as he struggled to stay on his feet. "Gotta do somethin'."

"You're not doing anything. Move." Dean kept them backing away, unwilling to let his now high little brother get steamrolled a second time.

"What the hell's goin' on?"

Dean turned, grateful to see Bobby. "Here! Take him!" Dean passed Sam off to Bobby. "Get him outta here."

"Dean, what…" Bobby started but the elder Winchester was already jogging away toward the brawl in the center of the aisle. He grunted as Sam's weight settled on his shoulder and then Sam was trying to pull away.

"M'ok. Go…go help him." Sam tried to pull free of Bobby, knowing the older man wouldn't be comfortable with him so close.

Bobby spent only a second considering leaving Sam to help Dean and shook his head. Dean would knock him out if he left Sam again. "Come on." He steadied Sam and pulled him into the hall. "Stop fightin' me dammit. Dean'll be fine." He got a better grip around Sam's bare chest. "We're goin' to the truck."

Sam gave up trying to get away and took more of his weight off Bobby's shoulders. The morphine they'd given him was slowly starting to let up and with it, the pain began to make a reappearance. Sam lurched to a stop suddenly. "Crap! Bobby!" He grabbed hold of the older man's vest, not seeing the flinch in Bobby's eyes and stared in horror. "Dean's baby got left behind at the police station! S'gonna kill me!"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Dean ducked under a monitor hurled by the raging man and circled him. Hospital security had finally showed up in the form of two overweight guards, one of whom was on the ground and not moving already. Dean considered grappling with the man as Sam had done and shook his head; the guy was too hyped up on whatever the pukwudgies had done to him. He shook out his arms instead, curled his hand into a fist and waited for his opening. Dean ignored the other guard when he shouted for Dean to get away.

"Come on, big guy." Dean muttered. He caught one of the male nurses as he was spun away and steadied the guy before dismissing him and locking eyes with the brawler. He waited just a moment for the man's eyes to look away and then lunged in. Dean put all his strength behind his arm and landed a solid, painful punch to the brawler's face, just between his eyes. It snapped the man's head back and Dean threw another, spinning the poor guy's head around and then watched as he slowly toppled like a tree into a nearby gurney.

"Holy crap!" Dean exclaimed and shook out his hand, backing away as medical staff converged on the now unconscious man.

"Did you have to assault him?" A doctor asked with a glare for Dean.

"You have a better idea?" Dean demanded. "You're welcome." He turned and stalked out, rubbing his sore knuckles and headed down the hall and outside; figuring that's where Bobby would have taken his brother.

"Dean!" Bobby called when he saw him emerge from the building and waved him over. "What happened?"

"I knocked him out." Dean grinned and shrugged. "Doctors are kinda pissed at me."

Bobby shook his head, chuckled and grabbed Dean's right hand before he could walk past to the passenger side of the truck. "Lemme see." He held up Dean's hand, looking at the bruised and swollen knuckles and snorted. "Way to make friends, slugger."

Dean laughed and pulled his hand free. "How's Sam?"

"Loopy." Bobby rolled his eyes and climbed behind the wheel, having to push Sam back up straight from where he'd started to slump into the driver's seat.

Dean got in and pulled Sam up. "Where'd you leave my car?"

"Uh oh." Sam said and snorted a laugh.

"Cop shop." Bobby told the highly amused look on Dean's face. "I'll swing by."

Dean slapped his brother's hand away from his face. "Knock it off."

"Your face is funny." Sam grinned and let Dean push him back into the seat.

"My face is gonna kick your ass in a minute." Dean growled and rolled his eyes when Sam started laughing. "Shuddup, fun boy."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"You ever get to talk to Andy or his doctor?" Dean asked Bobby as he came out of the bedroom. Sam was still sprawled on his bed sleeping off the morphine.

"Yeah, his doctor." Bobby held up a beer and handed it over when Dean nodded. "The kid's in a coma they can't explain. Fell into it right after they got him to the hospital. We're not gonna get anything out of him."

"Awesome." Dean looked out the window at the deepening night. The dark had come in early and brought a chill to the air.

"How's Sam?" Bobby asked and refused to look away in the face of the anger still lurking in Dean's eyes.

"He's fine. Just bruised." Dean blew out a breath and leaned against the wall, looking at him. "Bobby, I get it. I do. But you can't keep holdin' on to this." He raised a hand when Bobby scowled and opened his mouth. "You tell me right now; can I still trust you with Sam or not?"

"Dammit, son! How can you even…"

"You left him!" Dean cut over him angrily. "You didn't even find out if he was ok. You could'a called me and told me but you walked away." Dean fixed him with an angry glare. "How many names do you think are on the list of people I trust him with?"

Bobby looked away finally and groaned. "Two."

Dean nodded. "There were two. Right now, the only name on that list is mine, Bobby, and that pisses me the hell off."

"He wasn't hurt, Dean. He was sittin' up…" Bobby started, attempting to find some defense for himself, but Dean cut him off again.

"He's beat to hell!" Dean snarled and took a deep breath because screaming at Bobby wouldn't solve anything.

"I have a few bruises and I'm just fine, thanks." Sam said, interrupting as he came out of the bedroom. The atmosphere was charged, and he could see the temper radiating from both men. "Bobby didn't do anything wrong, Dean. Stop blaming him." Sam managed a smile for Bobby's surprised face and Dean's angry face and then pointed at the Biggerson's bag on the table. "Did you guys eat my lunch too?"

Dean stared Bobby down for one more moment and then sighed. "No. Your sandwich is in the fridge." He watched Sam walk stiffly over and bend slowly to open the appliance. "See those two bottles right there next to it? Take 'em and don't argue 'cause you're not hunting tomorrow if you can't move better than this."

Sam straightened with the sandwich, considered arguing, and decided he didn't want to add to the strain in the room. "Fine." He grabbed the bottles and pulled a bottle of beer out of the pack on the table as he passed to the couch.

Bobby squirmed for just a moment with Sam defending him, feeling not very deserving just then, but as he opened his mouth to thank him…the vivid image of Sam's cold, unfeeling face with the knife raised above his head flooded back into his mind and Bobby shook himself. Sam was a big guy. He could take care of himself, and obviously Dean needed to stop pretending like his little brother was some damn china doll that needed protecting. The thoughts felt wrong even as they went through his mind, but he wasn't ready to listen just yet. He set his empty beer aside and stood. "I'm turnin' in for the night. We'll get an early start tomorrow."

Dean watched him leave and the stiff set of the man's shoulders and knew Bobby hadn't gotten his head out of his ass where Sam was concerned just yet. "Dammit." He looked back at his brother as Sam switched on the television. "You shouldn't be drinking with those pills, I bet."

Sam rolled his eyes and laughed. "And that's stopped you when, exactly?" He swallowed the pain killers and the muscle relaxer with a healthy swallow of beer and started on his sandwich. "I'll be out cold in a half an hour. I don't think one beer's gonna kill me, Dean."

Dean scowled at him but had to grudgingly agree. He grabbed another beer for himself and sat at the table to look over the map again. "Hope you're up for a hike tomorrow, dude."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Dean hitched his pack higher on his shoulders and looked over at his brother five or so feet away, relieved to see him moving relatively pain free. Dean smirked; he'd slipped a muscle relaxer and one of the painkillers into Sam's coffee before they'd left, knowing he'd refuse to take them otherwise. He looked across his other side at Bobby and got a shake of the other man's head; he hadn't spotted anything yet.

"Maybe we're not making enough noise," Sam observed softly and looked at Dean with a shrug. "Wanna play bait?"

Dean grinned. "I'm a better shot. You be bait."

"No way. I shoot straighter than you on a bad day, and you don't have bruised ribs." Sam smirked when Dean sputtered.

"Dude…"

"Boy's got a point." Bobby cut in and smiled at the look of surprise on Dean's face. "What? You're way more annoyin' than he is. Little buggers'll be hot to gank you after about five minutes."

"Nice. Real nice," Dean grumbled but moved ahead of them and starting stomping through the underbrush. "Hey, Bobby! You know, I still got some itching powder. You better start checkin' your shorts!"

Sam chuckled softly and slowed to give Dean more space but keep him in sight. It wasn't easy in the dense forest, and he did lose sight of Bobby on Dean's other side. That made him a little nervous, but he kept his position and his eyes on his brother who was now belting out the refrain of 'Back in Black' incredibly out of tune. Sam rolled his eyes and snorted a laugh. "Such an idiot." He muttered.

Bobby listened to Dean's singing, if you could call it that, and decided plugging his ears probably wasn't a good idea. He shook his head. It wouldn't take the pukwudgies long to find them at this rate with Dean caterwaulin' like a damn banshee. He scanned the trees and brush around him and sighed, still not seeing or hearing any sign of the pukwudgies.

Sam looked up as Dean broke off singing and started, apparently, holding a conversation with himself. He chuckled. Dean was really going all out to draw the creatures' attention. Sam looked down, stepping over a jumble of roots, looked back up and stared. "Dean?" His brother was gone. "Bobby! You see him?" Sam waited for a response and fear fell cold into his stomach when none came. "Oh, crap. Dean!" Sam ran ahead. "Dean, answer me!" He couldn't understand how, in the space of a second, he'd lost him or how Dean would move away without warning him…unless he couldn't. "Bobby! Dean!"

Sam put on an extra burst of speed when he heard Dean's voice raised in a muffled cry. "I'm coming! Where are you?" He broke through the line of trees and skidded to a stop in shock as the ground dropped away twenty feet ahead of him. He'd found the cliff. "Dean?" Dread began to rise up to choke him, fearing what he would hear, and it nearly took his legs out from under him when he heard Dean's voice echoing up from beyond the edge. "Oh, my God." Sam breathed and ran. He slid to his knees and then his stomach at the edge and looked out and down, finding Dean's now fear-filled green eyes looking up at him from below.

Dean swallowed past the lump of terror in his throat and looked up at his brother. "Hey," he gasped and tried for a smile, but the sensation of being pushed off the cliff was still fresh in his head. His stomach still churning with those few moments of falling before he'd managed to grab a desperate hold of an outcropping. The dizzying look a hundred feet down had reminded him of his own mortality in a way he hadn't felt that strongly in a long time. The stinky oil Sam had brushed on his eyelids had kept the pukwudgies from using their magic to trick him, but it was no defense against a shove when he was stupid enough to go to the edge and take a look over.

"Dean, hold on!" Sam lay out and stretched his arm down to his brother, but he was still more than five feet away.

Dean looked up at Sam's hand too far above him and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cool stone.

"Climb, Dean!" Sam yelled fearfully. "Just a few feet! That's all!" He watched Dean with his head against the sheer cliff, hanging by his fingers, the wind whipping past his face in a gale, and refused to give in to the hopelessness in his heart. "Dean, dammit! Climb!"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

To Be Continued…