He was comfortable, warm, and loved. Naturally, when he heard the door to his bedroom creak open, nine-year-old Sam Winchester didn't even bother opening his eyes. It was probably just his parents coming to check up on him.
Parents, now that was an interesting term. Sammy couldn't remember ever having two parents before he'd been adopted. Mostly, it had just been him and his brother in a motel room for weeks at a time. It was a good feeling, finally having someone to come home to, being able to go to school and have friends.
Every once in a while he'd wonder about Dean, about what had happened after Dan and Elizabeth, who were now 'mom' and 'dad,' had taken him to their home in Michigan. He never wondered long, though. He may have been adopted first, but he was certain that Dean had found a family of his own.
That's why it was so shocking when his brother's wavering voice called out through the darkness. Sam shot straight up in bed, looking at what could only have been a ghost.
Dean was standing in front of the open door, his hair long and shaggy, skin pale, dark circles standing out beneath his haunted eyes. He was dressed in white pajamas, and had some sort of green bracelet clinging weakly to his skinny wrist.
"Dean?" Sammy asked, squinting through the darkness of early morning.
The older boy nodded, a smile creeping slowly onto his chapped lips. "Yeah, Sammy," he whispered, his voice cracking, "it's me."
"What are you doing here?"
Dean threw a quick glance over his shoulder and closed the bedroom door. "I'm sorry, kiddo, I really am, but we have to leave. Now."
"All right. I'll tell mom and dad."
The teenager flinched. "Uh, they're not coming, Sam, and they can't know that we're leaving."
Sammy narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"
"I don't want anything bad to happen to them. Come on." Dean walked over to the bed, shuffling over the hardwood floor in his bare feet, and held out his hand. Tentatively, Sam took it.
"Where are we going?"
Dean shrugged, shoving open the window and looking out at the spacious backyard. Fortunately, there was a large tree within jumping distance. "Dunno. Probably Blue Earth. Jim might be willing to take us in." He nodded out toward the tree, "you go first."
Sam hung back. "We're running away?"
"No, no," Dean grinned, pushing his little brother toward the open window, "we're just gonna try something new, kind of an experiment. If it doesn't work, we'll come back."
Hesitantly, Sam wriggled out through the window until he was sitting on the outer sill. From there, he braced himself and jumped into the tree, grasping the branches and holding on for dear life. Dean followed.
"What now?' Sammy asked, watching the wheels in his brother's head turn as the older boy assessed the situation.
"We climb down. Go slow and be careful."
Sam nodded, getting a good grip on the trunk before shimmying down the side of the tree. He looked up at his brother, who was following closely, and then back at his house, where his parents were probably still asleep. He'd been safe there. He'd been loved.
Suddenly, the young boy lost his hold and went sliding down the trunk of the tree. He hit the ground hard, crying out in pain as he felt his ankle twist at a sickening angle, threatening to break.
Dean was beside him in an instant, clapping a clammy hand over the nine-year-old's mouth. Sammy struggled, his ankle throbbing, as his brother pulled him away from his happy home and into the bushes, looking constantly at the house from which they'd come, something like panic and fear swimming in his dark eyes.
"I'm gonna let go of your mouth, now, Sammy, but you can't scream like that again, got it?" Dean asked, still dragging him farther and farther from the home he'd come to know and love. Sam nodded. "Good," Dean smiled, releasing his tight grip on his little brother's face, "now, can you walk?"
"I don't think so."
"No problem. I can carry you."
Sam looked his brother up and down. Though Dean seemed to have gone through a slight growth spurt since their last encounter, he also seemed to have lost quite a bit of weight, and, along with that, some valuable muscle mass. However, he was able to support his brother's weight as he piggy-backed Sam out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk.
It was slow going, and several times the brothers had to duck into a ditch or someone's backyard to avoid being spotted by a passing car. Finally, after what seemed like a day and a half to Sam, they settled down, ducking for cover behind some bushes in the local park.
"Dean," Sammy moaned, reaching out and gingerly rubbing at his sore ankle, "I want to go home. It hurts really bad, and my family can take me to a doctor. You, too, if you want. You look sick."
Dean just shook his head, paling slightly at the mention of a doctor. "No way. I can fix up your ankle, and I'm not sick. We'll be fine."
"Do you know how far Blue Earth is from here?"
"We can make it, Sammy, I'm sure of it. We can do anything together."
Sam sighed, finally starting to understand. "If you wanted to see me, why didn't you just ask your folks? I'm sure they would have brought you."
Dean hung his head, running a trembling hand through his shaggy mess of hair and sighing. "I don't have any folks, Sam. No one wanted me. Now, come on, we can't stay here long. They'll be looking for us."
"Us?" Sam asked, "why us? Wouldn't they just be looking for me? No one knows you're here."
"Actually, your… the people that took you in know. I asked them if I could stay here. With you."
Sammy grinned. "What'd they say?"
"They said no."
The smile on the young boy's face quickly faded. "You kidnapped me?"
His brother's head snapped up, eyes shining with uncried tears, face contorting in a mix of hopelessness and fear. "I'm just doing what it takes to keep my family together. I don't want to be alone anymore, Sammy." He dropped his voice to a whisper as a single tear slipped past his defenses, falling onto the cool grass and mixing with the early morning dew. "They locked me up. Solitary. Said I wasn't… said I was crazy. Unstable. Please, just come with me. Jim'll take good care of us."
"No," Sam said, trying to stand and wobbling on his good ankle, "no, I want to stay here. If they think you need help-"
"They said dad was crazy. They said time travel isn't possible, and demons don't exist, and people don't burn on ceilings. Sammy, they're the crazy ones."
"Dean-"
"Please, just come with me. We can be a family again, kiddo, a real family."
"Dean, I have a family. They love me, and they'd do anything for me." He started to hobble away from the bush. This wasn't the way he wanted to remember his big brother, all scared and alone, begging for something he knew full well he'd never get. Sammy just wanted his old brother back, the one that read him stories and tucked him in and chased the monsters away.
"I'd do anything for you. Sam, look." Dean caught up to him, holding out a faded old photograph of a happy family. John, Mary, Dean, and baby Sammy. The Winchesters. "I'm your family."
Sam sighed, turning to face his brother and pushing the photo away. "No, Dean," he muttered sadly, "I want my real family. I want the Richardsons." Turning on his good heel, Sam hobbled away, out of the park and out of his brother's life.
Sam jerked suddenly awake, his brother's young, scared face seeming to hover before him for a second in the darkness of the room. Slowly, the hunter's senses adjusted to the dim light of early morning and the various creaks and groans of the old motel.
Blinking, he looked around the room, realizing that his right arm had gone numb during the night, probably from being shoved up behind his head. When he tried to move it, however, he couldn't. He was handcuffed to the bed's elaborate headboard.
Tugging on his arm, which was beginning to prickle uncomfortably as he changed position and blood flow returned, Sam scanned the darkened room, searching desperately for an explanation. What he found was Dean sitting placidly on the room's other bed and staring at him.
"Dean," Sam breathed, relaxing a little as the restraints began cutting into his wrist, "what happened? Why am I cuffed to the bed?"
Dean hung his head, his face turning a light shade of red with embarrassment. "You weren't supposed to wake up," he muttered, "it's only four. I was gonna take 'em off soon."
"But why am I cuffed?"
The older man stood up, pulling a small key out of his jacket pocket and releasing Sam from the restraints. "I'm sorry, Sammy, but I had to make sure. I had to make sure you'd be here when I woke up."
Sam rubbed his sore wrist and glanced up at his brother, realizing in the wake of the dream- no, memory- just how damaged the elder was. He'd been through Hell and barely gotten back out. "You shouldn't worry about that stuff, man," he sighed, "I'm in this for the long haul this time. We're gonna take down this demon, once and for all, and we're gonna do it together."
Dean didn't look too convinced by his brother's words of kindness, but smiled weakly and nodded just the same. "Can't be too careful, though," he whispered, shoving the handcuffs into the tattered suitcase he'd brought along.
"By the way," Sam began, "where'd you get the cuffs?"
There was a pause as the wheels in Dean's head began spinning in overtime, obviously trying to come up with a logical explanation. Finally, he spun around to face the younger man. "Props from a Halloween costume from a few years back," he replied cheerily, "guess I put them in the suitcase and forgot about them."
Sam nodded slowly, not really believing the elder's story. "Cool. Just, uh, read me my rights or something next time, all right? Waking up cuffed to a bed isn't exactly a great way to start a morning."
"Sure thing," Dean grinned, "now, since we're both up, what do you say we hit the road?"
Uh oh. Dean's unstable and cuffed Sammy to the bed? Looks like we're in for one heck of a story, huh, guys?